All I can say is WOW!! I keep thinking his rants can't get any worse or more misleading, but then this... the Gone with the Wind of delusional misinformation campaigns!
I have to break this down because it's just too mind-bendingly unfathomable.
Quote - Bill Hunt:
Toshiba's move isn't really anti-competitive, because there are no U.S. manufacturers making HD-DVD players. But it's that "below its costs of production" part that applies in this case. The HD-A2 arrived in the States with an original MSRP of $499.99. Now, Toshiba is letting it go for just $99. There's no way the player cost less than $100 to manufacturer. Just. No. Way.
Lots of stores sells items as loss leaders. It happens every week in every major retail outlet in this country. There is nothing illegal about it. I remember a few weeks ago some titles being sold as Buy One, Get One FREE, in fact. A few years back, I was able to buy Star Wars Episode II on DVD at Toys R'Us for only $9.99. There's no way those DVDs cost less than $9.99 to Toys R'Us. Just. No. Way.
Quote:
You might wonder: How can Toshiba possibly have enough HD-A2s left to sell at just $99 at large, nationwide retailers? Simple. It's because they didn't sell originally, so plenty of stores still have them sitting on shelves, gathering dust. Toshiba is eager to clear them all out at this point, and Wal-Mart and Best Buy are happy to help.
Absolutely not true. In fact, may people around here were reporting that many stores were sold out of all HD-DVD hardware the week of The Transformers release.
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Clearly, the HD-DVD camp understands that low price is really the only card they have left to play in this format war. Porn hasn't won the war for them as predicted, nor have online bells and whistles, or combo discs/players. The obvious question would be: Why in the world would any other hardware manufacturer want to join Toshiba's foolhardy strategy of driving player prices down to next to nothing? It's no accident that not a single other major manufacturer has released a stand-alone HD-DVD player (and no, the Venturer doesn't count).
Just as Blu-ray understands that extortion, sorry, make that Studio Exclusivity, is really the only card they have EVER had to play. And other manufacturers possibly wouldn't have had to face such low competitive prices if they hadn't hitched their dreams to the technological anchor that is Blu-ray. If there had been more hardware support for HD-DVD, it would only have helped the format. Remember, even if HD-DVD and Blu-ray stand alones are 50/50 in sales, Toshiba is making 100% of the HD-DVD "50," while Blu-ray's "50" has to be split amongst Sony, Pioneer, Panasonic, Samsung, and Sharp.
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Given how dramatically Toshiba has slashed prices on HD-DVD players over the last year, you have to wonder how long they can keep losing money.
But conveniently no mention of Sony's losses on both the PS3 and the disc subsidization they have had to endure.
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Forget for a moment that the HD-A2 isn't capable of delivering full 1080p video - that doesn't matter. Why? Because anyone who is so price sensitive that they wait until a high-def player price hits $99 to buy one isn't likely to have an HDTV set yet.
True, every single household with an HD set either already has an HD-DVD player or they never want to get one.
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Being super bargain shoppers, they aren't likely to want to pay $30 for an HD-DVD movie either.
But college-aged PS3 owners are eager to pay $40-$50 for Blu-ray titles?
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I'd bet many of the people who jump on this sale will either be using them primarily as upconverting DVD players, or they're already diehard HD-DVD supporters and are buying them as second players.
But wait, if they are going to be using it as an upconverting player, they'd have to have an HDTV set to upconvert on and you just told everyone that the people buying these players are too price sensitive to own HDTVs? So which is it? Are they upconverting on sets that aren't HD?
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For those regular consumers who take the bait, I wonder how they'll feel when they realize they can't play those big Disney titles in the "blu" boxes due next week.
Probably about the same as the regular consumers who take the Blu-bait will feel when they realize they can't play Transformers, Shrek, Bourne Ultimatum, Batman Begins, Face/Off, Knocked Up... There's plenty of films on both sides that are missing (and lest we forget there's still tons of Blu-ray titles that have been announced and then pulled, so even picking the "right" side is no guarantee you get the movies you expect.)
