Sony's BDP-S300 Blu-ray player now less than a PS3

Prices on next-gen optical HD players continue to plummet today with Sony's announced price drop on their new BDP-S300 Blu-ray Disc player. At $499 list, it's now priced for $100 less than the Playstation 3 which currently reigns supreme as the cheapest (and noisiest) BD player on the market. In fact, the move might even cannibalize PS3 sales now that BD buffs have a cheaper source for HDMI 1.3 playback from a unit offering a traditional remote control and A/V stylings. It's still $100 $200 or so more than Toshiba's cheapest HD DVD player which recently shed a Benjamin in time for Father's Day. But hey Sony, Toshiba... it's not the price that's holding back interest. It's the uncertainty you've created by launching two essentially equal but incompatible formats onto the world of consumer electronics. If you don't get your houses in order soon, your problems won't be with each other. Rather, it'll be be those traditional and not-so-traditional CE players offering set top boxes with big disks and HD video on demand that form the roots of your demise.

[brewin @ Jun 4th 2007 5:07AM]

Yeah, but can it run Folding@Home?

[ph @ Jun 4th 2007 5:08AM]

Of course, an HD DVD player is/was 250 dollars with a couple free movies at amazon.

[brutha @ Jun 4th 2007 5:09AM]

HD-DVD will win eventually....

[hemmy @ Jun 4th 2007 5:23AM]

Not without Fox, Sony, MGM, Disney, Lionsgate it ain't.

[Count Porkula @ Jun 4th 2007 5:51AM]

I don't care if its free. If it has Sony's name on it - the same assholes who fund the RIAA and install rootkits on its customers' computers - you'll NEVER find it or any other Sony product in my house. What a despicable, horrible company.

[JET @ Jun 4th 2007 6:59AM]

The format war has left me sad. I have both a PS3 and a stand-alone HD-DVD player (the 360 add-on is junk). Both formats are essentially the same, but industry politics look likely to prevent them from ever being unified. The last time two competing high-end technologies went head to head was Super Audio CD vs DVD-Audio, and we all know how well that turned out. They both lost to direct downloads. MP3s may sound like crap, but they are convenient and cheap.

360 has an impressive offering of HD (720p, 640kb audio) through X-Box Live. I expect cable & satellite services to beef up their HD VOD offerings. While I appreciate the difference between a low bitrate downloaded HD movie and an actual HD disk, I expect that I am in the extreme minority. Most people simply do not care about Dolby TrueHD or even, for that matter, 1080p.

Still, it is great that the players themselves are dropping in price. Be interesting to see if those prices drive sales. I mean, come on, only 13,000 copies of both HD Matrix sets combined sold (some for as little as $20 at Circuit City)? Only 30,000 copies of each of the two Pirates of the Carribean disks? Those are pretty sad numbers for formats that have been out for almost a year.

JET

[Corrupt @ Jun 19th 2007 5:48AM]

Excuse me, high bitrate mp3 does not sound like crap. Place the poor audio quality blame strictly on AAC thank you very much >_>.

[Chuckles McGee @ Jun 4th 2007 7:52AM]

The price is holding back interest-knowing there's a chance that your player could pull a Betamax and die off is going to make you significantly less likely to want to buy now. Spend $400 to upgrade to the newest HD format, even if the players might be going for $200 in a year? $200 for an added year of primo quality, future compatible entertainment is going to be worth it for many. But if there's a reasonable chance that either format will die (and this point I think most will agree it could go either way), a chance that you'll be out $400 for a piece of junk AND need to spend $200,$100 however much to get the right player, well, that's going to make people much more leery.

Really, if Sony or whoever was just willing to bite the bullet a release small quantities of sub $200 units after rebate, take a temporary loss in order to hit a magic price point early, it would certainly beat the massive loss of losing all the money it's invested in a format.

[nikster @ Jun 4th 2007 8:41AM]

I don't think it's so much losing the money invested in the format. It's about cashing in on ridiculous licensing fees from the whole world.

Philips and Sony "developed" the CD and henceforth cashed in some amount for every CD ever made. That adds up quickly. Now they want to do the same with BluRay. Whereas the other camp... wants to do the same with HD-DVD!

