Toshiba lowers prices in order to save HDDVD
Consumer electronics maker Toshiba Corp said on Monday it is slashing prices of its HD DVD format players by between 40 to 50 percent as major Hollywood studios move to embrace Sony Corp’s Blu-ray format high definition DVDs. Toshiba America Consumer Products said it cut prices of its HD DVD players effective January 13 to boost market adoption of its next-generation DVD players by mainstream consumers after what it said was a successful fourth quarter in unit sales.
“While price is one of the consideration elements for the early adopter, it is a deal-breaker for the mainstream consumer,” said Toshiba executive Yoshi Uchiyama in a statement. Toshiba’s players will now start as low as $149 going up to $399 for the top-of-range player. The company said it is also stepping up its marketing drive with major initiatives including joint advertising campaigns with studios and extended pricing strategies. Toshiba said it will continue with on-going promotions including five HD DVD titles for free with any of its HD DVD player.
Source: Reuters
Comments(78)
wow, what a huge player. reminds me of vcr in their beginnings.
good luck toshiba but i fear blu ray has won
If you listen very carefully you can hear the final songs of Toshiba’s orchestra as it goes down with the ship
I wonder how Sony is gonna respond to this, they don’t have to as it looks now but they probably should.
yup… Sony should raise the prices by 15-20% and disconect customer service all together!
Can you hear that? It’s Toshiba’s High Def fat lady tuning up to sing the HD-DVD swan song.
But like its been said a million times before, no-one really cares about this format war since downloading is the real future
toshiba is finished blu-ray.
Desperation, not the best advertising gimmick.
The format war is effected by those who download because you want to store your movies somewhere. That is what this war is about, Storage.
@10
This war is about storage of penis in ur mouth.
i think they would need to drop the prices much lower if they want to save the format. if the players were like $50 there would be a huge demand for HDDVD titles
@12
Agreed, more PS3 buyers = more blu-ray owners, they have to saturate the market with really cheap HD-DVD players to save themselves.
Shows you at which costs these glorified CD-players are actually produced. I guarantee you they still turn a huge profit on this cheap things. They even could lower the price another 50% easily.
@14 hmmm your theories intrigued me and i wish to subscribe to your newsletter
Demand forces the prices lower so does production numbers. I don’t think they could go much lower at this point.
Heck I’m a HD-DVD player fan but I don’t think they stand a chance anymore.. Put the price down to US $50 and they still wont win.
PS3 + Almost all the major labels = Win for Blu-ray.
Shame but its the cold hard truth, heck Blu-ray has more storage space so I’m happy! More pron on one disc can’t be a bad thing.
Isnt that the point of capitalism though? What do you expect them to do, sell their goods for no profit at all?
God no..
RE: #17:
I expect them to sell their players at a MASSIVE loss.
What other way can they win this battle? Lets face it.. Toshiba etc etc.. all the companies that put money into HD-DVD are feeling the pinch. They would have invested big $$$$$$$$ into this and they all want it to beat Blu-ray.
What other choice do they have apart from flooding the market with cheap as hell players.
I say power 2 them!!
Hell a war between formats is NEVER a bad thing for the consumer. It ALWAYS forces the prices lower on both sides of the fence.
HDDVD has lost the public perception battle, which is effectively the end of things. There’s been a huge amount of noise generated by the studios announced favouring of Blu-Ray, and that noise is what has/is/will be changing peoples perceptions. Free market forces, baby….
Jesus, thats a mother of a beast! and all it plays is a thin disk? bit of a waste of machine parts really
in all honesty, you’ll have to murder me before you can tell me to buy anything from $ony. if anything, i’ll just wait for a mutil region divX HD & $ony-Blu machine, anything from LG
sony would have been doing everything they could to save blu-ray…if things had gone the other way for tosh it would have been devastating for the ps3…. may have even killed it seeing as thats pretty much the only reason you would buy a ps3 instead of a 360….anyway as someone said, downloading is the future
Yes, blue-ray is the winner as I told all along.
Only one move can save Toshiba’s stinky butt now: mass production of affordable desktop HD-DVD burner and cheap writable HD-DVD media at a price point very near to that of DVD9’s. But if Sony’s camp imitates that move, it will be the ultimate d00m for HD-DVD
If only Microsoft had incorporate the HDDVD drive into the Xbox360. Then the HDDVD format would have had a sizeable portion of the market. Fair enough, Microsoft did not include the HDDVD drive in order to keep costs of the console low. However, it is clear that Sony’s PS3 has pushed the Blu-Ray format in many people’s homes and therefore has gained the most market share in the high defination home entertainment business.
In a nutshell, blame Microsoft for HDDVD’s failure. In fact director Michael Bay posted on his website about 2 months ago that Microsoft wants the whole HDDVD and Blu-Ray format war to collapse so that everyone would instead move to a download service, which means more PC units with Windows, which means more money for Microsoft.
