Dealnews is predicting very cheap larger-size HDTVs and Blu-ray players on Black Friday
Take expert predictions however you’d like—there’s a reason we’re not all living in Vegas, just ask the seven out of eight so-called ESPN experts who said the Lakers would beat the Celtics in the NBA Finals a few months ago.
Of course, we love predictions on the whole, though, so we keep ‘em coming on sports talk, politics talk, celebrity gossip talk ... and electronics talk. Dealnews is already gazing ahead at this holiday shopping season, specifically Black Friday.
Hey, we’re listening. Especially when the website says we’ll see 42-inch 720p plasma TVs going for $499. I’ll take two, thanks.
Other speculation includes: $149 Blu-ray player, $199 name-brand Blu-ray player bundled with some discs, $599 42-inch 720p LCD, $699 50-inch 720p plasma, 46- or 47-inch brand-name 1080p LCDs for $799, $99 HD camcorder, $25 7-inch digi photo frame, and a bunch of other nice-sounding deals.
Company CEO Dan de Grandpre is pretty confident about the Blu-ray odds. “Major tech blogs have predicted you’ll see a $199 Blu-ray player on Black Friday. Balderdash, I say! It’ll be much lower: We already saw a $229 Blu-ray player in August, and last year, HD-DVD player prices fell 50% overnight during the march to Black Friday. So, we’re predicting that you’ll be able to get a Blu-ray player for an astonishing $149.”
Blu-ray at HD DVD prices? Black Friday can’t come soon enough. What kind of prices do you guys predict?
Via: Crave
Share Your Predictions for Black Friday 2008 and win 16GB iPod Touch.
It should be very interesting what people are expecting this coming Black Friday....
You can post your predictions here:
http://blackfriday.dealspl.us/news?id=7
REPLY: Chirpie
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“How exactly does a price drop prove price gouging?”
Because A: it proves they can charge less and still make money on the deal, B: it proves it costs them no more to make a player than it cost Toshiba to make one and C: when they weren’t a monopoly the prices came down as HD DVD came down. Once Toshiba quit, the prices shot right back up to what they were. Their pricing is arbitrary, therefore GOUGING.
“Hardly. The hard costs for a Blu-ray player are absolutely still higher than an average DVD player.”
Proof? And from a source that isn’t the manufacturer or an interested party? And just because they decide to keep putting features in to keep the price up doesn’t mean they’re features anyone wants.
“Buying up studio support to win? I guess they are unclean in that respect, but no more than Toshiba who did the same.”
Not to the extent that Sony did. Anyway, I’m referring to the price for players shooting back up the very day Toshiba threw in the towel.
“But I’m not sure what you mean by unstable?”
Unstable enough that they’ve had to create a new special commission just to iron out all the problems with the format. Exacerbated, no doubt, by packing in a bunch of codec support and Web-enabled “features” (usually hooked to toxic DRM) that nobody wants or needs.
Put a briefer way: To each his own, but I say no to Blu Ray. Now and for all time.
REPLY: Michael
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“They’re gouging on the prices and this price drop proves it.”
How exactly does a price drop prove price gouging? This is hardly the first time someone started charging less for a new technology, which leads us to…
“The technology’s not new and by economy of scale, it should now cost them no more to produce a BR player than a standard disc player.”
Hardly. The hard costs for a Blu-ray player are absolutely still higher than an average DVD player. They’ve only just now started designing new chips that are integrating items such as multi-core CPU and graphics accelerator duties all onto one chip. The horsepower needed to decode High Definition video at Blu-ray’s bitrate speeds are multitudes greater not to mention the myriads of new codecs they now support that they must decode.
“Besides, I don’t like the way Sony does business, as made evident by their actions in this format war.”
Buying up studio support to win? I guess they are unclean in that respect, but no more than Toshiba who did the same.
“It’s obsolete technology, anyway, and the format’s unstable. Not to mention their odious DRM. “
DRM does suck. But I’m not sure what you mean by unstable? Blu-ray has had fewer teething problems for me than the troubles I went through with DVD when it was first introduced.
I’ve already sworn off Blu Ray.
They’re gouging on the prices and this price drop proves it.
The technology’s not new and by economy of scale, it should now cost them no more to produce a BR player than a standard disc player.
Besides, I don’t like the way Sony does business, as made evident by their actions in this format war.
It’s obsolete technology, anyway, and the format’s unstable. Not to mention their odious DRM.
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Nice useful technology. What is the cost of the system?
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The base requirements for Blu-Ray are significantly higher than for a plain old DVD player as can be ascertained by the minimum requirements for playing them on a PC. You can play a DVD on a 1.5 GHz computer, but you need a dual core 2.0 + GHz computer to meet the bare minimum for Blu-Ray playback.
Anyways, I think they’ll come down to $130 for Black Friday. I think the HD Camcorders will be a bit higher than mentioned, also at about $130, and I agree on the assumed pricing on the tvs.