Future Shop offers trade-in credit for HD DVD players, will donate old decks to charity

Slowly but surely, we're seeing retailer after retailer conjure up its own trade-in / exchange program to deal with the finality of the format war. Canada's Future Shop, however, has certainly put an interesting twist on things. First off, it'll accept standalone HD DVD players purchased from anywhere until April 3rd. In exchange, you'll receive $100 off the purchase of an LG or Samsung Blu-ray / HD DVD combo player, but not a standalone Blu-ray player of any kind. Unfortunately, that means your options are pretty limited, but we can certainly understand the retailer's desire to wash its hands of anything with an HD DVD logo on it. Better still, Future Shop will be donating all of the returned HD DVD players to the Boys and Girls Clubs of Canada "for use in their after-school and evening programs." Now if that's not a reason to trade-up, we don't know what is.

[Thanks, Josh]

[cc413 @ Mar 7th 2008 9:31AM]

well lets not forget the peope with HD DVD players still want to be able to play there HDDVD movies so a combo player is really the only logical trade in.

[Brent @ Mar 7th 2008 9:33AM]

It's too bad that they had to raise the price of their duals by $300 before they did this..... Garbage.....

[ZeitgeistXIII @ Mar 7th 2008 9:42AM]

Well it is Best Buy with a different name.

[Nate @ Mar 7th 2008 9:47AM]

In other news: Engadget has managed to post a non-Apple related story.

Good job! Neet-o!

[ssuk @ Mar 7th 2008 11:57AM]

Oh come now, the ratio of Apple posts and non-Apple posts favours non-Apple posts quite nicely. However, you are quite right to think they post more Apple posts than any other company, regardless that Apple only throws out a small amount of products a year. Especially when Weblogs, Inc. already have TUAW to put all those stories into.

[Matt @ Mar 7th 2008 9:54AM]

Nate, no one's forcing you to read the site.

[Nate @ Mar 7th 2008 9:58AM]

Matt, no one's forcing you to read my post or to use contractions in strange ways.

[Bubba @ Mar 7th 2008 10:16AM]

I'think'I've'just'lost'a'few'brain'cells'reading'your'posts''' (no contractions intended)

[JD @ Mar 7th 2008 10:18AM]

How do you know that Nate is not being forced to read these forums!? Nate, you'd better not listen to Matt! Get busy and get every one of these dang posts read ASAP or you are in for a major arse whoopin!

[Aron Trimble @ Mar 7th 2008 10:43AM]

Nate, no one's forcing you to be a turd sandwich - yet surprisingly, you never fail to amaze...

[PhilxBefore @ Mar 7th 2008 12:15PM]

Yea, but who would waste two perfectly good pieces of bread by putting a turd in between them?

[morganpershick @ Mar 7th 2008 10:02AM]

Personally I feel so jaded by this "Special Promo" that FS is putting forth. I applaude thier efforts but to force someone to buy a combo machine is garbage!

[Phil @ Mar 7th 2008 10:25AM]

to force? LOL whos forcing you to buy anything? Good on them, they dont have to do anything. But they did.

[Josh @ Mar 7th 2008 10:32AM]

When did I ever say force? I said "forth".

And yes you're right that they don't have to do anything but when the employess are commission based and the machines were at a sweet price point with the mail in rebate and 3 free movies and by getting the buyers to get one of their over priced "Monster cables" people got hosed.

As an ex-employee(who left for greener pastures and a career) I know what they make on those cables. For each HDDVD player sold at that time, the average guy would have been making $12+ on each one sold (not including any warranty). Push 5 of those out in a day and you've had some nice extra padding to your daily sales.

[caleb @ Mar 7th 2008 10:42AM]

@Josh,
Assuming you are also "morganpershick", you said:
"I applaude thier efforts but to *force* someone to buy a combo machine is garbage!"

if you are not also "morganpershick", WTF are you talking about?

[Josh @ Mar 7th 2008 10:50AM]

My bad. Seems as though my wife's account logged in for me originally.

My problem is that if you want to be a part of this program, you don't get the option to buy a $400 player. They want you to spend $600+ for the luxury of being able to play both formats. Realistically, who are they taking care of here? It sure isn't the customers. They're tying to do something to unload the inventory of combos because they're bound to go EOL any time now and they don't want it rotting on their shelves.

