Wandering the aisles of my local Costco at the weekend, I spotted a Sony networked Blu-ray player on sale at $110, $70 off.
Blu-ray players are much more affordable now, starting around $150, so $110 was quite a bargain and an indication of the way prices are going, according to In-Stat’s latest report.
The research firm says significant price drops of Blu-ray players drove unit shipments to triple in 2009 in North America.
It predicts 80m network-enabled Blu-ray players and recorders will ship worldwide by 2013 – only slightly behind the 90m unit shipments of regular DVD players.
But higher average selling prices will see Blu-ray record four times as much revenue as DVD players in 2013, In-Stat predicts.
“The cost differential between standard definition DVD and Blu-ray is becoming much smaller and new features such as IP/network connectivity are becoming increasingly important. Blu-ray is finally starting to make significant advances,” says Michelle Abraham, In-Stat analyst.
Blu-ray’s extra features may be enough to persuade consumers to choose its players over DVD ones at these kinds of prices.
Watching a Blu-ray movie on Saturday night on a PlayStation 3, I was also able to see extra content updated over the internet. The picture quality is obviously better and services such as Netflix movie and YouTube streaming are becoming common on even the cheapest units.
