Lack of competition sends Blu-ray player prices upward

Late last month, we actually posed the question of buying a Blu-ray player now (being that the format war is over and all), or waiting things out until prices sink and Profile 2.0 players flood the market. Aside from the PlayStation 3 -- which is actually priced fairly reasonably if you were in the hunt for a new console anyway -- it seems as though HD DVD's exit has actually caused Blu-ray player prices to creep back upwards. Granted, this is about as far from surprising as it gets -- after all, it's nothing short of supply and demand working its magic. Still, it wasn't too long ago that we saw Toshiba actively putting pressure on the Blu camp to reduce prices in order to stay competitive, and now that said pressure has vanished, stickers on the whole have headed north. Ah well, it's not like the consumer didn't ask for this, um, right?

[Asher Madan @ Mar 12th 2008 10:07PM]

Can mononolistic and monopolistic be interchanged? Don't they refer to the same thing? I might be wrong, but can someone please clarify that?

[Luis @ Mar 13th 2008 1:10AM]

are these average prices from the big box stores? or the MSRP? Its hard to believe these players even cost that much. I've seen most Blu Ray players for around the 399.99 mark and slightly lower.

[Jimbo @ Mar 12th 2008 9:49PM]

Supply and demand, I'm afraid. Blu-ray players are worth more now.

The early adopters still have a year or so to be fleeced. If you want cheap, get an upconverting DVD player. If you want the latest and greatest, expect to pay a bit more.

Not a thing wrong with that. All the cool tech on this site costs a lot of money to develop.

[RyanTV @ Mar 12th 2008 10:19PM]

Unfortunately you would hope that with Sony being able to sell more Blu-Ray players, they could up production and lower price points for consumers. But unfortunately for us, Sony would rather gouge it's customers... They have been doing it for decades, so why not now?

The thing they *should* be looking at is that the more players they sell, the more movie titles they will sell and that is where the REAL money is to be made. Espically seeing that Sony gets licensing fees from studios on every title sold and not to mention that they are themselves a major movie studio.

It's kind of like the reason that they sell PS3 and Xbox's early on for a fiscal loss. They know they are going to more than make it up in the back end.

For me? I'll stick with DVD. At much as i like the way Blu-Ray titles look, the upfront cost of players and not to mention the astronomical costs for media compared to DVD is just way too high.

[Will @ Mar 12th 2008 11:39PM]

@RyanTV

I wasn't aware they could spontaneously and instantly create blu ray players out of thin air, right on the retail shelves.

Ramping up production to meet the demand will take time.

[Garst @ Mar 13th 2008 7:18AM]

@RyanTV

This is nothing like the game console superiority battle, Sony doesn't "sell" movies. Yes, they one Screen Gems, but all those other studios don't profit them.

[Sam @ Mar 13th 2008 8:11AM]

so they don't make money off of sony picture entertainment, columbia tristar, etc?
because i'm pretty sure sony owns those movie companies, plus a huge back catalog of movies it sells to make $$.

[Chris @ Mar 14th 2008 8:32AM]

@Ryan TV
Study some economics before you make irrelevant comments. Supply and demand, basic economic theory.

[Jon Leach @ Mar 12th 2008 9:51PM]

I guess they don't want to sell to many then. We are in a recession and I for one, won't be shelling out big bucks!

[James @ Mar 12th 2008 10:15PM]

Im guessing sony wants to sell some more ps3's.

[Killer @ Mar 12th 2008 9:51PM]

Alright the LG BH200 Average price is 666 for today. :P I don't feel like saying anything about this post-format war, besides I'm sure everyone below this comment will do it for me. 3...2...1...Fight.

[paragraph @ Mar 12th 2008 10:55PM]

Isn't the BH200 the BD/HDDVD player

;)

[Shawn @ Mar 12th 2008 9:51PM]

jiminy jillickers radioactive man radioactive man, they're up to no good!

[sinai @ Mar 12th 2008 9:51PM]

when i said this was going to happen when everyone was celebrating the death of HD DVD, everyone ranked me down.

i love saying it: I FUCKING TOLD YOU SO.

at least the price of the PS3 can only go down, right?

[Phour ZwanZig @ Mar 12th 2008 10:00PM]

Same Here man.. I was with ya.. This is all to make the PS3 look like a better buy to drive console numbers up, seeing games arent doin it.

[E71 @ Mar 12th 2008 10:16PM]

...And what do you think Toshiba and its posse would have done with HD-DVD player prices if HD-DVD did win?

Exactly.

[jtc970 @ Mar 12th 2008 10:22PM]

Sometimes comments get ranked down not for what you say but, how you Fu*kin say it.

[sinai @ Mar 12th 2008 10:31PM]

@E71 - my argument was that a winner - any winner - would hold a chokehold on the market and would raise prices. maybe you should check things before you try to come off sounding smart. it's clear you're not used to it.

still, it's clear that since sony has another horse in the race with the ps3 (and with all the crushing losses they've taken on that) it would have been more likely that sony would have raised prices to help cover up those losses.

