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Low-End PS3 Comes with HDMI, Cheaper in Japan
jayintune writes "2old2play has a nice round-up on the main talking points from the Sony Keynote speech at the 2006 TGS (Tokyo Game Show). Most notably, Sony announced HDMI ports will be included on ALL models of the PS3. Initially, Sony was worried that if they put the HDMI in the lower version, some would complain about having to pay for something they don't want. Apparently they realized people would be more upset without it." Additionally, it's been confirmed that the cheaper PS3 will be even less expensive ... in Japan. For now, it seems this price drop only affects the Japanese Market. For many additional viewpoints on the announcement and keynote, click through to see this post's associated links.
How many PS3 articles can there be in a day? Can consoles really be this exciting? Many crappy blogs^W^Wnew articles, little new information.
FairTax baby!
I think Sony is starting to realize that their business plan of "we'll get the fanboys to buy it" isn't going to win the market for them.
I wonder if they'll do the same thing in the US... although I think that if they were going to, they'd have announced it already. Not like I was gonna buy a PS3 anyway, though. Even the cheaper model is too expensive for me. Nintendo Wii all the way, baby.
www.theage.com.au/news/games/sony-slashes-p rice-of-ps3-games-console/2006/09/22/1158431887680 .html
axis discrepancy indicates hexagons beyond control anomaly
So now, they've changed their stance, and they're including the HDMI output. According to http://babelfish.altavista.com/babelfish/trurl_pag econtent?lp=ja_en&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.jp.playstat ion.com%2Finfo%2Frelease%2Fnr_20060922_ps3_hdmi.ht ml this link. The translation's bad, but it will suffice, I hope.
Hmm... Sounds like it's getting to be a better bargain. Not necessarily a good one, but a better one compared to the original price.
. o O ( TwO hEaDs ArE mOrE tHaN oNe... )
I hear "PS3 price cut" so then I look at the price of all the major consoles in Japan:
Wii... 25,000 yen...
360... 29,800 yen...
PS3... 62,790 yen...
Now this is all for "Low End" models but forgive for saying that the PS3 price is still ringing the insanity alarm inside my head. The console is STILL more than double the price of either of its competitors (Yes, I know 360 isn't selling in Japan but Lost Odyssey, Blue Dragon et al. may help to convince the Japanese market that 360 is worth it).
I've never been a big fan of Sony, never will be, but their recent list of faux pas, technical errors and the mockery of the whole is world is slowly making me think that one day they might just not bother with consoles...maybe not this generation, or the next....but soon...and for the rest of my life hopefully.
For some weird reason I like the statement "even less expensive" very much.
Antti S. Brax - Old school - http://www.iki.fi/asb/
You would think they'd make the console cheaper in areas where there is likely to be fiecer competition such as North America or Europe (Especially as a way to make up for the delayed launch) rather than in Japan where the console is going to be bought for the fact it's Japanese alone. But then again, who am I to question the infallilable logic of Mr. Kutaragi?
With these Japan-only price cuts, no region locks, an earlier launch date, and what looks to be a disastrous US launch situation, where do you think all these Japanese PS3s will end up on launch day? And what will that do to the early adopter market in Japan?
The Wii could be an outright failure. Yah, Nintendo fanboys will boast that they havn't played a console in years even though they have a gamecube and 12 different mario games for it, and internet hype says "oh my godz ta Wii!" which further proves the Wii may be the Snakes on a Plane of consoles. Makes a little bit of money, but eventually the hype doesn't live up. The Wii controller may be just a gimmick, and a few months after the console release we'll see if it truly lives up to the hype. But anyone saying they will buy a Wii without even playing one first is just as much of a sheep and fanboy as a final fantasy droolboy. Time will tell if it is worth buying a slightly souped up gamecube with a new controller. I may buy one just to play some gamecube games that I've missed out on though.
The PS3 will likely deliver the goods, but nevertheless is too expensive. In the end the only exclusives will be metal gear + 100 different japanese RPGs that we've all played different incarnations of dozens of times before.
And the 360 isn't faring much better. The most interesting titles are $5 arcade games (I may pick one up when settlers of cantan is released), and the best games that look good are not only released on the PC as well, but the PC version offers mods (looking at Oblivion and the upcoming Star trek: legacy). Perhaps I wouldn't be so disappointed with the 360 if I wasn't spoiled on xbox media center for my xbox.