I with somebody would just come out with a 3rd standard and make it open and free. The whole world would benefit - at the expense of a handful of tech companies.

[Josurr @ Jun 4th 2007 8:11AM]

Noisest BD player?

You must have got a crappy PS3 then... My PS3 is leaps and bounds quieter than my 360 Elite when playing a BD movie or PS3 game (even after running Folding@Home for 12 straight hours).

[Heath Stahl @ Jun 4th 2007 8:46AM]

Re-read what he said. Yes nosiest BD player. He didn't say the PS3 was louder then the 360 as that has nothing to do with it being a BD player. Fact: stand alone BD players are quieter then the PS3. Its not a knock on the PS3.

[nikster @ Jun 4th 2007 8:43AM]

I wish..

Engadget, can we have an edit function for those of us with the "can't get spelling and/or grammar right at first attempt" disability? Thank!

[kempcross @ Jun 4th 2007 3:32PM]

Fact: My PS3 is silent when playing BD movies. Pretty hard to get quieter than silent.

[Josurr @ Jun 4th 2007 9:03AM]

Ah, thank you for clarifying that... It's almost 6 AM on the West coast and I'm running on 3 hours of sleep for a 10 hour work-day... this is going to be long day

[Rick Lyon @ Jun 4th 2007 9:25AM]

So a year ago Sony tells Pioneer, Samsung, Panasonic and others "hey, you can sell these things $1000+ and even $1500 will sale because we are Sony and we have most of the studios and BRD is the clear cut winner. Hey, we are even selling ours of over $1000 so don't worry about it, make huge profits off our format!"

I wonder how happy Sony has made the other BRD makers now that Sony has left them in the $1000+ cold?

[Yeti @ Jun 4th 2007 9:41AM]

I think it's funny that this is in the post:

"It's still $100 or so more than Toshiba's cheapest HD DVD player..."

But if you follow the link you'll see the Toshiba is $200 cheaper ($299 vs. $499) and that's retail B&M. It's even cheaper online.

[ipacmsm @ Jun 4th 2007 9:46AM]

You also have to remember, the A2 does not have 1080P, the only HD-DVD player that does 1080P is the A20, which is also $499 so you cant even, say HD-DVD is cheaper when it isn't.

[Nate @ Jun 4th 2007 9:58AM]

The XA2 does 1080p also AND the A20 is currently selling for $329 on amazon. So 1080p for $329 buddy.

[jason w @ Jun 4th 2007 10:04AM]

It doesnt matter wich format wins or looses. I have a PS3, 360 HDdvd Player, and a Toshiba HDA1. The A1 gives the best picture out of the bunch. There were a few movies I have on both formats (HDDVD and BluRay) Total recall and Terminator 2 (Both are imports). The HDdvd version has slightly better visuals but the audio is a small small bit different than the bluray version. But who cares.... Get a hddvd player and up convert DVDs if movie is not on your system. I bought a few movies on DVD this week and with a few tweeks there was minimal difference between a good upconvert dvd on my 42 inch dlp from 14 feet away than from a bluray or HDDVD. Some mall brightness issues and saturation issues but nothing most people would notice.
Buy one and upconvert those that are not on your system....

[Evan @ Jun 4th 2007 10:43AM]

If I wanted a Blu-Ray player, I would definately buy this stand-alone player over a PS3...
- uses an IR remote control, so I could control it with my Harmony remote.
- looks better, it would fit in better with my other AV equipment.
- quieter.

But, I'm not going to buy anything until the format war is decided. I already have a DVD-Audio player, I'm not going to do that again.

[Jimd @ Jun 4th 2007 10:48AM]

Well, The Digital Bits has thrown their hat into the Blu-Ray arena.

http://www.thedigitalbits.com/articles/soapbox/soap060107.html

I don't have a Blu-Ray player, but I do have the HD add on to the 360. And it's not a piece of junk as someone said earlier. It actually works pretty good.

[Sy @ Jun 4th 2007 10:52AM]

The $499 price is MSRP ...its not a street price. The Amazon $329 price is a street price. Stop comparing MSRP with street prices. The MSRP of the A20 is still $499 ...they are both the same. I am sure retailers and Sony will have a promotion/sale for the S300 at point or another.

