I understand the sentiment from a business perspective that Blu-ray prices are too low. Profits are minimal or non-existent for the studios right now and a solution is needed or the business will have to change completely. I own over 250 Blu-ray titles now and never dreamed I would purchase that many, the prices are much lower than I ever expected. My recommendation to Disney is quit including digital copies and DVD's with Blu-ray releases and keep the price for straight Blu-ray releases under $25. If there is any demand for digital copies or DVD's to be included, offer that release at a premium price but my guess is nobody buys those versions if required to pay what it should cost. I purchased "Sleeping Beauty" for $22 and sold the DVD I didn't want. What kind of a stupid idea is that product if you are Disney? Throw in a DVD for free, reducing the Blu-ray profit and lose a profitable DVD sale at the same time. If that makes any sense, I sure don't get it. Hybrid Blu-ray/DVD isn't the solution either, I feel certain of that, it will be more expensive to make and I don't want to pay for the DVD no matter how it is included.
Amazon (US) has it up for pre-order @ $28.49. There's plenty of time for further downward movement on that...if the opportunity presents itself (competition from Best Buy, Deep Discount, etc.)
I realize MSRP is just a number but it is the only real way to compare prices on Blu-rays across the board. The standard MSRP for new release Blu-rays has been from $35 to $40 US over the past year or more with catalogs sitting in the $28 to $35 range. Now Disney is releasing a catalog title and selling it at even higher than most new release Blu-rays. The Amazon standard discount will put it at $28 or $29 but that is still higher than almost all new release Blu-rays selling at Amazon.
I know the Canadian angle to this is a whole different discussion but the existing story on new release Blu-rays up here is $32 or more the majority of the time and it just makes it really hard for people to justify these prices when they already have the DVD or can get it for considerably less.
I will still buy these on Blu-ray since I don't buy DVD's but i sure hope I can find it for a more reasonable price and I certainly do not like the upward trend in Blu-ray prices from Disney in a time when people are cutting back or more concerned about their jobs.
Well, I'm definitely not upgrading Monsters Inc and A Bug's Life to BD for those kinds of prices, especially if I'm likely to want to keep the old DVDs around anyway. I'm reluctant enough to upgrade at all since the old DVDs already look so good on my setup. And my kids are not gonna lose sleep over not upgrading either.
There are plenty of other desirable titles to buy as it is. Maybe Mr. Iger is just enviest of the other industries getting bailout $$$ to pay their CEO's big bonuses, and he wants us BD customers to "help out". :rolleyes
I am not all that bothered by the prices.... they may well go down, but I am with you 100% on the quality of the SD DVD's. No doubt Blu will be better, but by how much, really?
I am of the same mindset regarding The Incredibles. That's my fav Pixar titles, and the existing PQ and SQ have never left me wishing for anything better.
Same here. My price point for BD is $20 or less, with rare exceptions. I love many of the Pixar films, but the SD-DVD's do still hold up very well. I'll wait for the inevitable price drop or sale.
I did splurge on WALL-E and HSM3 for the kids though, but those are day-and-date new releases. Upgrades over already top shelf DVD titles are just harder to justify the premium prices. If they don't include the DVD version in the package (for these particular catalog releases), I think they should at least give us existing DVD owners some sort of price break -- and not require us to cut up the BD packaging either.
Do you have Wall-E on Blu-Ray? The second disc contains the documentary The Pixar Story, which has some fragments of films like Toy Story, A Bug's Life and Monsters, Inc. in HD. It looked amazing, the amount of details added was enormous. Notice that these films were still rendered in 2K, so there is still a lot of room for improvement when compared to the dvd.