[eugene @ Mar 12th 2008 10:34PM]

I was saying the exact same thing. Minutes after Warner went blu, sony raised prices on their blu-ray players, while all those BD fanboys were running around saying how prices would come down.

Why the hell would prices come down with ZERO competition? Fucking idiots.

[LegendZ28 @ Mar 12th 2008 10:43PM]

Yeah, cause you're the only one that understands simple economics. You really went out on a limb on that one.

[ScareyJ @ Mar 12th 2008 10:53PM]

The fact that Sony has been using rebates to price compete should've been a big indicator for people.

[Will @ Mar 12th 2008 11:07PM]

You guys just dont get it. The prices will fall, as production on blu-ray players picks up steam.

Right now, with HDDVD gone, demand has increased for blu-ray, before supply can realistically increase. This, of course, creates a shortage... and with shortages, come increased prices. You can bet that with the increased demand, suppliers will start ramping up production and we will soon get back down to reasonable price points.

[insertAlias @ Mar 13th 2008 12:11AM]

I'll admit I was wrong, at least for now. I thought that competition would come from competing brand names all selling Blu-Ray, and that would drive prices down. In fact, I still think that will happen. After all, what competition did DVD have?

I still think that the format war hurt consumers more than it helped. It artificially lowered prices, but it also delayed widespread acceptance and bilked some early adopters out of a lot of money (which was a loss for everyone, since Toshiba still lost money). Now that the "war" is over, the prices are moving closer to where they naturally would have been. Hopefully, consumer demand and brand competition will bring the prices back down pretty soon.

[rokerovakero @ Mar 13th 2008 2:13AM]

yeah... IN 2 YEARS AT LEAST!

[Sukhminder @ Mar 13th 2008 4:32AM]

You're right, just look at DVD, once VHS was out of the way the prices went sky high! The technology's monopoly isn't the problem. Wait a few months while production gets ramped up and you'll see prices come down.

[Poom @ Mar 13th 2008 6:12AM]

It was because you forgot to consider how there are many companies producing blu-ray players. If you only said something like "there will be more demand for blu-ray, so price will go up", you wouldn't have been ranked low.

[Hold Mcgroin @ Mar 13th 2008 11:30AM]

So Sony forced f*ckin Sharp, f*ckin Pioneer, f*ckin Panasonic, f*ckin LG, and f*ckin Samsung to raise their prices?!?!? F*ck that f*ckin Sony!!!!

What an idiot. They're going to start selling players for a profit instead of a loss because they don't have to compete with HD-DVD prices now. BluRay is a standard not a proprietary format you idiot. Why are you high school kids so f*ckin dumb? Oh right, George f*ckin Bush.

[ManekiNeko @ Mar 13th 2008 11:41AM]

Not everyone! I knew that nothing good would come from Sony's high-def dominance.

[SimbaDogg @ Mar 13th 2008 1:55PM]

Your told you so is nothing to celebrate. Of course you were right, but anyone who thinks/thought that if HD DVD won, their prices would remain the same/continue to fall is just as naive/as much of an idiot. Did you see the post on engadget saying that toshiba lost 1 billion dollars subsidizing their loses on their hd dvd players? If you honestly think they would continue that, your crazy. So i would hardly consider toshiba the lesser or two evils here. I'm not a sony/microsoft/apple hater like so many people on this site, so it isn't hard for me to say that all these companies are robber barrons, just a matter of which one you like more.

[Mike @ Mar 13th 2008 3:30PM]

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/03/05/a-299-sony-blu-ray-player-but-no-cheap-chinese-models/?ref=technology

Mr. Glasgow expressed hope that price levels wouldn’t collapse the way they did for DVD players. To protect against this, he said the Blu-ray Association, the group that controls the Blu-ray standard, has not licensed it to any manufacturers in China. (Cheap players from China were a large part of the collapse of the DVD player market.)

They are keeping prices high on purpose. It's fact straight from their mouths.

[WickedEast @ Mar 13th 2008 10:45PM]

If you look at the price fluctuations before and after the official end of the so-called format war (late February) and take the time to think a bit, you will realize that prices going upward the author claims is total BS and unscientific. And comparing these prices with the MSRP will tell you that the price variations have nothing to do with the "lack of competition", which is an equally ridiculous claim. File this "article" as FUD.

[Killer @ Mar 12th 2008 9:51PM]

and above it.

[Killer @ Mar 12th 2008 9:52PM]

Nice to see the reply system still has issues.

[Macha88 @ Mar 12th 2008 11:19PM]

lol.

[Mike @ Mar 12th 2008 9:53PM]

think you mean "monopolistic"

and the fact you listed off three competing companies, and an indication you were too lazy to list more, completely negates your accusation.

