marty

The price difference between DVD and Blu ray is, in my opinion, more a result of DVD prices dropping so quickly rather than Blu ray being expensive from the outset. Like was mentioned above, Blu ray was needed so quickly by the studios because they lowered their DVD prices so quickly that they needed a revenue boost. The whole industry is a very interesting business case on a product life cycle. The good thing for all of us is that the same people are making the pricing decisions on Blu ray that did for DVD. So expect prices to fall pretty quickly moving forward especially if more people start using the alternatives like HD downloads (forget the issue of whether you think it is an alternative). The cost of producing a Blu ray is dearer than a DVD but production cost is one of the smallest part of total costs in delivering disks to consumers, the bigger costs mainly marketing is identicle between the 2. Bring on more dooom and gloom articles on Blu ray i say because there will be one winner which is all of us who have Blu Ray players and dont mind paying less for a disk.

Toshiba Corp stock went up as the poster earlier stated the costs that they were outlaying will go down. From memory the losses on the plant used for HDDVD manufacture would be about $93m but the 12 month cost saving was estimated at around $430m. Adding $300m plus to a companies profit woudl certainly help the share price, gotta now figure out how i increase my income (luckily my costs are not that high hehehe). As for disks staying high, the format has been settled for now but there is still intense competition between the studios exactly as there is on DVD. This will drive prices down (just like it did for DVD) and if it happens as quickly as prices came down for DVD's we should be smiling. Anyone remember what a movie on VHS used to cost. I admit that is slightly unfair due to a change in the pricing policy of the studios but still illustrative of the point.

How exactly can a monopoly happen when you have different firms making/marketing players and disks. You will have the same number (eventually) of distributors for the disks as you do for dvd a similar number of firms selling the players I cannot see a monopoly market. As for the firms getting together and setting a price, well that is illegal here in Australia and most likely in many other countries too. To say this is a monolpoly market as there is one format is crazy. It would be the same as saying that a petrol company has a monopoly as Unleaded is the dominant or a Car company because all cars have an engine and 4 wheels. The mono part means one, but one company not one format. Competition will lower the price over time, and if you look at many post-grad marketing analysis on consume goods, the quickest decline in price on goods in recent time came from DVD's. Most marketing guru's funnily enough point to the level of feirce competition forcing the price of DVD's down so fast as the reason that a DVD successor became necessary so soon. Remember the above these companies that, through fierce competition forced DVD prices down in record time are the exact same companies that will be marketing Blu Ray going forward. The companies do not care what they have spent in the past on development, that has been spent and no actions now will get that back. What they are interested in is what can make them the most going forward and as history has shown, the marketing departments at these companies are not patient and just want to secure as much money as fast as they can even if it brings an early end to a format like DVD through market saturation and greatly reduced prices.