AfterDawn: News

HD DVD players get price cut in the UK

Mirroring their decision to cut prices in the US, Toshiba has announced they will be cutting prices for their HD DVD players in the UK as well. The company also talked about new marketing initiatives it hoped to bring to the UK.

The company, along with other companies in the HD DVD camp, will push their player's DVD upscaling abilites more prominently now.



Additionally, the company released updated sales figures and said that over 200,000 standalone HD DVD players had been sold in Europe to date.

"According to the latest available independent research, Toshiba's accumulated share of the high definition standalone player market was close to 60% at the end of 2007," says Toshiba's press release. In the US the company claims a significantly lower 50 percent.

"While it's still early days for HD on optical disc, these results confirm HD DVD performed strongly throughout 2007", added Yoshio Abe, president of Consumer Products Europe for Toshiba.

"These new marketing investments coupled with our new recommended retail pricing, will ensure HD DVD remains at the forefront of the consumer's mind within Europe."

Masaaki Kimura, the VP of Toshiba's Digital A/V Group UK added more:

"While price is just one of many purchasing considerations for the early adopter, it is a deal-breaker for the mainstream consumer."

"Sales this Christmas have demonstrated, once again, that consumer awareness of HD DVD has been elevated thanks to its close association with DVD and recent successful promotions. Pricing is - without doubt - the most critical determinant in a consumer's decision to purchase next generation high definition DVD technology. The value HD DVD brings to the consumer simply cannot be ignored."

The price cuts, effective today, drop the prices of Toshiba's HD-EP30 and HD-EP35 to £149 and £250 respectively.

Written by: Andre Yoskowitz @ 19 Jan 2008 17:14

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• 7 comments

• domie

  seems a bit like trying to sell a car with 3 wheels after this month's accumulative HD News.

  19.1.2008 20:00 #1

• m3_chris

  Soon they will be free...

  19.1.2008 20:08 #2

• red2tango

  ofcourse they're cutting prices cuz they gotta get them off the market since the end is near

  20.1.2008 11:00 #3

• hughjars

  HD DVD sales are going very very nicely right now.
  
  The retailers in the USA on avs are talking about substantially reordering stocks - which proves the 'fire sale' tales are pure Blu-ray lies & propaganda.
  
  Blu-ray has only sold 6 million movie discs in almost 2 years and HD DVD has only sold almost 3 million movie discs in the same time-frame - in a total movie disc market that sees sales of 750 million per year.
  
  That means high def sales do not even equate (combined) to 1% of the total movie disc market so far.
  
  It's perfectly clear & very obvious that all those who claim 'it's all over' are just at the usual Blu-ray BS, trying to talk up their preferred format.
  Again.
  
  The Blu-ray gang can place all their faith in post-dated promises if they like, I'm far more interested in the real & actual rocketing sales HD DVD hardware is currently enjoying.
  
  Amazon USA proves the point
  (only the 2nd largest retailer in the world).
  
  The Toshiba HD A3 is currently the 11th best selling electrical item in the entire Amazon USA inventory right now -
  http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/ele...6587233-0382450
  It was at number 3 last week.
  The HD A35 is also there at number 61.
  
  By contrast the best selling Blu-ray player (the Panasonic BMP BD30) is at number 76 in that list - and Blu-ray players very rarely even make it into the top 100 of that list at all.
  
  The Toshiba HD A3, HD A30 & HD A35 are now at number 1, 4 & 6 respectively (they were at numbers 1, 2 & 3 last week) in the Amazon USA best seller lists for DVD players alone.
  http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/ele...ref=pd_ts_e_nav
  
  By contrast the highest placed Blu-ray player (Panasonic DMP-BD30K) is at number 7, the Samsung BDP 1400 is at number 11 and the Sony S300 is at number 20.
  
  It's far too early for anyone to be calling this with any seriousness.
  
  But this is all only to be expected, for as long as it's still open to question the Blu-ray gang will be everywhere they can be slamming HD DVD & pretending it's all over & they already won.
  Again.....and again......and again....and again......and again.... etc etc.
  
  Sadly for them if we get to X-mas 2008 and little concrete has changed they are the ones that will be in the big trouble.
  They've set themselves up for their bluff to be called.
  
  If Blu-ray fails to get into the a/v mainstream mass-market in 2008 then they are the ones who will have lost the credibility and run out of time, it'll be almost 4 years gone and still not happening = stagnant PS3 game console proprietary format.
  
  (and why should they?
  There's no sign of them producing their supposedly full & final spec 'profile 2.0' stand-alones, never-mind a proper range of them this year)
  
  No-one will believe another empty claim of 'we already won' for the 43rd (or more) time if things have not moved much for Blu-ray - and this time there'll be no hiding behind HD DVD's numbers, this time the results will be expected relative to SD DVD.
  
  They haven't even been able to conclusively settle the high def war in their favour; they don't stand a chance.

  20.1.2008 13:29 #4

• domie

  Strange, I could have sworn this was an article to discuss HD-DVD player sales in the UK, what does the above rant about blu-ray have to do with it ?
  
  - blu-ray lies ?
  - blu-ray propoganda ?
  - blu-ray BS ?
  - blu-ray gang ?
  - blu-ray fan boys ?
  
  I don't mean to insult anyone but this constant and endless hijacking of every HD thread with streams of bile and hatred directed against blu-ray or anyone who dares to "like" the media is now bordering on the psychotically obsessive .
  
  If you have such a disparaging opinion of what you call blu-ray and its "fan-boys" then what do you call yourself ? an impartial observer you most certainly are not ! :)

  20.1.2008 16:27 #5

• jove

  blu ray supporters are always the bad ones huh. their always missinformed and they never know what their talking about. they just want to support sony and everything. they never really knew what they were supporting they just went blindly for it. we might as well say its the same with politics. who would want to vote for bush or gore or clinton/obama or mccain/guliani...
  
  it baffles me why some people question loyalty or affiliation to something. you pick a team, whoever it is and damn right you want them to win. but oh well just stuff that we have to get used to readin on afterdawn. i cant wait till wer half way 2008 and this thing is done with to stop with the nonsence.

  20.1.2008 19:43 #6

• borhan9

  Quote:The price cuts, effective today, drop the prices of Toshiba's HD-EP30 and HD-EP35 to £149 and £250 respectively.I like them apples.

  16.2.2008 23:46 #7