Now that Paramount has assured us that they’re not abandoning HD DVD, Toshiba has announced a new marketing strategy for the HD format. Players are going to get cheaper, which is already evident from today’s previous coverage. On top of lower prices for players, the entry-model HD-A3 will be $149.99, the HD-A30, with 1080p output, $199.99, and the high-end HD-A35, $299.99, will be free HD DVDs to go along with the purchase of your new HD DVD player. They’re hoping the strong holiday push they had will trickle over into the new year.
The feature sets that accompany each player are much better than that of Blu-ray players, but are cheaper prices and free discs enough to save the HD DVD camp? Paramount has great titles, but when the other camp has all the other studios in their back pocket what do you do? But now the porn industry is going the way of Blu-ray. Hmm. I’m stumped on this one.