Sony Slashes Blu-ray Player Price - No More PS3 As Cheap Alternative

So, the PlayStation 3 as ‘cheap’ Blu-ray player goes by the wayside as one wing of Sony produces a player at half the price of the current offering but with the same functionality.

And by Christmas 2007, players will drop below the $500 mark, according to Stan Glasgow, president of Sony Electronics. Who also commented on the future of the format – and its price – “Over time, I think it will be just like DVD”, he said.

With competing HD-DVD players from the likes of Toshiba costing $499 (£250), and partner Samsung announcing that it will market its Blu-ray BD-P1200 player for $799 (£400), Sony in the US has finally bitten the bullet and announced the release of the its own BDP-S300 player for $599 (£300) – the same price as the PS3 60Gb retails at in North America.

Senior vice president of the home products division of Sony Electronics, Randy Waynick, told a press conference that the newer BDP-S300 will have the same capabilities as Sony's $999 BDP-S1.

This news comes after Sony Studios Worldwide head, Phil Harrison told an interviewer, “It (Blu-ray) wasn't Sony's decision; it was our [SCE's] decision. We needed to have Blu-ray disc from a game design point of view. The chipsets in PS3 chew through data at such a rate that in order to build variety and detail and quality into the games, we need more than nine gigabytes. Now, the fact that we could also adopt the preeminent next generation movie format into PS3 was an added bonus, not an added cost.”

“The blue laser diode, as you well know, had a blip short-term ramp up issue, which is now past; that's now behind us. That did cause us some challenges in being able to supply the launch worldwide, but that's all resolved.

It looks as if meeting those ‘challenges’ has also enabled Sony Electronics to undercut the promise of the PlayStation 3 as a cheap Blu-ray player. What this could mean for the price of the now gutted PAL PS3 is yet to be seen – but it certainly raises expectations that further price cutting should be in the offing.

Alternatively, of course, the PS3s game-playing and networking capabilities could be seen as major value adds by potential Blu-ray player purchasers. After all, if you're going to pay $599 for a standalone player, why not pay the same for a unit that also plays games and connects to digital online data?

By the way, if you’re still not tempted by Blu-ray maybe the following list of film releases on the format will whet your appetite?

Blu-ray Movie Releases

Sony Pictures
All The King's Men
Kung Fu Hustle
50 First Dates
XXX
Casino Royale
Layer Cake
Hellboy
Stranger Than Fiction
Big Fish

Buena Vista
Eight Below
Chicken Little
Enemy of the State
Flightplan
Gone in 60 Seconds
The Guardian
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Hollywoodland
Pearl Harbor
Scary Movie 4
Sky High
The Wild