$500 lost on every $99 HD DVD Player
Filed under: DVD Systems, Electronics | By: Kerry
Posted on: November 6, 2007 | 1 Comment
Lots of you have heard about those $99 HD DVD players that were being sold for a moment at Walmart and Best Buy.
You’re probably smart enough to realize that Toshiba isn’t making much scratch on these things, but for reference, the first HD-A1 HD DVD player, cost Toshiba $674 in parts alone.
It’s pretty clear that Toshiba is losing at least a few hundred dollars on this $99 deal for consumers, and maybe over $500 bucks including all costs. Is this sale desperation? Maybe it’s just a stunt, since most places sold out almost immediately.
What do you think?
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I think back in early September, the Chinese government actually took side in the hi-def format war and adapted a HD DVD-based (and HD DVD-compatible) format as their national format. China called it the “CH DVD”, i.e., Chinese HD DVD (how original).
http://www.n4g.com/industrynews/News-66305.aspx
Analysts at the time quickly forecast that the prices of HD DVD players would come down rapidly because of that sudden turn of event. Reason: CH DVD players are basically HD DVD players with very minor modification, and they (and their various components) can be easily and cheaply converted for HD DVD.
As China chose HD DVD (in the form of CH DVD), Chinese began to mass produce CH/HD DVD
players, and that would quickly bring down their prices to “Chinese” prices. Now we are just starting to see that Chinese effect in HD DVD players.