Studios begin to settle on wholesale Blu-ray Disc prices

While we're still not clear on when Blu-ray Disc prices will fall more in line with newly lowered hardware prices, it seems that movie studios are at least beginning to standardize wholesale stickers. Reportedly, Warner Bros., Paramount, Disney and Sony Pictures Home Entertainment have all priced their BDs for distributors and direct retail accounts between $24 and $26. As expected, none of the studios would comment on the reports, and certain distributors and retailers contacted by Video Business still felt that they were "experimenting with Blu-ray prices and features." Unfortunately, we're still waiting for that one big studio to take a risk and undercut the others, but if Q4 sales don't exceed expectations, we'd expect some drastic measures to be taken early next year.