Sony shaves Blu-ray Disc’s prices by $100

Seems like Sony Corp. is doing quite well and is eager to hook more and more customers by using lower prices as bait. On Monday, the company announced a decrease of $100 in the price tag of new Blu-ray high-definition movie-disc player it is shipping this week.

The company held that the BDP-S300 will now be available for $499, instead of the previously announced price of $599. The louring in the price is due to the falling production costs and a boost in demand.

The new price tag is almost half the price of the first Blu ray Disc player- BDP-S1, which was launched by Sony on December 4, 2006, and had an exorbitant price of $1000.

Although, Sony has shaved the price for its latest Blu-ray Disc player, it still faces a tough completion from its rival Toshiba, which sells their high-definition DVD players for less than $300.

Ever since the two giant companies introduced their respective technologies, they have been in cut throat competition with one another. The war between the biggies seems unending as both the formats introduced by them are incompatible. While Sony’s Blu-ray Disc player has a gigantic memory capacity that makes it extortionately pricey, on the other hand, Toshiba’s HD DVD is an exceptionally well designed extension of accessible technology that is more dewy-eyed and cheaper to introduce.

The HD DVD, which provides sharp, wide-screen images, aim at replacing the standard DVD players and the Electronics Association estimate that by the end of 2007, about 1 million players will be sold.

However, neither of the two formats has got much acceptance by the customers, who hold that the High-def DVDs come with a high price tag and if one of the formats bites the dust, then consumers may be burdened with worthless equipment.

Analyst Gerry Kaufhold at In-Stat/MDR, a technology industry research firm, holds that HD DVD will do great business for four or five years, but by 2009, consumers will jump on the Blu-ray Disc bandwagon.

Blu-ray Disc, a high-density optical disc format for the storage of digital media, first wriggled their way to the market shelves when Philips announced their first Blu-ray Disc players in January 2006.

Since the time it was introduced, till now, Blu-ray and HD DVD have been at daggers drawn at each other. Hollywood studios are split on the issue, but Blu-ray has the strongest support, with Columbia Pictures, MGM, Disney, Lionsgate and 20th century Fox supporting Blu-ray.

Paramount Pictures, DreamWorks, Warner Bros. and New Line Cinema support both the formats. Weinstein Company is the only studio which supports HD DVD.