First HD-DVD Player Goes On Sale

An anonymous reader writes "If you live in Japan, you can get your hands on the first commercially available HD-DVD player as of today. Toshiba has launched the HD-XA1, and hopes for sales in the next year to exceed 600,000 units. The device is set to debut in the states in April. From the article: "The player will sell for 110,000 yen (US$936) in Japan. In that market there will also be a cheaper player, the HD-A1, priced at $500. Toshiba said the price in Japan is based on its expectation that video enthusiasts will be first to adopt the technology, while in the United States, the prices are aimed more at average consumers who are more price conscious." Update: 03/31 18:45 GMT by Z : Quoted article updated, quote updated to match the article.

Comments

Re:Wait...

[eggsurplus]

Are you kidding me? This post is redundant? He posted at eactly the same time as the post above which is rated 5:Funny. I can see if it were a few minutes later after the 1,000th person posted their "haha, you can't figure out that $936 is MORE than $800" post.

Re:Math?

[kesuki]

perhaps it is more like 110,000 yen is comperable to an american enthusiast spending $800 usd on a video player? afterall there are median incomes, etc other factors BEYOND exchange rate to consider here. although difficult to pinpoint if that's the case, according to statistics on 'nationmaster.com' http://www.nationmaster.com/country/ja/eco
http://www.nationmaster.com/country/us/eco
The average income is $1,400 USD greater in japan than in america. and consider that based on the statistics gathered by nations master that japan is the 110thh MOST ienquitabbly distributed wealth nation in the world the chart only ranks 116 countries btw) there are only 6 countries with a more equitable distribution of income. so yeah, i'd have to say that in a country where Median income comes the closest to Meaning typical income... instead of a country where 'median income' is just a statistic, and the 'normal income' is actually considerably below that (america is the 31th most inequitable distributor of weath in the world, we've got the uber rich like bill gates the wal-mart family etc, and then we've got 13% of our population BELOW the poverty line etc.) that paying $986US in japan is a lot more like paying $500US in the US.

so um it's not a matter of math, it's a matter of wealth distribution. in japan the average working joe is far better off than they would be in america.