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• How much for a Blu-Ray?
  Interesting. As you've indicated from your numbers, Sony appears to have set the *perceived value* of the Blu-Ray player at approximately $200. Sounds about right to me -- a good DVD player is about $100, so Blu-Ray is positioned as "twice as good."
  
  Fine for me as the consumer; it might even convince me to buy one. But it's a DISASTER for Sony and its Blu-Ray partners, who were hoping to sell the next-gen HD content players for upwards of $1000 a pop! Sony has just cut the legs out from under Panasonic and Toshiba, who were presumably hoping to get early adopters to bear some of the costs of R&D and tooling up for the new product line.
  
  In short order, Sony will be the only company left selling Blu-Ray players. Who else can compete with Sony's apparent willingness to sell the players at something approaching a $300/unit loss?

  May 25, 2006

  0 replies

• Corrections on HD
  1) Congress has mandated *digital* OTA signals, not HD. Broadcasters may choose to use that increased bandwidth for more HD content, or they may just broadcast more SD content (1 HD channel = 6 SD channels). So far they've mostly chosen the latter.
  
  This has nothing to do with the *physical* media format.
  
  2) I don't understand the "HD-DVD is too short-term" comment; both BD and HD-DVD are capable of supporting 1080i, which should be sufficient for the next five years or so. Virtually all "hi-def" TVs and broadcasts are currently 1080i.
  
  (Then again, what do I care -- my TV is 15 years old, and doesn't even have RCA jacks; but I don't plan to upgrade until it quits working.)
  
  3) Microsoft *did* decide to sit this format war out, for the most part. There will be an HD-DVD player add-on for the Xbox360; but they can just as easily ship a BD player if that format takes off.
  
  4) Sony, on the other hand, has inextricably tied their fortunes to Blu-ray. That's a HUGE bet, and one they're likely to lose -- MS can afford to subsidize the 360 for a lot longer than Sony can afford to subsidize the PS3.

  May 10, 2006

  1 reply