Who in their right mind would even bother buying one of the combos now? Noone with half a brain. This is a crap offer and they should do something better. Circuit City did.

[PhilxBefore @ Mar 7th 2008 12:19PM]

"Who in their right mind would even bother buying one of the combos now? Noone with half a brain. "

Ok Sherlock, seems to me you're the one with half the brain.

How about those who already own HD-DVDs but are now forced to switch over to Blu-Ray format?

You'd have to have half a brain to rebuy the HD-DVD titles you already own on a new BD disc. Waste twice you're money? You're kidding.

Its a small price for those who would like the luxury of not having to worry about which format they are sticking in their players when watching a movie.

[Josh @ Mar 7th 2008 12:49PM]

No need to start flaming.

That's a crock of $h!t. Anyone who falls for this trap is a fool. They'd be better off spending the $400 on a standalone or PS3 then they can use the remaining $200+ on either replacing their HDDVDs(probably still not on BluRay - Paramount anyone?)or getting themselves some new movies to go along with is.

FS/BestBuy is trying to feed their customers garbage but telling them it's fillet mignon.

[Dauthi @ Mar 7th 2008 1:21PM]

Customers would be spending 100$ more to be able to play the movies they already bought.

(600-100=500>400)
(500

[Dauthi @ Mar 7th 2008 1:25PM]

Let's try again, now that I know Engadget doesn't like lesser-than signs.

Customers would be spending 100$ more to be able to play the movies they already bought.

(600-100=500>400)

Unless the customer has less than 100$ in HDDVD movies/media, I think it's a pretty good deal for everyone involved.

(500 [is lesser than] 400+150$ in BR movies)

If you don't want to take them up on their completely (unnecessary, non-compulsory) deal, that's your prerogative. But stfu.

[JoN @ Mar 7th 2008 8:14PM]

c'mon Josh... you're a bby employee right? i dont know how many people around here know what EOL is :)... seriously though... its so they can watch the hd-dvds they already have... and uh... oh yea cash in on the fire sales...

[impressme @ Mar 7th 2008 2:31PM]

Hopefully Microsoft will do the same with their Xbox 360 HD-DVD player and allow a similar trade-in program once they release a Blu-ray version.

[Rafer @ Mar 7th 2008 10:15AM]

Thats like George trying to give a book to charity that he had with him in the bathroom... You dont give failed products to charity.

[tom @ Mar 7th 2008 10:26AM]

Sure you do, that explain why my community centre always has a beta tape player strapped on a VCR under the tv cart.

LOL

[Chris McDowell @ Mar 7th 2008 10:32AM]

They might do recycling at the charity and get some cash for the device. You know pull out the metal and all that stuff from electronics and send them out for cash. I doubt a charity is going to have a ton of hd dvd plyers running on their hdtv's.

[Jeff @ Mar 7th 2008 1:06PM]

I was actually thinking of another Seinfeld reference before reading yours: the "Top of the Muffin" episode.

HD-DVD players are the muffin stumps of this decade.

I'm waiting for Rebecca DeMornay to call out Futureshop.

[Fall-Apart @ Mar 7th 2008 3:57PM]

They still upconvert regular DVDs.

[jason w @ Mar 7th 2008 10:34AM]

Yea God knows no one wants content for those 1.5 million HDDVD players int he world. Those people just want to burn those players....
Or they are like me and look at them sitting right next to my BR player and think damn im only paying $10.00 a movie right now. ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha haha ha ha ha

Infact im not looking at a BR movie again while these sales are on except Sly and Arnold's movies that will be hitting the shelves in the next few months....
Sorry but Rambo was freaking to good to pass up. I want to go frame by frame to check the body count.

[B @ Mar 7th 2008 11:50AM]

I tried counting, but there's just too many. Once he gets on that 50 cal, all hell breaks loose. It was easier counting how many enemies got an arrow through the neck. sweet movie

[darkroom @ Mar 7th 2008 10:34AM]

(article continues)... Unfortunately, Canada's Future Shop employees are mostly incompetent high school boys who spend most of their time in the car-stereo section flirting with girls. Customers interested in taking advantage of this promotion are encouraged to donate their HD-DVD players themselves, and purchase a new Blu-Ray Player in another one of Canada's fine retailers whos employees are not as dumb as toast.

