Wal-Mart Begins Massive Push For HD DVD 338
Several readers sent us word of Wal-Mart's ordering 2 million HD DVD players from China. Hans V wrote, "My kids work at Wal-Mart and the manager there has been talking about this. HD-DVD's are selling like mad there so I hear." Another reader sent us a few links in Chinese and summarized them this way: "The first batches of these blue-laser HD DVD players are to land sometime in 2007, with complete fulfillment of the order [from Fuh Yuan] in 2008. The deal could be worth up to $300 million US, which translates to $150 per player. If so, by the time Christmas 2007 rolls around, Wal-Mart could be selling these for less than $200 retail, although some speculate that the initial manufacturer suggested retail pricing might be in the ballpark of $299. Currently the cheapest high-definition player is a Toshiba HD DVD with an MSRP of $399." By comparison Blu-Ray players, manufactured in Japan, are not expected to drop below $1000 until next year. The International Herald Tribune writes about the risk Toshiba is taking by bringing in Chinese manufacturers to trump Sony in the format war.
HD DVD Wins (Score:2, Informative)
"Writes"? (Score:5, Informative)
No, Sony will have a $600 player shortly (Score:5, Informative)
Here:
http://www.sonystyle.com/is-bin/INTERSHOP.enfinit
HD Radio (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Once more, with feeling. (Score:1, Informative)
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:EngadgetHD already reported this... (Score:3, Informative)
Funny resolutions (Score:4, Informative)
Re:"Writes"? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Funny resolutions (Score:3, Informative)
Re:We have a winner! (Score:3, Informative)
I imagine that eventually, films will come out in the crossbreed format but not the normal DVD format. Since some people do care about what film they're buying, this also will blur that price-point issue.
It will also make things easier (assuming HD-DVD wins) if there are crossbreed discs when media corps. decide to phase out normal DVD players. Normal DVDs can play on HD-DVD players, but they'll look no better on them; if all you have is DVDs, why not keep buying cheap DVD players? (Esp. the ones with "illegal" features.) But when the HD capability is already in the disc, someone who's less technical (and unaware of DRM risks) may want to upgrade the player to something that can show the HD-DVD side.
Re:Once more, with feeling. (Score:3, Informative)
Horrible Research Often Helps Dramatic Posts (Score:4, Informative)
Samsung BD-P1000 $664.99 in store at Best Buy [bestbuy.com].
The same player for $699.99 at CompUSA [compusa.com]
Sony 2x2x2 Blu-ray BD-RE, internal ATA drive $699.99 at CompUSA [compusa.com]
The Samsung again for $699 at Circuit City [circuitcity.com]
Or the newer Samsung BD-P1200 for $799.99 at Circuit City [circuitcity.com]
Then there's the Lite-On Blu Ray Burner for $399.99 at Fry's [outpost.com]
And the Philips BDP9000 player for $799.99 also at Fry's [outpost.com]
Man, I can't wait for next year when they finally drop below $1000 at places other than every single major retailer.
That said, the original poster also misquoted the actual article. There was no mention of Blu Ray players as a whole not dropping below $1,000 until next year - simply that Sony themselves aren't planning on dropping prices on their own models until then.
Yes, a hypothetical glut of HD-DVD players at $200, if WalMart aren't trying to use the low cost to generate large per-unit profits, could have an interesting effect. Still, we're talking 2 million players total... The XBox360 already has a $199 player and a greater than 5m units capable of adding it - yet the format war's hardly been won or even taken a lead.
That we're looking at a Christmas with next generation DVD players hitting the $200-300 mark is interesting if nothing much more than people were expecting. Overhyping it by misreading, misinterpreting and misstating everything around it, to try to elevate the drama of it however is kind of a shame.
Comment removed (Score:3, Informative)
Re:We have a winner! (Score:5, Informative)
PS3 is not inferior to the 360, exactly... (Score:1, Informative)
PS3: 512MB memory (last I heard, 96MB of that is permanently reserved for the OS...it used to be 128MB on older devkits), Cell processor (1 general purpose core and 7 DSPs, of which 1 is permanently reserved for the OS), classic dedicated shader pipeline architecture.
Xbox360: 512MB memory (of which 32MB permanently reserved for the OS), 3 dual-core general purpose PPC processors (i.e. 6 in-order execution cores, of which half the cycles of one are permanently reserved for the OS), unified shader pipe architecture.
On the PS3, you have to dedicate a large, fixed chunk of RAM to be graphics memory. On the 360, its more flexible (plus you have more RAM available). Thats why PS3 ports often half textures at half the sizes of the 360 games.
In a year or two we may see some pretty awesome PS3 games. But in the meantime, its just easier for developers to get the full power of the 360 than it is to use the PS3. The 360 has a symmetric multiprocessing model--6 cores that are the same type and share the same memory heirarchy. The PS3 uses a single general core and a bunch of DSPs that have a different instruction set, different memory heirarchy and only 128KB of internal RAM!! So the PS3 is much harder to program for.
Also, the 360 shares the same pipes for pixel and vertex shaders, so there is no risk of (say) vertex hardware going unused while the pixel stuff is fully loaded. It load-balances automatically and very efficiently. And of course the MS devkits are much easier to develop with than Sony's.