[JET @ Jun 4th 2007 11:13AM]

Jimd, that was me that said the 360 add-on drive is junk. I stand by that statement. Here's why:

1. The 360 is too noisy to have running while trying to watch a movie
2. No support for any audio over 1.5Mbps
3. Extremely limited display information
4. Incompatibility with certain movies
5. Lack of full HDi support

That's why I sold my add-on and bought an A2 instead. Nice player; wish it was 1080p with DTS HD-MA support.

JET

[Jimd @ Jun 4th 2007 3:23PM]

Jet,

I have had no problems with the add-on being noisy and it sits on my entertainment center to the side of my 50" plasma. I've also had no problems watching any of the 30+ movies I own or the movies I rent from netflix. All of them worked. Even the extra stuff.

What parts of HDi do you have problems with? What movies?

[Steve Nguyen @ Jun 4th 2007 11:42AM]

If the two hardware platforms drop to

[Jitty @ Jun 4th 2007 4:52PM]

Seriously, I'm beginning to think that who ever wrote this might be a "hater". A price drop should be a good thing but you turned into something almost completely negative in every aspect and start talking about how digital downloads will probably beat blu-ray. And your line "It's the uncertainty you've created by launching two essentially equal but incompatible formats onto the world of consumer electronics" So now it's their fault that there is format war going on? Are they suppose to just let Toshiba win to make you happy? If sony wins the format war I bet I'll see you try to turn it negative as well: "Well, sony won the format war, but they still suck..."

[Johnny @ Jun 4th 2007 4:56PM]

Wait... Sony waited 7 months after releasing the PS3 to roll out a standalone BD player that was priced less then the PS3? In what crazy Japanese business school of thought that does even make remote sense?

Sony obviously tried to push systems the same way they did the PS2, by selling it at lower prices then current standalone players. Seeing how they are trying to win a format war this time, I'm suprised to took them two fiscal quarters to realise the same trick wasn't going to work twice.

Stories like this just make the recent news about Vizio and other budget manufacturers slaughtering Sony's bottom line in the LCD HDTV market all the more sweet. The free market sucks when you can't control the competition with locked down proprietary standards and formats, doesn't it Sony-san?

[Dave @ Jun 4th 2007 4:59PM]

Great player for great price...

[Gman @ Jun 4th 2007 5:34PM]

Count Porkula: Sony made a big mistake by doing that with the RIAA... I think they learned from there mistake! But with Microshaft backing HD-DVD, I personally thing Sony is the lesser of the two evils.. Oh that's right I almost forgot Microsoft Vista, the the greatest thing since sliced bread.. Microsoft has been sued more times than the Pope has said Amen! Again I am not going to be some Microsoft hater just because of a few mistakes, the same goes with Sony.

[JBDragon @ Jun 4th 2007 11:14PM]

What does being Sued have to do with anything? When your the Top Dog, and/or have lots of money, your a Target for someone else to get some of it. Doesn't matter if you did something wrong or not. Chances of winning are good, or at the very least a quiet settlement because it's just cheaper then fighting it. Lots of dumb Judges out there, and even more Stupid Jury's.

[gettamac @ Jun 22nd 2007 12:33PM]

Why did SONY release a cheaper player than it's very own PS3? Cause they make their money on the games. More people are picking up the PS3 to watch movies rather than buying and playing games. Now SONY has divided the two markets by making an affordable player for those who just want to watch 1080p movies and as a result more PS3 units will be on the helves for those spending the bucks on games.

[Djchicken @ Jun 23rd 2007 9:07PM]

For those saying that the 360 HD player is good, remember that you don't get,
-High quality adio, you're stuck at 1.5 mbps
-HDMI support, unless you pay $480 for the elite+ $200 for the player, which is more expensive than the DMP-BD10A, so Microsoft's, really ripping you off good on the HD add on. Whereas the PS3 for 600 gives you next gen media and gaming, with HDMI and optical audio, for cheaper than an elite with HD add-on. And with Blu-ray have such a massive corporate support, its too bad that my 360's going to miss out on HD.