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Speaking of which... a couple weeks ago, when Disney and Sony launched the successful strategy of counter-selling their Blu-ray software titles 2 for 1
Interesting that this sale is considered a successful strategy.
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the same week Paramount and DreamWorks released Transformers on HD-DVD, we got a few e-mails from HD-DVD fans telling us how lame that was. Is it any accident that Toshiba didn't wait for Black Friday to sell their $99 players, instead carefully planning the 3-day sale for the weekend before Disney and Pixar release Cars, Ratatouille and the Pixar Short Films Collection on Blu-ray? Not a chance.
As noted earlier, it's awesome how Bill provides Amazon links for the three Pixar titles, but the Transformers HD-DVD is not linked. And by the way, for the record (and bookmark it for posterity), the only one of those Pixar titles that is going to make a dent is Ratatouille. Pixar Shorts is of little interest to most other than real Pixar fans and Cars is a catalog title. As we already saw earlier this year with Pirates 1&2 (which sold under 25,000 each in the first week) catalog titles don't move like new releases.
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So Toshiba is slashing HD-DVD hardware prices to counteract the release of blockbuster Blu-ray software. What does that tell you about the viability of HD-DVD going into a fourth quarter that, by all accounts, is make or break for the format?
Just like Sony and Disney slashed software prices to counteract the release of blockbuster HD-DVD software. What does that tell you about the viability of Blu-ray going into a fourth quarter that, by their own accounts, they've already won countless times over?
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(Especially with Warner Home Video now hinting that they're looking at the fourth quarter to "reevaluate" their dual format support)
And that clearly could go either direction, but thanks for the misleading lean Bill.
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There's no doubt that thousands of eager consumers will get a deal on cheap hardware this weekend. But it still isn't going to be the format war winner for HD-DVD that some would like to believe. On the contrary, it means that Toshiba is getting desperate enough to adopt an all-or-nothing strategy... and is going even more deeply into the red with this format. Meanwhile, given the strength of their rhetoric this week, it's a safe bet that the Blu-ray camp will pull their gloves off too in the fourth quarter, and start getting more aggressive in the weeks and months ahead.
And the Blu-ray camp pulled off their gloves at CES 2007, and CEDIA, and the Blu-ray Daisy Chain Festival, and seemingly every time they put out a press release with incorrect, outdated, or omitted facts about Blu-ray's strength.
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It boggles the mind to think that any reasonable person can still believe at this point that the HD-DVD format represents a viable long-term business.
It seems that HD-DVD has provided a more viable long-term business than many (including Bill Hunt) predicted. It has weathered the storm and kept pace with Blu-ray the whole journey, despite being handicapped with less studio support, less manufacturing support, and continuous unwarranted character assassinations. It's proved to be the little engine that could. Think about how successful HD-DVD would be today if it had all the support advantages that Blu-ray has had.
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Even if Toshiba's strategy has the desired effect (which seems primarily to be garnering splashy headlines in the press), what do they ultimately win?
It seems to me that Blu-ray's BOGO sale was ALL AND ONLY about garnering splashy headlines, as giving away product just to manipulate the sales ratio against one opposing title does nothing to actually benefit your format. Now that's a move that doesn't represent a viable long-term business.
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High prices were the number one reason most surveyed consumers cited for staying away from high-def discs in the recent NPD Group survey, but the existence of two competing formats was not far behind.
So high prices was the number one reason cited for staying away from High Def, yet this whole tantrum is about HD-DVD addressing that number one issue. So which is it? Are low prices a good thing or a bad thing. Seems to me like the more players in homes, the more potential discs you might sell.
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And just as many people who said that price was their chief concern also said that they're happy enough with current DVD to have no interest in upgrading to high-def discs anyway.
Then Blu-ray will be similarly ignored.
mal gespannt ob die eine woche betriebsdauer aushalten hehe^^
