Xbox 360 HD DVD player price dropped to $130

by Alexander Sliwinski { Feb 6th 2008 at 1:23PM }

Effective immediately, the Xbox 360 HD DVD player add-on is now priced at $130 in the US and Canada. Even better, early birds managed to nab the player for a steal this morning on Amazon (though the $80 offer is now sold out). Depending on your perspective, today's price-drop either signals that HD DVD isn't about to go down easy or that it's grasping at building a user base amidst major setbacks.

For the last half year Blu-ray has had some high-profile victories. Now, we're not choosing sides, just saying that those who haven't pledged their allegiance to an HD movie format may want to wait a little longer (but Blu-ray is totally the winner, right?).

Tags: Blu-ray, bluray, breakingnews, HD-DVD, hddvd

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)

copa @ Feb 6th 2008 1:27PM

Also, Amazon has rolled out a price drop on BetaMax players. Act now!

FrankTheCrank @ Feb 6th 2008 1:52PM

It's called a CLEARANCE SALE!!!

I only assume that Microsoft has stopped production of the HD-DVD drive at this point. Can Joystiq get any confirmation of this?

RoboJoel @ Feb 6th 2008 1:58PM

You don't have to put any effort to keep your 27" Round CRT from 1992 faithfully perched in the same location it has been for 15 years.

My parents could care less about HD. As long as their television plays Grey's Anatomy on Thursday, and NFL football on Sunday... they are perfectly happy with an antiquated image. As are many people.

FrankTheCrank @ Feb 6th 2008 2:02PM

Amazon doesn't even sell Betamax players? WTF?

They do sell Betamax blank tapes, $18.

Abuzar @ Feb 6th 2008 2:45PM

Frank, either you're trying to be funny, and doing a bad job, or are a retard.

Copa was joking, maybe he should have added "/sarcasm" tags.

FrankTheCrank @ Feb 6th 2008 2:58PM

It wasn't funny. Even in a sarcastic way. Betamax has been dead for over 25 years. Why would Amazon be selling Betamax players? And how does this relate to the price drop of an HD DVD add on for 360?

Sorry man, I just don't get it.

Was it suppose to be funny in a Chevy Chase/Kevin Nealon sort of way?

luckycharms711 @ Feb 6th 2008 3:29PM

I can only assume frank is trying to act like an idiot. However if you truly don't get the joke it is a slight on HD DVD saying it is going the way of Beta Max in the old format war

Brello @ Feb 6th 2008 3:10PM

@Frank
He was inferring that HD-DVD is the next betamax. You know, a failed format.

Korova @ Feb 6th 2008 3:52PM

lol @ Frank. I think you got all three of them. Nice catch.

upz @ Feb 6th 2008 4:05PM

Oh Frank... You are either a genius or an idiot. You reminded me of that old Antoine Walker quote:

"Antoine Walker, why do you shoot so many threes?"

"Because there are no fours..."

Ha.

WhoMe @ Feb 6th 2008 5:21PM

He is right about the clearance sale though. It's just stock liquidation. Nobody wants te find theirselves with warehouses full of HD DVD stuff a few months from now...

RIP HD DVD.

Marty @ Feb 6th 2008 1:28PM

Most people don't have HD sets or sound systems, and won't be getting them for a long time... who really cares about this?

Zertoss @ Feb 6th 2008 1:31PM

Those of us that do have HD sets and sound systems?

AirIntake @ Feb 6th 2008 1:46PM

You have to go out of your way to buy a TV that isn't HD these days.

RoboJoel @ Feb 6th 2008 1:58PM

blahblahbloo @ Feb 6th 2008 2:06PM

Don't be surprised if your parents' old CRT wears out before too much longer. Same goes for anyone else using a 15-year-old television. Then when they replace the TV, it will likely be with an HDTV.

Crono (NDF - Knight of the Old School) @ Feb 6th 2008 2:12PM

CRT's have been known to last a very long time. Depending on brand, they've probably got another good 15 years left in that TV.

Lars @ Feb 6th 2008 3:10PM

Actually, CRTs often last an amazingly long time. My grandparents have been using the same TV since the 70's. The picture looks fuzzy, no remote, and it's all wood instead of plastic. They only recently made the move to DVD a year or two ago because they just couldn't find anything on VHS anymore, certainly not anything new.