Want to know the best bet right now if you havn't jumped onto the ps2/xbox/gamecube generation? Pick up an xbox original and mod it (which is actually not that difficult), install xbox media center, and not only play nes, snes, n64, tg16, genesis, MAME, etc games for free but you'll have an extensive library of great $5-$15 used games available to load onto the harddrive (or rent and steal if you are so inclined). Alot of the xbox games have 480p 16:9 if you have an HDTV, and the only exclusives you will really miss out on are a bunch of square-enix RPGs, which honestly you arn't missing out much on (seriously, did anyone play through more than 25 hours of dragon warrior VIII or kingdom hearts 2 without wanting to rip their eyeballs out?) and katamari damacy (which is a great game, but isn't alone worth getting a console for). Otherwise most games on the ps2 are available on the xbox, and the xbox is a bit more mod friendly (with xbox media center + emulators, etc).
I think what may happen is alot of the people who skipped out on the gamecube may just get a Wii to play gamecube games they missed out on. I actually hope Nintendo does well this generation and doesn't turn into another Sega. I'd hate for the only players in the field to be Sony and Microsoft.
Shouldn't that headline be "PS3 Cheaper... in Japan"
So they misevaluated their market, and the media backlash made them change their minds? Shouldn't this be the kind of element that should've been identified earlier on? As largely mentioned earlier, if they're pushing the PS3 as a Blu-Ray player, it's pretty dumb to "forget" the HD output...
Wow, I keep being surprised by how their marketing department sucks. For a consumer-electronics company, I find this plainly catastrophic.
Or maybe the dept doesn't suck, but they're crushed under other interests, which is just as bad.
Misleading titles? Inflammatory blurbs? Keep in mind that Slashdot is a tabloid.
This is actually an example of very good marketing. Others have touched on it, but I can think of a couple of reasons why this is working out better than expected for Sony.
1) They probably wanted to put out all of the consoles with HDMI anyways. As Kutaragi said, they didn't want people to feel like they were paying for something they'd never use. This is a powerful statement, in my mind, because it shows that Sony was willing to put out the PS3, knowing that they would be fragmenting the HD market into two tiers; those with HDMI and those without. (Yes, there will still be people who don't have HDMI-enabled sets, but that's not the point.) With a tiered market, the most widely-available Blu-Ray player would not be guaranteed to have HDMI, which would pose a huge stumbling block to enabling the ICT later on.
Now, they can just tell people to go out and buy HDMI cables when they do. Your Toshiba HDTV doesn't have HDMI inputs? That's too bad, you should've bought a Sony set; all Sony sets come with HDMI.. (If that isn't true today, you can be sure it will be soon.)
2) In effect, they've managed to convince consumers to go out and pick up HDMI-equipped HDTVs, etc., without having to do any 'sway' marketting. There was always the chance, with an HDMI-less PS3, that people would buy so many of them instead of the HDMI-equipped one that media companies would be hard-pressed to use the ICT in any great numbers for fear of a backlash. But if everyone's going to have an HDMI-ready player anyways, suddenly this huge obstacle disappears.
So all I can say is that consumers have done more for getting other consumers to buy into copy protected media than Sony ever could have. This is an amazing coup for Sony's marketing, and I would call it a very shrewd business decision.
In short, this is a huge win for Sony.
They basically just threw away a prototype motherboard and production line only weeks away from the delivery date. Talk about expensive!!!
The price drop only affects the Japanese release, and then only on the lower-end model.
Sony have already stated that there will only be 100,000 PS3s at launch in Japan. They have also stated that the vast majority of these will be the higher end version. Thus the price cut will be on a very small number of units.
Want a pre-modded *box to put on on top of your set? I suggest Apple's MacsBox: 600 USD plus controllers.
Sony announces a PRICE DROP and all 90% of engadget can do is say is
"it's still not cheaper than the base 360 or Wii"
"...they misread the market, what idiots."
Come on people IF (...and I mean IF) they bring this price drop to the states and Europe MS is in a world of hurt:
360 Premium
DVD Drive
Component out
20g hard drive
$399.00
Core PS3
Blu-Ray Drive
HDMI out
20g hard drive
$428
What person in their right mind is not going to pay $30 extra bucks (not $170, and in a single enclosure) for high def movie play back if they have the money to buy a $400 game system. IMO...not many.
