Dropping prices on products before they ship is generally not a sign of strength. But, Sony (SNE) is cutting the retail cost of its new Blu-Ray high def DVD player from a planned $599 to $499. The drop means that the new product will cost half of what a Blu-Ray player fetched when the product first came out six months ago.
Perhaps Sony feels that it is losing ground to the rival high def format championed by Toshiba. Or, Sony may want to improve its market share by dropping its profit on the machines. Neither would be particularly good news.
According to The Associated Press, most people who buy Blu-Ray high definition movies run them on the new Playstation 3, so that device may end up being Sony’s horse in the race.
If gaming devices are the player of preference for high def content, perhaps sales of standalone devices will end up being academic is the race to contol the flow of premium content into the format.
Douglas A. McIntyre
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