Toshiba Deploys New HD DVD Marketing Initiatives Based on Strong Fourth Quarter Unit (1 Viewer)

[bigluigi]

I bought the Samsung BDP 1400 last month because of the low price ($277 delivered) and I wished to go "purple." I suspect that a lot of Blu-ray sales were to people like myself that over the holidays was the best time to go "purple."

 

[Garrett Lundy]

Digital broadcast in 2009. Not "all HD" in 2009. I suspect we won't be "all HD" for another 5 years minimum, closer to 10.

(Cable and satellite customers can resume not having to pay attention).

 

[Averry]

Toshiba enthusiasm does make me feel a little bit more like I have 2 sweet formats instead of one and a crippled one.


I donno, I've actually been enjoying HD-DVD a little more lately.


My gosh Children of Men was a good film.


Clive Owen must reallllly like babies. Shoot Em Up was sooo good too.

 

[Dan_Ohio]

Excellent Points

But it counts on what you are looking for. For my parents version 1.1 is what they need. They don't have an internet connection and will not ever add one, but have an HD TV. For my brother in law, I recommend he get the Playstation 3. It will get upgraded to 2.0.

I am glad I purchased the Playstation 3. But would it kill me not to have PIP or internet connection. Not really. I will not go out and buy a replacement for my Panasonic player. If I didn't have the Panasonic player, like you,I would wait for the 2.0 to get the most up to date player.

 

[Jari K]

I have said to everyone (who have asked): Buy PS3 if you want games and Blu-ray (note: Not talking about HD DVD here). Honest and "informed" person recommending the best and future proof BD-player out there at the moment (IMO). So not all these players are "out dated".

Of course, one of my friend just bought Wii etc. (not really interested of HD-films at the moment).

 

[Scott Jentsch]

I don't know about the rest of the country, but in the Milwaukee, Wisconsin market, stores advertised the Sony BDP-S300 and the Toshiba HD-A30, both at $299. Few listed the HD-A3, except during Black Friday when some stores had it for $169.

At least around here, both formats were being marketed has having the same price.

 

[Jason Seaver]

Ditto. The HD-A3 never shows up in Best Buy's ads, and one of the weekly newspaper inserts advertised $100 savings on both Toshiba and Sony players, only the Toshiba was listed as "$399 before savings!"while the Sony was "$399 after savings!"

 

[bigluigi]

Averry,
Poetic, "sweet" language.
You are wise beyond your years.

 

[Ric Easton]

Last night I saw my first ever commercial for HD-DVD. All I could think of was too little too late.

 

[Todd Stout]

I've noticed that since Toshiba cut the MSRP on their HD-DVD players in half that I now see a lot fewer of them on store shelves. Last Tuesday the Costco store here in Rancho Cucamonga had a full pallet of the HD-D3 players priced at $129. I was in there again today (Monday) and the entire pallet was gone and the price tag below the display was marked "LAST ONE."

I then drove down the street to Best Buy and they had the HD-A3 marked $149 and I could only find one in the box anywhere near the display. There was room for quite a few more so I can only assume they have been selling. I did see at least 3 of the HD-A30s and there were plenty of Blu Ray players on the shelves.

Are HD-DVD players selling that fast now or are stores just not restocking them as quickly?

 

[Kevin. W]

I would figure they are waiting on more stock. A sales a sale to a store and if one stores selling a pallet of them in less than a week, I would assume they would want more. They may not be making as much on the player, but will on the software that will be bought.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Probably both.

Keep in mind that Toshiba and the major retailers are working together right now to clear HD DVD hardware inventory. I'd be curious if anyone could discvover if Toshiba has haulted prodution of new players or if there are any new models that they continue to manufacture going forward.

 

[Dave>h]

David,

Where is your source for this tid bit of knowledge???

If you are going to speculate, how about highlighting it unless you have some really great sources high up in the retail world. A price drop does not mean they are liquidating inventory (it could mean that but without a source, it is speculation). If so, then is Sony liquidating the PS3? I think it recently had a price drop...

Dave

 

[DaViD Boulet]

My source is the same source that's been right about everything so far...



But if you're more comfortable consider it to be my reasonably informed opinion.

I think it's pretty obvious to most marketing minds what's going on right now: the end is in sight and selling off hardware inventory is one way to help ease the pains for Toshiba's investors: a graceful exit is better than a crash-and-burn with lots of players sitting on the shelf. Unless the BDA were literally willing to buy-off Toshiba to officially "end" HD DVD (which I don't think they are willing to do at this point given the inevitability of HD DVDs demise), Toshiba is taking the only route they can reasonably take. Specifically, my source has said that Toshiba has been negotiating with Paramount and Universal to not announce Blu-ray support just yet in order to give them time to sell off their HD DVD hardware while there's still that appearance that the format isn't fully dead. And I don't view this as a bad thing: heck, at the prices these players are going for it's worth it merely as a top-grade DVD player with HDMI, upconverting, and of course the ability to play those exclusive HD DVD titles until they show up blu (which could be a long time... Universal has a huge library of HD DVD titles they'd have to re-author for BD which, thankfully, seems to include new film-to-digital transfers for most catalog releases).

Other opinions may differ, of course,



Hence my point about asking if anyone had information regarding if Toshiba was continuing with HD DVD hardware manufacturing. That would be the determining difference between a standard price-cut and an inventory liquidation.

dave

 

[BrettB]

Okay... so the latest hardware sales data from market research firm NPD Group is in, and it reveals that - as one would expect - HD-DVD player sales have also been impacted by the news of Warner's decision to drop the format later this year. One quick note: The data that follows does NOT include sales of Sony's PlayStation 3 or the HD-DVD add-on drive for Microsoft's Xbox 360. These are stand-alone, set-top players only.

These numbers are after the Warner news but before the latest Toshiba price cuts. Looks pretty grim.

 

[Paul Arnette]

There are rumors of another PS3 price-cut on the horizon as well. If true, a $299 PS3 would go a long way toward combating any Toshiba price drops. The odd thing about the rumor is that one of the reasons behind it was a request from Time Warner to lower the price. Would that mean some people actually do use their PS3 to watch movies.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Paul,

turns out that Warner actually really values the PS3 as a movie-player because it's profile 1.1 (PIP) compatible and will be updated for 2.0 BD-live (web) as well. Warner's biggest gripe with BD has been the lack of enforced standards in hardware specs, and I agree with them. the PS3 is actually the best player currently available in terms of "full support" of BD features (2.0 profile update is forthcoming) which is probably one reason they would like to see it used (ie, Warner wants a large customer base who can watch PIP and use BD-Live).

 

[Paul Arnette]

David, I can't tell if you missed my sarcasm or are just trying to reinforce my point. Anyway, the sheer number of PS3s out there is still its main advantage, amongst many, in my opinion.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Oh, I'm not disagreeing with you. It's just that we've heard it repeated for so long that "Warner doesn't care about the PS3, only dedicated players" that I thought there might be some value in adding more clarification to how things have evolved around the PS3 as a viable piece of hardware in Warner's eyes.

 

[bigluigi]

Of course people use their PS3's machines to watch movies. The issue has always been just how many.