Target Stores To Sell Only Blu-Ray Players

[ed klein]

Target to sell only Blu-ray DVD players
Thu Jul 26, 3:46 PM ET

Target plans to carry only Blu-ray high definition DVD players through the holiday shopping season, a move that boosts the Sony-backed technology and may deal a blow to rival HD-DVD.

In a statement on Thursday, Sony Corp. (6758.T) said that Target (NYSE:TGT - news) will exclusively carry Blu-ray players "at least through the holiday season" and will also expand its inventory of Blu-ray discs.

The move begins in October with Target's sale and promotion of Sony's BDP-S300 unit, which sells for about $500.

It was the second major retailer in as many months to throw its weight behind Blu-ray in the industrywide standards war reminiscent of VHS and Betamax. Blockbuster, the largest U.S. provider of home movie entertainment, in June set plans to line its shelves with Blu-ray DVDs, saying that Blu-ray rentals are "significantly outpacing HD DVD rentals."

HD DVD is developed by Toshiba Corp. (6502.T) and backed by Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq:MSFT - TWX - AAPL - DELL - news).

Earlier this month, the HD DVD camp said its stand-alone video players have outsold rival Blu-ray players by a three-to-one margin in Europe's main markets so far this year.

Mass market acceptance of high-definition video is still some way off, due in part to the high price of the devices, and the fact that some movies and programs are available on one platform and not the other.



From my viewpoint the entire world needs a formal union to pull together and not purchase any Blu-Ray products and not have anything to do with Blu-Ray products, the entire world needs to put Sony in its place and the best method to do this is where it hurts the most in their pocketbook or wallet.

And besides HD-DVD is easier to back-up.

Its way overdue that the consumer dictates to the vender what products we want or NOT PURCHASE the vendors product that they want to create.

Its time the sh** hits the fan when it comes to Sony and Microsoft

[RFBurns]

Couldnt agree more! But those two companies have tons of "padding" to fall on. Sony has more than enough divisions under the embrella that if not a single blu-ray unit were sold, the loss to Sony would be so miniscule and not put so much as a ping-dent in the whole of Sony.

Since Microsoft also has a huge whoopi-cushion to fall/sit on, so many divisions that it too would probably shrug off the storm and not break a sweat.

Thats the problem with huge corps and us consumers. We can refuse to purchase products from them, but in the end who really wins?!

[admin]

This Target story has already turned out to be false. Target is not dropping HD DVD at all, but I wonder who could it be that actually spread this rumour, and who would it benefit if this rumour was true. Hmm...

I think if Blu-ray fails, the loss to Sony would be much greater than the loss to Microsoft if HD DVD fails. HD DVD is not really Microsoft's format, and since HD DVD support comes in an add-on drive to the Xbox 360, if it fails, Microsoft will simply produce a Blu-ray add-on drive. Microsoft somehow forced the Blu-ray camp to accept their VC-1 codec for use in Blu-ray (I think this was before Microsoft went HD DVD exclusive), so even if HD DVD fails, Microsoft makes money from Blu-ray licensing.

But if Blu-ray fails, the PS3 will be in a bit of trouble, it's like if the PS1 was based on the laserdisc format or a proprietary formats, instead of CDs, would it have been a big success? And also, the Sony electronics division's strategy is based on Blu-ray being a success as well, so lots of eggs in one basket if you ask me.