By the way, Microsofts movie download service on Xbox360 is lame as the movies are not 1080p.
Great point by 24
A lot of people would prefer to stick a drive in their computer than another box under the TV. It would be a grat addition to a media centre PC, and if it provided a viable storage option for PC’s that would definitely do it a lot of favours.
Lot’s of people including me didn’t get a Sony digital camera because Memorystick media cost twice as much as SD technology of the same capacity. Making cheap drives should have been there next move!
LoL. Mise well Just purchase a higher end video card around the price of a dam Hd dvd player and just connect your pc to your hd tv with hdmi or dvi component or composite, and you will have same dam quality if not better.
i would buy one were there some for hundred euros next month when i get money
got no hd tv
and no money to movies (unemployed loser am)
but just to have one
lol they are trying to get rid of as many units as possable because blu-ray is taking over : )
My Sony Blu-Ray player is not far off the size of this beast. All the first gen machines are big and hefty, wait for the Koreans to sort themselves out (LG & Samsung) and then the slimmer, elegant players will appear.
Will have to look at an LG, with HD and BD compatible machines coming our way, so who cares what wins
Yes, this is a move of desperation. However, do not forget that such cheap advertising gimmicks were started by Sony and its bullshat PS3. How many times did they have to cut its prices to get people to start biting? The only reason Blu Ray got the advantage is because of thinly coated subliminal advertising. By selling the PS3 at a loss, they can actually fool people into thinking it is cheaper, while charging outrageous amounts for the disks for such a system…
Anyway, Toshiba should have done this the first time Sony did instead of waiting til now. I see the connection between them, but most people wont and will look on this as the “final stand” of the HD-DVD, which isnt exactly “respectable” reputation. Instead, they should have done it to “combat” Sony instead of waiting til they already lost…
@25
You shouldnt look at things so black and white. Microsoft offered the HD drive as optional not to boost Windows’ sales, but to protect themselves in the case that the HD-DVD really did fail. Sony had to force Blu Ray down people’s throats in order to turn a profit because they are the same ones who created Blu Ray in the first place. Since they had already spent the risk of designing Blu Ray, they still needed to do something to justify it. If Microsoft had actually been the one to make HD-DVD, I fear they would have done the same thing as Sony. However, since their company was not in danger, why would they purposely pull the danger down on top of them? Microsoft had no reason to “take one for the team” in order to maintain Toshiba’s integrity…
hmm I wonder who was the hand model for that shot, nice sleeve
Quite pleased about this. hopefullllllllllllllllllley’ll start slashing the cost of the movies too. for that alone I’m more than happy to hold onto my HDDVD player. HDDVD has all the best titles anyway, won’t be that way for long i know.
I just got a stand-alone Blu-ray player, which was FREE when I purchased a Panasonic plasma screen TV. Panasonic also included 10 free movies (5 from in store and 5 from a mail in rebate) to pique my interest in Blu-ray. Unless Toshiba makes a similar offer, stick a fork in HD-DVD.
What’s with all the Sony hatred? I thought their PS3 marketing move was ballsy and brilliant…at least it appears that way in hindsight. They mortgaged the future of Blu-Ray and the PS3 on each other, and it is paying off. 360 fanboys can rail on the system all they want, but the fact is that Sony delivered a more complete product. Did 360 have better looking graphics on games originally CREATED FOR the 360? Yes. Ports of games for the PS3 early on didn’t look as good. Credit MS for getting the early jump on Sony, but Sony made a lot of smart moves like…rechargable controllers, INTERNAL BD drive, FREE online play, etc. I owned a 360 and hated the PS controller; so, it took a lot to convince me not to buy the 360, but after doing the research, it seemed like a no-brainer to pick the PS3 as the system of the future. 360 has maxed out its capabilities with the DVD9 format. The ceiling is much higher for the PS3, but I’ll probably buy MS’s TRULY next-gen answer to the PS3 when it comes out!
In the meantime, Sony had a huge advantage over Toshiba in this HD format war with their video game console certainly playing a large part in BD’s success. Add in the TYPE of BD studio support (read: Disney), and you’ve got a formidable opponent. Had the 360 carried an internal HD-DVD drive, there’s no doubt in my mind that HD-DVD would’ve won out. Nobody wants to buy an external HD player with a USB transfer. Anybody remember the early external CD burners or DVD burners? Yeah, a waste of money. BD has a signficantly greater storage capacity; so, again the ceiling should be higher as far as opportunities are concerned. What will be the next resolution push after 1080p?
