I’ll never own a Blu-Ray player at this rate
So HD-DVD lost out, and that’s fine, I’ve gotten over it. My main course of action now is to watch the Blu-Ray players out there and snatch one up when they finally get low enough for me to feel like it’s financially OKAY to get one.
My threshold right now for an immediate purchase of a Blu-Ray player is either A) they drop to around $200 or B) Lord of the Rings comes out on Blu.
Well, “B” hasn’t even been rumored about yet, so that could be a year away, and now “A” is looking worse and worse.
In fact, since HD-DVD died a billion dollar death, prices for Blu-Ray players are going up.
GOING UP HE SAYS!
Check out this graphic below, from Tom’s Hardware:
I mean, the Sony BDP-S300 is $100 MORE than it was on January 1st.
Okay, I know…basic economics. Supply and demand. But don’t these people think that with the war over, lowering the prices would cause a serious mad rush for people to join the Blu Revolution? Instead, raising them is just delaying your product from getting out there, and in the meantime, online downloads could gain more and more momentum.
The other side of this news is that according to Tom’s Hardware, all these players listed in the graph will be obsolete in less than a year. They are actually pretty inferior since none can get online (unlike HD-DVD) for firmware upgrades, and this is a horrible setback because of the fancy new features that Blu-Ray discs will be having in the near future.
Which pretty much brings us full circle. I can’t afford one at this price and now I really don’t want to since they’ll be unable to play all the new stuff in the next version of the BD Profile.
The real downside is that even when the new ones come out, if the current market is any indication, none of them will be cheap either, so I’m looking at around 2010 before I get one.
Of course, by that time, I’ll be downloading them all anyways, so who cares?
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Those will be obsolete for the “new” features only. They can still play a Blu-Ray movies with no problem and that’s what most people do: only watch the movie. When was the last time you heard someone say: “Did you see to the live commentary, it was funny”. Btw, that’s already in profile 1.1. Only die hard fans watch them.
Anyway, I expected them to stay the same price. Are they keeping the price high so that people don’t say: “I would had waited if I had known about profile 2.0″. For now, the PS3 is still the best choice to get a future profile 2.0 player. And it can play games 
There is difference between downloading subquality HD movie versus a better quality Blu-Ray movie(higher bit rate). Sure, downloading is the future but very far down the road. It will only play catch up with the physical media.
You can read this:
Blu-Ray Won! What’s Next? What About Your DVD, Downloads, Porn, Price?
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B: LOTR in Blu-Ray . That would be the big thing if they announced it 
ok so here comes the Capn to the rescue again….
Mo, go out and buy a PS3… its the current ONLY version which will be upgradeable with any firmware updates. PS3’s are the one item that have the latest and great features that will eb able to play the new versions of Blu disks when they come out AND can have their firmware upgraded.
AND… you can play video games on it too, its a double feature product for you, and you can use it for Blu-rays now and later =)
Remember when the last time the Capn said I told ya so…. =)
$400 for 2 in 1 machine. So, $200 for the blu-ray player
Steve McGrath’s last blog post..Review: Buying Expired Domain Traffic
Well currently they run at $399.00 (some places like buy.com give you $50.00 if you are a first time buyer I think), so it comes down a bit from the other prices. It doesnt meet his $200 requirement but thats because its a two-fold product…do a search on the net for comparitive prices as well..
Dont play games?!?!?! Thats how you get your NFL fill when its not football season!!
Do you see the number of blog posts we pump out on a daily basis? I have NO time for much else, not to mention I go to school and work full-time 
But $400 is a lot…we’ll see. Like I said, $200 or Lord of the Rings.
The word is that Blu-ray players (some of the cheaper versions) will be in the $200 range around Christmas of this year. I doubt LOTR will be out before then, so you have time to wait and Dave Ramsey it!
However, the Cap’n is right about what to buy right now. You probably can’t go too wrong with a PS3 since it is already geared to receive a 2.0 firmware upgrade later this year when that profile is released.
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Poor Mike.
I think my brother already downloads all his movies onto a media server. I’m not sure it’s legal though.
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It’s easy to blame Hollywood, but it’s not. The companies making the equipment (Sony, Panasonic, etc.) are the ones determining the price points, not Hollywood. Hollywood just produces the software.
The best thing that can happen is that people don’t buy the players, thus not buying the software, forcing Hollywood to do the opposite of what all you think they do, and make the manufacturers lower their prices. They can’t sell their movies if the players are too expensive for the public to buy. Especially now, when consumer confidence in HD is so low.
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Just another example of how stupid some companies can be. I mean, we see that kind of ignorance from Hollywood all the time, but you’d expect more from an electronics company (I guess the Hollywood stupid rubbed off on them or something).
I don’t own a blu-ray and I’m not going to buy one for the very reasons you specified. All they’re doing is taking advantage of the uninformed consumers. Millions of people are getting duped into buying over-priced merchandise that will be obsolete a year after they purchase it.
Makes me angry.