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Hold your horses, sports fans. Don’t go declaring Blu-ray the winner of anything just yet, despite the fact that Toshiba original story titlethrew in the towel this week. Sony and the rest of the Blu-ray camp still has one more foe they need to tackle—perception. The perception that regular DVD is “good enough” and that Blu-ray is too expensive.
Contacting a Chicago retailer, Bits finds that demand for Blu-ray in the now post-HD-DVD world isn’t any higher. The retailer warned Sony not too get too cocky and charge exorbitant prices for Blu-ray even though it’s now the de-facto standard in high-def discs. If people can buy a —here’s that phrase again—”good enough” DVD player for $75 and discs for $15, why should they have to shell out hundreds of dollars for a Blu-ray player (even if it plays video games) and pay a premium for the actual movies? Joe Consumer isn’t made of money; videophiles are but they hardly constitute a major portion of the population.
Sony shouldn’t abuse its position in the market now. Rather, it needs to focus on lowering prices or it will find itself with an expensive toy that only a few people give a damn about.
Blu-ray Won the Battle. Now Comes the War [Bits New York Times Blog]