To all those who are talking about downloading vs disc media as the future of HD: lol Yeah, when the majority of the country is as tech savvy as the average rlslog browser AND has access to fiber optic bandwith, I can see that. Until then, you’re out of your mind if you think downloading HD media is a viable solution. Besides, disc media is much easier to crack; so, you better hope MS doesn’t get its way too soon…
Well, I read the replies on the site and now I’m just waiting for the price of the HD-DVD player to go down at my workplace so that I can get one for $135.
All-in-all, at least I’ll have a really nice DVD player when it’s all said and done.
There’s a lot of good analysis in the comments so far. My own feeling, at the outset of the format war, was that Sony would win because they have a sexy brand i.e. “Blu-ray”… a much more compelling proposition than the ubiquitous “HD”. Having said that, in a commodity market like blank discs for storage, the HD format could maybe make a last ditch attempt at survival, as mentioned @24. But to persuade people to accept the current high prices of hi-def DVD in the movie/TV/entertainment market, for what is really only a small step up in video quality (compared with VHS-to-DVD, which was quantum), then a powerful brand (which “Blu-ray” is, or at least has the potential to become, once “HD” is out of the way) is a major asset.
Congratulations to Sony on winning this one.
HD-DVD is by far better technology that then BluRay, which only provides bigger space.
I going to laugh to all the Blu-Ray owners, besides the PS3 ones, that in the future, will be left aside cause their players could not play Blu-Ray 2.0. And i cannot figure why people support SONY the biggest pimp of the industry.
HD-DVD has all the good stuff from the begging of its era and who cares about 60GB of space on a disc, if their isn’t something to put in it (HD-DVD space is far enough for HD content)
People should take advantage of this offer and go out and buy super cheap new FUTURE-proof technology.
I just found this while looking around the net.
This is just too hilarious.
linkage http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=friS4OOcdgQ&eurl=http://wesleytech.com/category/blu-ray-and-hd-dvd/
Hope this brightens your day!
@35
Gotta say i agree with what you had to say. If 360 had had a HD-DVD player integrated from the out set, that would have had a HUGE market lead over BD and most-likely would have won. Everyone that owns a 360 would also own a HD player and would have been buying HD-DVD titles for the last two years. Its a no brainer.
If you are going to buy a HD-DVD, wait for the prices to drop farther. Toshiba sold there players for $100 a few months ago on a special weekend sale in early Dec. I think. From that, you know that they can sell players at that low of a price but are just holding off on it. So wait.
The only thing I see really saving HD right now other than price is the version issue. with blue ray 1 then 1.1 and then 2 all having compatability issues between them (as in the old wont play the new) what happens when 2.1 2.2 or version 3 comes out. Right now it all rides on the movie studios, but as toshiba has learned all that can change at a drop of the hat. The porn industry orig sided with HD then moved to blueray (most likley due to tons of horny PS3 Players).
@38
You do not know what you are talking about. Most movies are shot with 35mm cameras, an HD format. They are then comprised to fit unto a dvd. The more space on a DVD you have, the less comprised the film you are watching is. So a Blu-Ray movie is closer to what the director shot on 35mm film than on HD-DVD. Class dismissed.
By the way: What the hell do we care? We copy our movies from the internet! BAHAHA!
We Whaiting Red-Ray From Toshiba
@39
That was funny. Very funny.
Deacon Thorn
thank you for that. i got a good laugh
Wow, just look at the size of this peace of crap player
Toshiba trying to sell off their inventory.
@43 I agree! The reason I dl is becuase I can’t afford $10 to go to movies! Let alone buy A $300 player!
@48, you got it right, this is the last push to get rid of the existing stock of hddvd players and movies. They say they’re trying to ’save’ it, but are really only interested in saving their financial reports.
I’ll wait for the $30 wal-mart player on boxing day
The player in this picture is an older generation. The curent playes are much smaller. The HD-A3 can be had for $135 and is about the size of your average DVD (Not HD) player.
http://www.tacp.toshiba.com/tcl.asp?model=hd-a3
BLUE-RAY FTW!!!!
Sorry, Toshibu, toshiba, whatever… i dont even know who you are anymore! Your names fading out i cant make it…it’s HD-DVD’s last days before it completely fades away forever like the Mini-Cd’s that store like 148-201 MB of data…who would want to use those when you can use a normal CD which stores 700MB??????
It failed and so have your discs!
Might just be worth buying the $149 model if you’re gonna get 5 movies for free with it. % Blu-Ray titles will cost you about the same! (If you’re into buying them!!!)
I meant 5, not %, LOL
I never cared who really won, I justed wanted a single format. I was on HD-DVD’s side a bit only because of the cracked copy protection, or lack of protection. Other than that, the differences are minute.
Being that just about every major movie label is now with Blu-Ray it wouldn’t matter if Toshiba gave these away for free. If nobody is making movies for the player its useless, no matter the price.
