14 DAY TRIAL // As the format war between HD DVD and Blu-ray rages on, each party is trying to come up with a certain marketing scheme, a certain edge that will make them gain some ground against the competition. And this seems to be exactly the case with a rumor that has hit the Web over the past few days, namely the Japanese company will come out with a $198 HD DVD player, sold via the Wal-Mart network.
Thus, according to the user D-X from the High Def Forum, who apparently works for a Wal-Mart store, the company's computer systems now include a reference to a Toshiba HDA2-W model, apparently being prepped to be sold for around $198 at some point in the following weeks. Unfortunately, no other details have been made available, so there's no way of knowing what the device's specs are, but don't expect a high-end device for those money. However, the fact that Toshiba's actually considering such a move might prove to be quite an intelligent strategic move for the future.
But why is this 200 US dollars threshold so important for both customers and vendors? Well, according to Paul Erickson, Director of DVD and HD Market Research at DisplaySearch (a market research arm of NPD Group), interviewed by PC World's Melissa Perenson, "The $200 price point is considered an important financial and psychological barrier to cross for a consumer electronics device to become affordable to mainstream audiences," adding that "this has been borne out in the past with DVD player, game console, and more recently, upscaling DVD player sales figures. And, according to our analysis of NPD retail sales data, consumers have thus far clearly demonstrated to be much more responsive to price, rather than content or features, when purchasing next generation DVD players. As such, getting below $200 and even $150 may actually be even more crucial for next generation formats to generate the mainstream sales numbers to succeed."
Of course, it remains to be seen if this rumor will actually prove to be true (rumors regarding Wal-Mart and cheap HD DVD players have been circulating around the Internet for quite a long time and proved to be bogus), but if Toshiba actually comes up with such a product, chances are that it will shift a few customers from Blu-ray's side (although that $399 40 GB Blu-ray-enabled PS3 looks like a very, very sweet deal, one that might have quite an impact on the sales of the format backed by Sony).
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