[Drew @ Mar 12th 2008 9:53PM]

I'm not sure what a mononolistic market is, but downloads just don't come close to matching the quality of Blu-Ray or HD-DVD yet.

[Drew @ Mar 12th 2008 11:04PM]

The original post that I (and Mike and Jimbo) replied to has been deleted, apparently.

[Jimbo @ Mar 12th 2008 9:54PM]

Perhaps you don't know what a monopoly is.

Sony doesn't have a monopoly on blu-ray players. Many companies make them. Toshiba will probably be making some eventually. They are very expensive because they are the best mass produced product of their kind.

Downloads? Perhaps you mean illegally torrenting movies. Well, no one cares about you as a customer, so you don't get a vote in the future of electronics. You have to be profitable before companies want your business.

Perhaps you mean some kind of itunes service. That kind of thing will not be possible for most Americans for a long time. It probably won't even seriously compete with blu-ray's successor tech. And for those who can use this stuff, more power to 'em. not like Sony doesn't make even higher profits this way.

Blu-ray isn't seriously meant to displace downloads. They are separate niches to profit from. Content sellers get to make money from both.

anyway, if you really HATE sony and others so much, you must be a real charmer in person. What kind of sick twisted weirdo is that full of anger?

By all means, get a DVD player, which is obviously a smarter buy. You will find that the blu-ray makers also are in the DVD business. Slightly different niches again.

[DavidD @ Mar 13th 2008 8:47PM]

While your comment on the fact that Sony doesn't have a monopoly on Blu-ray production is true, they do have a monopoly on a signifant part of the price: the patent/copyright which drives the royalty payments. If Sony chose to charge a high price for the royalty per player, all the Blu-ray players would increase in price.

[Mike @ Mar 12th 2008 9:54PM]

think you mean "monopolistic"

and the fact you listed off three competing companies, and an indication you were too lazy to list more, completely negates your accusation.

[Flashpoint @ Mar 12th 2008 9:55PM]

After HDDVD was chainsawed in half and left for the vultures, the format war ended and people knew which format that they'd be spending their next dime on.

Yes - it is supply and demand that forcing the price up, but I doubt that this will continue very long. Consumer spending is being driven down by oil prices and cost of living increases and I read many reports which show that electronics spending has been hurt by the Bush Economy.

I believe that this will help PS3 sales tremendously since most lay consumers shopping for HD TV's will be coaxed into an HD disk player by their fellow Best Buy, Circuit City scam arti--- I mean, salesmen.

Wait until Americans get the Bush Tax Rebate. I think Blu Ray player sales will jump by 23%.

[Phour ZwanZig @ Mar 12th 2008 10:03PM]

K.. just like everyone else sayin its supply and demand..

Answer this.. Why hasnt the Wii's price gone up then besides on eBay.. Supply and demand has nothing to do with it.. MRSPs dont flux, only drops if anything..

[Ignatius @ Mar 12th 2008 10:04PM]

I'm actually planning on saving my tax refund. I have bills to pay.

[Ignatius @ Mar 12th 2008 9:58PM]

HAH! I was freaking RIGHT!

http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/16/toshiba-pulling-the-plug-on-hd-dvd-already/comments/10492575/

Eat me. :O

[miglaugh @ Mar 12th 2008 10:31PM]

Double? not quite.

[BigD145 @ Mar 12th 2008 10:01PM]

And yet if/when the demand for PS3's jump, the price will not. If anything, it'll drop. How did that happen?

[Gary Combs @ Mar 13th 2008 10:43AM]

Well, that all depends if supply can meet demand. Case in point, the Nintendo Wii. What is it, like $250 for the console right? Nearly a year and a half later, is it easy to go out and spend $250 and get a Wii? No I think not. Yes, the possibility exists, but likely, one would have to order a bundle package, (like I did). While yes, the bundle package includes additional things, it still artificially increased the price of the console. Furthermore, as I'm sure you know, ebay users spent plenty of money on the Wii, well above the "regular" retail price.

Therefore, if production can not meet demand, then yes, the price of the PS3 will increase due to its scarcity, though maybe not from Sony directly.

[roole @ Mar 12th 2008 10:00PM]

"Lack of competition sends..... prices upward?"

Wow, I did not know that! Wait, no, that can't be! Can someone please explain?

[xman @ Mar 13th 2008 12:48AM]

Very simple put: Look at oil and gas prices right now. World wide use has gone up but OPEC will not increase the supply. Guess what? Prices continue to go up. If alternative sources of energy are more widespread, the supply of oil increases and thus OPEC charging companies are forced to reduce prices to compete with that alternative source. Of course they can try to cut the supply level (which they've done i the past), but that doesn't change what was already produced and sitting around waiting to be consumed.

[saq @ Mar 12th 2008 10:01PM]

Wow I am completely surprised by this turn of events.

wait.

No I'm not.