Brello @ Feb 6th 2008 3:14PM

What? I wouldn't worry about a CRT TV crapping out. Unless you drop it and break one of the guns or something, they last a hella long time. I wish I could say the same for LCD and especially plasma. Plasma is practically a scam if you ask me.

Marty @ Feb 6th 2008 3:34PM

I'm not saying people aren't going out of their way to stick to SD Tv's... I'm saying that people aren't going out and replacing their SD TV's. Look at the market saturation of HD technology, and you'll see that.

Noshino @ Feb 6th 2008 3:45PM

err...in the US, TV broadcast will all be digital, so I doubt your 15 year old CRT would take that signal, you can buy a converter...but why bother? you might as well buy a new TV...

Noshino @ Feb 6th 2008 4:14PM

I'm sorry, should have specified that in the US the change takes place in April 7th, 09...and I don't know about other countries, but I know that some time afterwards its also taking place in England...

Crono (NDF - Knight of the Old School) @ Feb 6th 2008 4:15PM

"err...in the US, TV broadcast will all be digital, so I doubt your 15 year old CRT would take that signal, you can buy a converter...but why bother? you might as well buy a new TV..."

Goddammit, will you people please get educated. DIGITAL is NOT the same as HIGH DEFINITION!! If you have digital cable with your SDTV, you won't even know the difference because you aren't receiving a terrestrial signal! If you DO receive a terrestrial signal on your SDTV now, the GOVERNMENT will provide you a set top box so you don't have to buy a new TV.

In any case, A NEW TV IS NOT REQUIRED!!!

Noshino @ Feb 6th 2008 4:33PM

Goddammit, will you people please get educated.

"so I doubt your 15 year old CRT would take that signal, you can buy a converter...but why bother? you might as well buy a new TV..."

we are talking about his 15 year old CRT, and I said that HE COULD BUY A CONVERTER

And no, the government wont provide you a set top box...

"The $990 million in the House bill would help keep analog TVs that rely on antennas from going black once the transition ends. The money would fund coupons to pay $40 toward the cost of a box to convert digital signals to analog. Lawmakers estimate each box would cost about $60, forcing consumers to shell out about $20"

Now you see, you do have to sign up and wait for the coupon, a cheap set top box should run you for about $60 like the article states, but like I mentioned earlier, why bother with that? I mean, you might as well get a better TV, I know that many people will be convinced on just getting their converter, and the salesman will most likely push them into buying a HD tv...

Crono (NDF - Knight of the Old School) @ Feb 6th 2008 4:57PM

So you're saying its better to spend 400-2000 dollars on a new TV, when you can get yourself fixed up for 20 dollars.

Is this even a question?

Noshino @ Feb 6th 2008 5:12PM

So you are telling me that many will stick with their 15 year old CRTs?

Look, I know you might disagree with me, but believe it or not, a senior/adult will go to the store, ask a salesman about a converter, what will they do? most likely offer them a HDTV, people get easily impressed nowadays, they'll most likely fork the 500 dollars, why spend 60 bucks (or wait a few days and only spend 20) when you can invest them on a new TV with a MUCH better picture and sound? (and look, I'm not counting the really old TV's that didn't have controllers and you had to use the knob)

Crono (NDF - Knight of the Old School) @ Feb 6th 2008 5:40PM

If they've held on to their ancient CRT since the 70's, I very much doubt they'd be willing to fork over that kind of cash when they could spend 20-60 dollars and be running like its never been a problem. The number of people actually effected by the switch are those without cable or dish services now, which is going to be a very small amount. And those same consumers which for some reason can't or won't fork over money for cable or dish is somehow going to justify to themselves 500-2000 dollars just to get the TV working again? I don't think so.

And even if they do, the percentile of these people verses every other TV owner/watcher is so small its insignificant. It won't have any noticeable effect on the HDTV vs SDTV market share.

Grimmus @ Feb 6th 2008 9:25PM

"Most people don't have HD sets or sound systems, and won't be getting them for a long time... who really cares about this?"

Quoted for truth.

naxe @ Feb 6th 2008 1:29PM

Saw the amazon.com price this morning but cant justify buying a dying Add-on. For one thing it should have already been put in my 360. Two now it's to late. Blu ray has taken over the HD format (war). Glad i have a ps3 too. One of the big reasons people bought a ps2 was for DVD watching/gaming.