[Josh @ Mar 7th 2008 10:36AM]

HAHAHAHA!!!

[Tyler @ Mar 7th 2008 10:49AM]

This is almost too true. Once we were buying a surround sound receiver from Future Shop and we strategically grabbed the box and nearly jolted for the front registers to avoid the sales people - it turns out that one of their reps saw doing this and once we got to the front cash, this dude HURDLES over the counter and says "I'll take it from here". Stunned by his brash behaviour, we proceeded to return the product the next day. What a douche.

[ragnarok @ Mar 7th 2008 11:10AM]

There's Canada for you...

[chad @ Mar 7th 2008 10:50AM]

Typical corporation gives crap to charity... Enven when they don't there has to be a sales angle to it. We get it right and left and do it thinking we have wonderful stuff and we get is poked and smile while they do it. Wake up people corporate greed is ugly!

[Steve @ Mar 7th 2008 5:29PM]

Awesome darkroom, I can definitely tell you've thought that through. Buy a new blu-ray player and what to do with all the HDDVD's purchased? Donate them? So instead of getting a 100 bucks towards a blu-ray/HD DVD player, you lose all the money invested in HD DVD, and then spend MORE to buy the blu-ray player and blu-ray movies. The players are donated either way, why not save some cash and go with the deal? Because Future Shop employees are mostly "incompetent high school boys", yet the 3 Future Shops around where I live, are young men in their 20's, and know more than anyone I know. So please refrain from making ignorant and useless comments.

[ragnarok @ Mar 7th 2008 11:08AM]

I wonder if that would apply to my laptop?

[JL @ Mar 7th 2008 11:10AM]

Not meaning to sound facetious but other than the format being "dead", how is exchanging
an HDDVD player for a BR player a trade up? - I can understand the exchange for credit toward
a combo player being a trade up but for stand-alone for stand-alone? I mean, player capability-wise
aren't there more similarities than differences? Is this language more an engadget thing (trade up
from HDDVD to BR).

I don't have either, was just wondering....

[bdkennedy1 @ Mar 7th 2008 11:41AM]

I hate it when companies think that donating a bunch of crap to kids is a good thing. Out of the only 1 1/2 years of movies available, how many of those can kids actually watch?

[Matt @ Mar 7th 2008 11:53AM]

Its still a DVD player, there's tons of movies they can watch.

[webterractive @ Mar 7th 2008 7:23PM]

I'll keep my player thank you very much, at least it upscales. I'm not going Blu-ray because DVD will bring it down shortly.

[ecobore @ Mar 7th 2008 2:23PM]

And the boys and girls clubs will surely but slowly dump them in the recycle cart!

[tekdroid @ Mar 8th 2008 1:14AM]

just the other day I suggested Sony do something similar instead of (supposedly) destroying them and recycling.

Nice going. Useful things need to be USED.

[Tyler @ Mar 8th 2008 4:19AM]

I see the discussion has gone elsewhere, but I'll ask anyway: how probable would it be for a yank to cross the border and return his HD DVD player (purchased on Amazon) to take advantage of this canuck (US Owned Canuck) company and retain functionality over his existing HD DVD collection?

Will my US Driver's license give me away, or can I roll in confident with Future Shop's reputation for lazy high school boys to allow me to take advantage of High Def Amnesty?

[Joe66 @ Mar 8th 2008 2:39PM]

Half-OT: I'm wondering why most of these players are designed in such a drab and boring way...the companies could at least try to make the players look a bit more exciting, like this one SACD-player from sony with this thin disc tray. or build some oled display with some fancy colors, and not this el-cheapo b/w display from yesteryear...

[chris @ Mar 8th 2008 8:28PM]

All of those who bought an HD-DVD player need to stop whining. You made the choice of buying a player before the war was over. If you were smart you would have bought a ps3 then if blu-ray had lost then at the very least you would have a gaming console. And your investment into an HD-DVD player is now only going to decline in value so you may as well try and get something with a bit more usability in the long run.