Panasonic Announces Blu-ray Date
Samsung: now. Philips: 3rd quarter 2006. Pioneer: September or so. Sony: currently scheduled for October.
I used to say that Panasonic was going to release their BD player in November or so, but now we know that the actual date (if Panasonic can hold a promise) is September. And we also know that the price of Panasonic’s Blu-ray Disc (BD) player will be $1299. Not the most expensive, but not the cheapest either. Right now, the biggest costs are the laser and the lenses, according to Matsushita’s Kazuhiro Tsuga.
Panasonic actually plans to make a full-system push, selling a receiver (for $999) and a set of speakers (for $2999!!!!) along as part of a Blu-ray package. (For some reason, I don’t know why, I think you’ll be able to get a much better speaker package for that price if you look elsewhere, like at Paradigm, Energy, or PSB.) It will promote a new 65″ plasma television (1080p if I remember correctly) alongside the Blu-ray launch. I wonder if they’ll call it “TrueHD” as well.
Panasonic Announces Blu-ray System
Panasonic to deliver the Blu-ray living room
Check out our new sister blog on Home Theater, HTBlog.net
June 24th, 2006 at 12:51 pm
Who in the world is going to pay this much for a dvd player?
June 24th, 2006 at 1:05 pm
Three things to remember:
It’s early days yet. Usually consumer electronics come out at hight prices then gradually go down. Toshiba’s new $500 HD DVD player is an exception. My guess is that it was a tactic to grab more of the pie right away by forgoing the normal pricing route.
Early adopters are generally less sensitive to price, I think.
In general, there has always been room for higher priced and lower priced components. You can still get normal DVD players today that costs thousands of dollars. People buy them. More people buy the cheaper ones, though.