The guys up in Redmond better pray this price drop stays in Japan.
The comparison against the Wii and the Xbox 360 are fair, but with the PS3 you get so much more. First of all you are getting a High Definition DVD player for both models. Xbox is releasing one that hooks into the 360 and selling it for $200. Wii won't have this at all. If you buy any High Def DVD player now the cheapest you can get in much more than the High-End PS3. With the PS3 you're basically getting a 3.2 GHz computer with Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and Blue-Ray. You can get Wi-Fi for the Xbox360 as well but once again it's extra. I don't think Sony is getting this wrong. They are marketing to PC gamers who want to play console games. If you don't mind low end graphics and lack of functionality stick with cheap. If you want cheap then stick with Wii, but if you stick with Wii you won't have nearly the same features. If you want better go with XBOX 360, but with XBOX 360 you'll pay more for the features you want. In the end Sony is going to lose money selling the PS3 as it costs more to produce then what they are selling for. They will however make gobs of money selling the kinds of games people love to play.
Sorry, but Wii it is for me.
What if Sony is changing their focus from a home console to an arcade console? Bring people back to the arcades at the malls, but now the consoles will be linked to the net. Sounds like a pretty good idea. I haven't been to an arcade since PS1.
The article does mention they want to put 15000 units in stores for people to pay and play.
Can I bum a sig?
I'm still not sure why Microsoft has such a hard-on for losing in Japan. The original XBox was a dismal failure in Japan, but it was a pretty solid yet distant second place in just about every other major market in the world. The ONLY reason why there's this pointless debate about "which console was #2 last generation" was because the XBox failed so miserably in Japan.
According to an AP story not too long ago, the 360 has sold 150,000 units in Japan, but 5 million units worldwide. Going by the fact that they still lose money on every unit purchased, all Japan amounts to is a big money sink with absolutely no prospect of obtaining a good marketshare percentage.
The PS3 dropping its price is the 360's Japanese death knell. I don't understand why Microsoft keeps trying over there; WHY exactly is Japan "must-win"? Developers? If the 360 holds a firm number one spot in North America and Europe, wouldn't Playstation-friendly Japanese developers be willing to develop for the 360, especially with the PS3 set to get trounced by the Wii in Japan and possibly not be a market leader anywhere? Is impossible world domination THAT much more important to them than actually making some money? Why doesn't Microsoft take a page from Nintendo and just focus on trying to make a profit for once. Concentrate on markets that actually want your product and cut your losses. That means exiting Japan ASAP.
I live in the US where the XBox brand is relatively popular and I plan to own a 360. But I don't want to purchase a console that won't be supported in the future by a cash-strapped manufacturer because they were too stupid to stop throwing money away in another country in a BLATANTLY OBVIOUS lost cause.
I'd really like to hear other possibly more informed opinions about this, because I seriously don't know what's what.
But it does seem like the Wii will stomp all over Japan. This next-generation is looking very interesting.
I think what may happen is alot of the people who skipped out on the gamecube may just get a Wii to play gamecube games they missed out on. I actually hope Nintendo does well this generation and doesn't turn into another Sega. I'd hate for the only players in the field to be Sony and Microsoft.
You *do* realize that, out of those three gaming companies/divisions (Nintendo worldwide, Sony Entertainment wordlwide, and Microsoft Home Entertainment), *NINTENDO* is the one the most in the black right now, right???
Microsoft is still way in the red, and Sony hasn't made much money at all this year since the 360 has been stealing PS2 sales and the PSP is a massive failure. Meanwhile Nintendo is still raking it in, as usual, with it's portable divison (DS sales are through the roof in every market).
If you don't believe me, look up the numbers.
Despite the price drop being announced for Japan for now, I seriously doubt they'll stick to the $500/600 prices for the US models given the importance of this console to their long term plans and the competition from Microsoft and Nintendo.
I also don't doubt that the day PS3s come out in stores will be the day Microsoft does something dramatic with the XBox 360 to make it even more attractive. Maybe they'll ship "Revision 2", with HDMI and an HD-DVD drive, in each box without raising prices. Maybe they'll remove the low end model and ship the existing high end model in its place, at the low end price. There's a whole bunch of ways they can play it.