Lord Chako @ Feb 6th 2008 1:45PM

The transition from VHS to DVD is a little different than the transition from DVD to HD-DVD/BD.

Everyone with a television could benefit from a dvd player. It didn't require a special tv to take advantage of its features.
The same cannot be said about Blu-Rey/HD-DVD.

BD may be beating HD-DVD in sales, but both their sales pale in comparison to DVD.

DVD is pretty much here to stay.

Lars @ Feb 6th 2008 2:01PM

"DVD is pretty much here to stay."

LOL, good one. Let's see how that statement looks in five years.

Crono (NDF - Knight of the Old School) @ Feb 6th 2008 2:16PM

Ok, in 5 years I'll call you an idiot for thinking that Blu-Ray will replace DVD. Or I'll call you an idiot now and save myself the trouble of waiting.

Thats like saying DVD-audio will replace CD's. Sure, its higher quality audio, but nobody really cares to buy a new player to use it.

Of course, I don't think Digital Distribution will catch on that quickly either. When you can get an HD movie to fit on a CD (with advanced compression technologies), then Digital distribution will become viable. Until then, it takes too much time to download a file that is too large on disk and non-portable or transferable.

Curtis @ Feb 6th 2008 2:30PM

@chrono

Your comparison fails horribly. What you should be comparing is tapes to cd's, and vhs to dvd. You wouldn't compare a cassette tape to a vhs tape would you?

Crono (NDF - Knight of the Old School) @ Feb 6th 2008 2:42PM

The comparison is just fine: The improvement from DVD to blu-ray is quality ONLY. The improvement from CD to DVD audio was quality ONLY.

The improvements that launched CD and DVD over cassette and VHS are not present in any type or form in the "transition" from DVD to blu-ray.

Your counter-argument is full of fail.

Lars @ Feb 6th 2008 3:06PM

Actually, it's not quality ONLY.

One thing that really bugged me about DVD was the clunky menu/interface programming. Well, that and how the movie pauses for half a second when switching layers. Both BD and HDDVD did a good job implementing an elegant system for the UI. Also, capacity is the most important factor for me.

Honestly I don't watch too many movies or TV. But I do like the improvements in media for other reasons, such as file storage, video games, etc. I bought a Blu-Ray burner a couple years back just so I could burn a gargantuan amount of info onto discs. I outgrew CD capacity long ago, and DVDs are looking small as well now.

Korova @ Feb 6th 2008 4:08PM

Lars, in 5 year, will I have to pre-install a movie before I watch it on BD?

I had to go there, BD is too slow.

Curtis @ Feb 6th 2008 5:52PM

Haha alright, so what are the other "improvments" from tape to cd and from vhs to dvd other then quality?

Spartacus @ Feb 6th 2008 6:42PM

Curtis,

Uh, form factor, digital vs analog, data preservation, ease of use and ability to copy the data without quality loss?

Tapes relied upon magnetic data which degraded in quality each time you used it, DVD's relied upon digital data which did not. DVD's were smaller and more compact than VHS tapes. DVD's could be copied without losing quality. DVD's didn't have to be rewound, could jump to chapters and had a user interface. MOST peope switched to DVD due to these benefits, NOT because the image was sharper or because the sound was better. In order for the quality to be experienced you would need a 480p TV and a good sound system. Most people with DVD players own an SDTV (480i resolution) with built in stereo speakers. Therefore DVD looks and sounds the same as VHS and so will BD and HD DVD's.

Chrono is right, CD's and DVD's were a much more significant leap in technology over their predecessors than BD/HD DVD is.

Crono (NDF - Knight of the Old School) @ Feb 6th 2008 7:57PM

Also, and I thought this was the coolest thing when I first saw it: the ability to skip to the song you wanted with the press of a button.

No fast forwarding, no rewinding, just one damn button.

maverick_saturn_626 @ Feb 6th 2008 1:30PM

Will Micro be adding a Video and floppy disk attachment any time soon? I could do with that seeing as I keep getting other useless accessories like this.

Drop the price to half that and I'll consider it :)

Goreful @ Feb 6th 2008 1:32PM

HD DVD is the PS3 of the next gen.

However, Toshiba is showing more brains by not using idiotic tactics like Sony is doing.

I give props to Toshiba for fighting back.

You know this whole Blu-ray and HD DVD format war reminds me of Super Bowl XLII. One team look like it was going to win it all...but the underdog pull out an upset.