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Walmart HD-DVD Impact (1 Viewer)

John Berggren

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From the article linked on the front page at the HTF today, the following quote:


A bit of quick math puts that at $50/player. I could easily see Walmart selling these for $75. Kind of throws a big question mark into the futyure of the format war, no?
 

Shane Martin

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Except Wally World will rumored to be selling them at $299.

Walmart is pretty influential in terms of studio support since they tend to sell the most. I'll be curious to see if Wally World indeed changes their loyalty.

They can buy 2 million players but they need to sell them as well and educate the customer that BR discs won't play on them. Wal mart could in turn stop stocking Blu Ray all together to end the confusion.

I'm a bit worried about the whole ordeal because of how Walmart tends to dumb things down. This could result in a negative affect.
 

Steve Schaffer

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The math on the Walmart deal is still sketchy, with estimates of cost to be either $50 or $150 per unit to Walmart--I'd suspect the retail to be $199 at most since the Tosh is widely available at $299.
 

Ryan-G

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I actually see it more as a driving force for Uni-Players. I really don't see Fox and Disney shifting stances with the P2P problem left unchanged, even with Wallmart's leanings. Especially since Wallmart tried to push the studios to P&S in the early DVD years, and the studios, for the most part, ignored them.

2 million's a fairly substantial number, over 10x the current number of HD-DVD Players sold thus far. It's a very interesting change to things that could play out in a number of ways.
 

John Berggren

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I don't know that the studios ignored them. Both Walmart and Target seem to carry a pretty dedicated slate of P&S only DVDs. I have to imagine their sales numbers in that territory have a lot to do with dual releases.
 

Sanjay Gupta

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To anyone who thinks that 2 million units of a cheap $50 - $150 HD-DVD player being sold by Walmart to J6P, is a good idea, I suggest you should also prepare yourself for a serious dumbing down of the 'HD' format. Be prepared for 'Fool Screen' releases of all wider than 16:9 movies. Personally I think the prices for 'HD' format hardware has already been coming down much faster than what is normal for a new format. I think any further drop in the prices too soon will lead to the major manufacturers losing interest in the 'HD' format. After all no one wants to be in the business of making losses on hardware unless you have a vested interest in the success of the format.
 

John Berggren

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To be fair, we still need to be vigilant about P&S and other editing issues, including framing for 16x9 TVs (whether a 1.44 reframing or a 2.35 reframing). However, that is not the issue at hand.
 

Edwin-S

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Hell, this is still nothing but a rumour. I thought Wal-Mart had made some kind of official announcement about an order for cheap Chinese junk players. Until there is some kind of official confirmation I'm filing this "news" under 'C' for Crap.

There is one thing mentioned in the article that I have personally noted. I have gone to my local Wal-Mart a couple of times and each time I noted that HD DVD was occupying less and less shelf space. Right now, at least locally, Wal-Mart does seem to be pushing HD DVD off the shelf. BDs were totally occupying at least three shelves and part of the fourth. The rest of the fourth shelf was occupied by HD DVD.
 

Sanjay Gupta

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In the case of DVD, the influence of Walmart came into the picture at a much later stage and only after there was already quite a large customer base consisting of cinema lovers who would not tolerate the butchering of films rather than the average Joe, who only cares about getting the film cheap and having it fill the 4x3 screen. Whereas if Walmart were to be the one to sell 2 million of the first 2.2 million or so 'HD' players, you can imagine who would have the real say in deciding how the films are presented in 'HD'. By the way, I think you are overlooking the fact that there are numerous films that were and are still available only in P&S on DVD. Also think back to the numerous releases where they simply used the Laser Disc transfers for the DVD releases. I am sure studios would do the same on 'HD' if they knew that all they have to do is satisfy the non discerning Walmart customer, who probably would not know the difference anyhow.
 

Cees Alons

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You think they all would comply to Walmart's wishes?
The first thing Walmart would ask of them of course - in this scenario of yours - is to release on HD DVD.


Cees
 

Norman Matthews

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Sanjay, that "non-discerning Wal-Mart customer" is not going to be buying into HD in the first place, whether it's available at Wal-Mart or not. Why would he, to hook it up to his non-discerningly purchased 27" tube SDTV?

The sky is not falling.
 

Ron-P

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Exactly. Some think this is HD-DVDs savior, it's not. While it's a nice little bump for HD-DVD your cheap-o wally customer is not going to spend $300 on an HD-DVD player and he sure is not going to spend $25+ on a movie, which is where prices need to drop. Cheap players is one thing but there a small drop in the hi-def bucket compared to the software.
 

Norman Matthews

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Many of the players will be bought.

They're not going to be bought by the drooling stereotype many here hold of the typical Wal-Mart shopper.
 

Edwin-S

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I would like to see some actual confirmation from Wal-Mart in regards to this development. Not just a bunch of hot air from internet video news sites that are fond of the words "apparently" and "rumoured to be".
 

John Berggren

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Actually as further analysis is put to this story, it's looking more and more like these will be Blu Ray players. Probably best to see a further press release before we make any assumptions.
 

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