This round in the console war is going to do serious financial damage to Sony and Microsoft. Nintendo at least will be ok given they're producing something that clearly enough people will want to be profitable, and that isn't being sold at a loss. Sony and Microsoft, however, need to play this game for five years, with production costs unlikely to drop in line with retail prices. Sony has to hope that they can get enough revenues from increased sales of HDTVs (but how to measure that increase will be difficult) and long term entrenchment of Bluray to mitigate some of the costs due to them. Microsoft doesn't even have that to fall back on, and I suspect they'll be damaged the most by whatever comes out, especially if they're getting a three pronged attack from Nintendo, Sony, and Apple (iTV.)
Right now, I think Microsoft has the most to lose. And as a result, I think it's going to compete hardest with Sony.
My predictions:
- Bluray will be the next Laserdisc. DVDs will continue to be the VHS.
- Nintendo will be in first or third place, but their marketshare will simply not matter in the over-all scheme of things. They'll be profitable, of course.
- Sony will probably narrowly beat out Microsoft, but both will emerge from the fight limping.
- There will be no "XBox 3". Apple will annihalate Microsoft's attempts at entering the media STB market. Given this leaves them largely as a games console and games infrastructure manufacturer, Microsoft will see Nintendo as their only "equal" competitor when what they wanted to do was take down Sony. The focus on consoles would also undermine (as it is today) their PC operating system business. They'd be better of licencing common infrastructure technologies to their rivals.
But a lot can change in five years.
Disclaimer: I like Nintendo and like what they're doing. I'm not a fan of Microsoft as the epitome of lock-in, proprietary, technologies, and I dislike Sony even more because of their media business's recent tactics and their failure to reform the industry towards open systems. But I'm trying to be objective.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
There isn't much of a market for a $600 game console. My expectation is that only the hardcore gamers that MUST have a PS3 will buy it. But I personally think that most of the industry is shortchanging Sony, I think they have much more market insight than they let on. What if even though it launches at $600, the price of the console follows a steep negative slope as time goes on? What if the price is down to $300 by March? Sure call me crazy, but I can cite a few reasons why this might be the stragy. First consider something called the learning curve, the general idea is that as you manufacture a specific good, over time you make your process more effiecient, lowering the cost of production. Given all we have heard about diode shortages, there is probably a large oportunity for cutting costs as time goes on. The fact that the Japanese release will be this much cheaper provides further evidence for this, since the console is coming to Japan later than the US release. Second consider the idea of consumer surplus. Consumer surplus has to do with your maximum willingness to pay for a paticular good. Let say you see an apple being sold for $1, the maximum you would be willing to pay for such an apple is $1.50, therefore, (assuming you are hungry) you will buy the apple, and hence not only get the apple but a consumer surplus of $0.50 as well, because you paid $0.50 less than what you would had paid if you needed to. By setting the price of the PS3 at $600 at the beginning, only the people who would be willing to pay $600 or more for a PS3 will buy one (not that many people.) By steadily lowering the price over time, you begin to reach more and more consumers, since the price is now at their maximum willingness to pay. This way, everyone ends up paying close to the absolute maximum that they would be willing to spend on a PS3, and hence Sony milks all the consumer surplus out of thier customers, and make as much as they can on thier new console. At this point you are probably saying "damn those Sony bastard, what a ripoff!" But realize this kind of marketting tactic is used in many more places, look at Inkjet Printer (Or rather, the price of the cartridges,) look at cell phones, razors with replacable blades, electric toothbrushes... Ripping your customers off and making them think they are getting a good deal at the same time happens a lot more than you think.
Even if you don't want a PS3, you want sharp PS3 price cuts. Because both Microsoft and Nintendo are in a position to slash the price of their consoles. Microsoft has an enormous war chest and has been producing Xbox 360s for a year which should bring their manufacturing costs down significantly. Nintendo is selling the Wii for a profit and it's very simple technologically.
I could see the Xbox 360 Premium package with Project Gotham Racing 3 going for as low as $249 and the Wii with Wii Sports going as low as $149.
Nintendo will quickly get the cost of the Wii manufacturing to below $149, they can afford to bleed a little money at the start. Except for the Wiimote, the Wii is last generation technology. The only reason the Wii is $250 is because of the insane price of the PS3.
