Topic: Blu Ray - Is Sony trying to make up for the money lost in the war ?

[Touti]

I was looking at Future Shop's web site and I see that prices aren't going down, actually I feel it's gone up although I'm not sure of that.  New releases sell for around 35$ and other stuff is aound 25$.

Examples:

Babel: 17$/27$
Kill Bill Vol. 1: 13$/25$

Now that they've won the war I expected the prices would go down and they would flood the market and catch up with the losses by relying on volume but it seems that I was wrong.  Why aren't the prices going down on movies ?  The players are becoming very affordable, especially the computer ones but who's gonna buy them if the movies are so expensive ?

Or is it that most people buy the player and just rent the movies ?

[lyonsden5]

I was saying something similar to my wife last time we were in Target. They recently added a whole aisle of Blu discs, and the located it right across from some of their DVDs. The prices on the Blus are 25-35 dollars. With some "specials" on the 35 dollar ones bringing them to the 25 dollar mark. Right across the aisle they have entire TV seasons for 20 bucks! Blu-ray will never get hold of the average user market if the prices stay $25 or more. 

Even $20 is too much these days IMO for the average buyer. It has to be something i REALLY want to see for me to pay more than $15.00 per title, even for HD content. And as you point out the normal is to charge about 50% more for the HD title! At some point they will have to come down in price or the format will fail.

One thing that gets me, most of the special packaging that you can buy now, or special goodies that come with a disc, are not available for the blu-ray title. The recent release of Nightmare Before Christmas that came with the Skeleton bust... standard DVD only.  Master of Horrors, season two in the little skull... standard only. If anything you would think they would do the opposite, add the extra goodie to the blu title to entice more people to buy them. And yes, some of us do buy the movie to get the extra toy that comes with it 

The best way to buy HD titles is to do it online. They are so much cheaper there.

$35.00 for a movie....puh-lease 

[Achim]

I have made it a habit to compare prices between the three main vendors I have used online: Amazon, DVD Empire and Deep Discount. Amazon is hands down the cheapest in 90% of the cases.

Amazon also seems to be the one supporting the format the most, making lots of sales, lowering the prices a little bit (in the last two months many prices went down by $1). As long as they keep this up, I'll support them back by using them

[Jimmy]

The problem with the blu ray format seems easy to understand to me : this is a "niche" market. To use the format you don't only need the reader, but you need a new television too if you really want to see the difference and, to be honest, the regular Joe just doesn't have the money to update is audio system (I'm one of those RJ). You add to that the fact that the difference is not that big (like it was between the VHS format and the DVD format) in comparaison with the actual DVD. Also many release on BR just doesn't look good comparativly to their counterpart on DVD on the extra department : just look at one exemple


For 34,95 $Can you only have the trailer in extra

for 20,78 $Can you have a lot of extra (commentary, documentary, deleted scene, ....)

The market was not ready for a new format and nobody really had asked for a new one. The 2 formats war didn't help too. This is not because the industry decide that something is obsolete that it makes it true, maybe in 10 years they will come with something better but this is not the case here. The BR format will always be a "niche" market the same way that the laserdisc was.

[Touti]

I'm also very intrigued by Toshiba's turnaround.  They recently released a new line of upconverting DVD players which supposedly give you a quality equivalent, at least to the eye, to a Blu Ray DVD.

[MEJHarrison]

I was saying something similar to my wife last time we were in Target. They recently added a whole aisle of Blu discs, and the located it right across from some of their DVDs. The prices on the Blus are 25-35 dollars. With some "specials" on the 35 dollar ones bringing them to the 25 dollar mark. Right across the aisle they have entire TV seasons for 20 bucks! Blu-ray will never get hold of the average user market if the prices stay $25 or more.

I'm impressed with their new lineup.  They have a lot more Blu-rays now.  But those prices!

We have a Target right next to a Best Buy and I told my wife that I'll give Best Buy my money before Target.  I like Best Buy of course, but I almost never shop there because I think they price things too high.  Target on the other hand has always been a great place for cheap DVDs.  I guess if their DVDs were overpriced as well, I wouldn't think twice about the Blu-ray prices.  But the discrepancy between the two is too much.  Target won't get a dime of my Blu-ray money until they do something about the prices.  If I'm going to pay full price (and I'm not), I'll do it elsewhere.

But I've not picked up anything in a long time anyway.  So right now no one is getting my money.

[Najemikon]

In the UK, I think they're starting to come down in price. I'm seeing a lot of Buy One Get One Free, or at least the £12 mark is being threatened.

[Achim]

You add to that the fact that the difference is not that big (like it was between the VHS format and the DVD format) in comparaison with the actual DVD.

Sorry, but that is not true.

I will say this:
Sometimes I watch a DVD and think "wow, this looks really nice, how could that look any better?". But then I remember that it can (unfortunately it does not always). I once put Blade Runner: The Final Cut, supposedly a superb DVD transfer, in my DVD player and the Blu-ray of the same film in my PS3. Then I freeze framed at the same images) and switched channels back and forth between the two. WOW, amazing.

So, the difference is there, but mostly only in direct comparison. Some Blu-ray transfers stink and are not worth the material they are pressed on. Some DVDs look very, very good and that quality is entirely sufficient for many people.

Also many release on BR just doesn't look good comparativly to their counterpart on DVD on the extra department :

I'll entirely agree here. Until they start to add all extras from teh DVD release to the Blu-ray and maybe some more they don't have to wonder why sales increase so slowly.