I would however pick one of these up even if just to use it as an upscaling player. I missed the Christmas sale when they went for $98. I purchased an upscale player for more than that 2 weeks prior. Ah well, at least there will finally be one format with all studios on board so ALL movies will be available. GG
Hmmm, I wouldn’t mind buying a cheap hd dvd writer if they have one, 30gb
, hehehe 
then I can reduce all my dvd down . Doubt if if they would go that route ~_~ .
all this war at the end of the day is capitalism bullshiet
u’ll hardly notice the diff and we pirates hardly give a fcuk abt player hook the pc with the 50″ LCD and get an account at a pvt hd site game over
a big hardisk and a new graphic card are the only expense u’ll need to do
lol nice one 39
its time to dump all there inventory lol who ever buys one now is a moron >_<
Wooohooo my blueray ps3 is on the way! Finally the battle has been decided!
haha that pic is like the old old model, the new one is way smaller like 3 times smaller
Oh god…i hope the format war is going to end this May so it can stop hurting consumer.
The only reason Blu-Ray is emerging as the winner is because they keep adding more and more DRM to the format. If HD-DVD had the stronger DRM, all the studios would be flocking to it.
dude for reel who cares I just want the burnable disks to be a little more mainstream.. which ever one I can buy blank HDDVDs or Blank Burnable blurays then I will get that player LOL… will you have to have a speacial burner??
@#22- “sony would have been doing everything they could to save blu-ray…….”
You mean like they did with Beta?
Here’s one dedicated to all the PS3 fans.:P
—>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfmBzllkbUM
Oops. Sorry, here’s a clickable link. Be nice if Rlslog would post how their comments are set up. (BB, HTML, etc.)
—->[url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfmBzllkbUM[/url]
Okay, I give up. Wankers.
not really interested, i like to download 700mb movies then copy them onto a dic and watch them on my divx player, all in a matter of 5 minutes, that’s why i am here
@67 its pretty obvious that the problem there is you, why are you putting little arrows in front? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfmBzllkbUM
lets be honest anybody who wants blueray to win has to be a playstation3 owner. it makes sense to go for hddvd good pricing ect, plus we all known what sony are like
Seriously, I doubt that Toshiba will suffer too much over this. Microsoft are a major benefactor, which would mean that HD-DVD will probably be used as a replacement for our current burning media (I won’t be complaining about 16gig dvd-r’s)
good luck tosh, im rooting for you.
It’s pretty obvious why all the studios have dumped HDDVD. Blu-ray and HD were tied with each other until both of them were cracked. Now Blu-ray with BD+ is definitely superior to ALL movie studios from the standpoint of copy protection. We know that BD+ will be cracked eventually also, but, I suppose maybe they don’t? I’m talking bout a REAL BD+ crack, not that quasi-crack by slysoft.
oh, now that they may lose a lot of money, poor people matter.
Good for them.
The data size of a disc is absolutely important. For those of you who copy your DVDs, certainly you realize that when you have a DL disc and try to put it on a single layer, you engage the transcoder. When you take an analog source like 35mm, DV, etc and convert it to digital content, you’re using some sort of compression. Personally, I prefer the MS’s VC-1 over MPEG-2 which Sony/Columbia/Tri-Star stubbornly use for their BD movies, but the reason is because I prefer that compression technology. Obviously, the larger the file size, the better quality the compression. Thus, 25GB vs 15GB and 50GB vs 30GB is a compelling reason to support BD over HD-DVD. I know that home theater enthusiasts allegedly supported HD-DVD over BD, but it appears that most of the debate is based on issues other than the actually quality of the medium (i.e. people either hate Sony or own a PS3). I don’t want BD to win just because I have a PS3 though. Researching both technologies and wanting to invest in a next-gen gaming system (mostly for NCAA football), PS3 seemed like the best choice considering BD appeared superior and was actually an internal drive as opposed to an external drive connected via USB(!). I challenge anyone to really argue the picture quality between HD-DVD and Blu-Ray. Both look great, but, as noted earlier, neither is such a HUGE improvement over DVD like DVD is over VHS that it compels the consumer to purchase one immediately.
But I’m sure the studios do likely support BD for its copy protection. Unfortunately for them but fortunately for us, disc copy protection will ALWAYS get cracked. It’s just a matter of time. Proponents of HD DLing are going to be sorry when their digital content will be protected. It’s much easier to protect that than the disc media. It’s to our advantage for a HD disc format to win, and I’m glad it appears to be Blu-Ray
Hey, what toshiba should do now is a writable or rewritable HDVD, to fake f****ing hollywood, I will apreciate its because of its storage capacity, can not make any disctintion between that “super” quality and actual dvd, and do not care a better quality than it, a 40gb writable DVD is welcome.
This censoring site needs to be proxyspammed
RQ
Source:
http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSN1441663320080116