Microsoft needs to protect the Windows franchise. With Linux coming on the PS3 and web browsers coming on both the Wii and PS3, Microsoft should be worried. Microsoft desperately needs people to feel that in order to surf the Internet they need a computer with Windows. The last thing that Microsoft wants is people using Linux boxes with Wiimote-like pointing devices instead of a mouse and keyboard Windows Vista system. Microsoft will either spend billions to get as many Xbox 360s in homes as possible or they will drop out in exchange for Sony and Nintendo disabling certain console functionality.
I guess you could argue that people who purchased Xbox 360s early would be screwed by this. But then again early adopters always pay the most for a system.
Personally, I own a Xbox which I've enjoyed. I've tried a PS2 and a GameCube, but was never impressed with either of them. From the video I've seen of the Wii in action, I don't think I'll like it. I neither want nor need the Blu Ray drive of the PS3. I am looking forward to the Xbox 360 switching to 65nm, Microsoft has stated that it should reduce manufacturing costs and heat. Heat seems to bedevil the current version of the 360. With price cuts in the system and older games, the Xbox 360 becomes much more price competitive with the Wii. However I am open to my mind being changed.
Pricing on the PS3 basically makes the price the same as the 360 last year. I don't know ANYONE who got one for less than $600, and some people paid $800 or more to get a 360 last fall. Why shouldn't Sony get the money instead of the fleabayers??
If it's quickly followed by price cuts in 07 I don't see it as a bad thing.
I won't buy in the first wave instanity. But once the buzz dies down and prices drop, A HDMI equipped low end PS3 sounds like no brainer to me now. I would never buy a $500 game machine or a $500 next gen DVD player, but combine the two for under $500 and it becomes worthy of consideration.
"Sony was worried that if they put the HDMI in the lower version, some would complain about having to pay for something they don't want."
It's a pity they didn't take that view with Blu-Ray!
Component video cables provide equal (or better) quality output to HDMI
That's utterly ridiculous. HDMI is digital, the TV set will receive an exact copy of the data from the original media. Component cables intrinsically have some level of degradation.
and its ability to carry audio as well (which no HiFi geek or audiophile wants anyway)
Again, utterly ridiculous. It's a digital signal. It won't degrade(Well, that's not entirely true. It can, but it will be very obvious.). Whether to use the audio from the HDMI output is just a matter of your particular setup.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
49,980 Yen = $429.51
PS3 won't drop the price in the US.
Yeah, if you REALLY want a Blu-Ray player RIGHT NOW, then the PS3's price is a freakin' steal. However, only about 25% of U.S. households even own HDTV's, much less an extra $500 to blow on a console (+$60-$70 / game). And there really aren't that many Blu-Ray movies out either.
I suspect the DVD player drove some of the PS2's sales because:
1) At the time, DVD players were already starting to ramp up like crazy. Not exactly one in every living room yet, but not "early adopter only" either.
2) You didn't need to buy a new TV to use the DVD player.
3) There was one, and only one, DVD standard. None of this "Beta/VHS redux" crap. (IIRC, DIVX had already fizzled.)
Oh, and the PS2 DVD player was awful. I can't believe I actually paid for the DVD remote (somebody at Sony knows how to design remotes properly, but he must have been deathly ill when they put together that example of un-useful, stupid, "what were they smoking" design)... and the fan noise on the original model sucked.
The Wii also includes WiFi and Bluetooth. It is stupid to call the Wii Graphics "low-end". Yes, it has a less powerful processor, but it is by no-means a "low-end" one. And what do you mean by "lack of functionality" with the Wii? What functions and features exactly is it missing besides the dubious Blu-Ray player?
SirWired
You raised a very interesting point there - one I jealously admit that I've missed!
We all know MS relies on lock in. Regardless of how we feel about that. MS views an Open Standards based Internet as a threat to that lock-in. Hence IE brokeness and the number of IE only sites out there. Sure, there's now a good deal more non IE clients but we all know that there's still a depressing number of sites that are "Best viewed using Internet Explorer 6".
The PSP, PS3, DS and Wii browsers certainly aren't using Internet Explorer 6. How many copies of non-IE browsers will that put into the hands of teh general public? It's certainly going to be a substantial number.
Now I'd suspect the console browers won't get anything like the kind of use you'd get with a PC browser. But even then it could be that the numbers are substantial enough to encourage sites and developers to be more "standards friendly" in the near future.
Interesting idea, I think...
"...So I hung back and lurked. For 18 months. Can't beat a good old-fashioned lurking."
The truly sad thing is you and so many other people have become a sales tool of the vast media empire.
The cheaper PS3 had an HD output - component. You can do 1080p over component, no problem.
What the cheaper PS3 did lack was a HD video output with DRM.
What Sony then failed to realize is just how pervasive the myth that you "need HDMI" to do HD really is, how well the marketing drums had beat that little white lie into the minds of the populace. This was a case where the true technical designers originally omitted it from the base PS3 becuse the lack of HDMI is not, technically, a big deal for true HD output (games or movies) [Just ask any 360 owner!!]. But by god people will not be without the new shiny media prision hollywood wants to put us in, and so they were forced by popular pressure to make a choice driver more by marketing that technical need. And so the masses will cheer it, even though it is just the kind of Marketechure technical folk normally so despise.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I'm willing to bet that it wasn't the media backlash that made them change their minds. Sony is using the PS3 to push Blu-Ray adoption and doesn't want millions of analogue Blu-Ray players on the market.
While I think the force was a combination of studio and users (because there was a HUGE user backlash against not having an HDMI port, even though you really didn't need one), I do think it will have effects radiating out from exactly the point you raise - no more analog Blu-Ray players.
What this means in practical terms is that you can expect to see the ICT flag turned on for all Blu-Ray media very, very soon - because all the mass market Blu-Ray players will have HDMI. There is no more opportunity for consumer to select a pure analog option and vote for HD without DRM encumbrance.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Sony's biggest problem now might be this: Why buy the high end PS3?
That seems more a problem for the retailers ordering mostly high-end PS3s than Sony.
However the significantly larger hard drive and built in WiFi means that if you are forced to buy a high-end PS3 because that's all that is in stock, it's at least a palatable expense (now that it's not an option to buy a model without HDMI, which was my preference until they took that choice from me).
In the long run the market will decide what is an appropriate mix of high-end vs. low-end PS3s. My guess would be exactly the opposite of the retailer mix, 60$ low-end and the rest high end. But then the intial mix people will probably just buy whatever they can, so having a larger mix of high-end is crafty in an evil money-grabbing sort of way.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
to move to Japan.
All I know is, I can't wait until it is released. Yeah, Sony, like so many other companies (MS, etc) make some shit decisions, but hell, I'm not naive - it's the very nature of capitalism - greed running society. I do know one thing; this thing is gonna rock and I'm going to enjoy every minute of it. So piss off - lol! :-D
You know I consider myself an avid gamer who doesn't really discriminate, well maybe a little against the x-box of old, but I am an equal oppurtunity gamer. My favorite console has definitely been the PS2 (more so than even the SNES), but I have a gamecube and a DS and I keep my main PC up to date and I play everything from what's current to 80s arcade classic in java/mame to SNES emulated titles on my laptop. Now when Sony releases a statement saying the Japanese are going to have the PS3 for cheaper than us US gamers or gamers around the world, I think $%@# Sony! It's just one more bumble in a long line of bumbles...are they trying to drive their customers away? I'm not buying either the PS3 or wii initially, but I will purchase a next gen concole sometime in 2007. None of them have the best titles that I can tel of yet, but if I was to pick one now I hate to say it'd prob be the 360 and the wii. I don't see myself buying a PS3 til 2008 when I read crap like this. I know I'm not alone. Pull your head out of your @#$ Sony.
Gaming for over 25 years
Sony has said the PS3 runs Linux, but I haven't heard about anyone using it. Nor do I see an option to launch Linux in any of the videos or pictures of the interface. Is it still in?
its already hit 390, and its before ps3's release. its 360 if you buy with amazon.com visa. the price will only continue to drop, ps3 isn't much of a deal unless you compare it with the absurdly priced bluray player costing 1000 dollars that doesn't even match the hddvd players quality. inevitibly the price of these players will drop so far that consoles won't even be an issue when shopping for a video player. look at dvd players these days, 30 dollars regular price.