I’ve already mentioned Toshiba’s $100 instant rebate on the HD-A2 HDDVD player, which brings that price down to $299 at Amazon.com. Toshiba’s rebate program is supposed to expand to all of their players on June 10, which means that the HD-A20 would become $399 instead of $499. It also means that the normally $799 XA2 should become $699.

I was looking through the selections in our “aStore” for the site and discovered that Amazon appears to have started early on the expansion of the rebate program. Checking over in the little store, you’ll see that Amazon’s already selling the HD-A20 for just a little less than the $399 price it’ll be at when the rebate kicks in. The XA2 is being offered at just under $599.

In a quick comparison with other participants in the rebate programs, like BestBuy or Crutchfield, you’ll see that they’re still offering these players at the regular prices right now.

I’m not sure what prices these items will have when the official rebate pricing kicks in. Will it be the official $499 and $599, or will it stay at a few dollars below as it is right now? Does Amazon have some special arrangement that allows them to do the rebate without officially doing the rebate? Being such a high-volume dealer, it’s logical that they’d have this ability, but I really have no idea. What I do know is that it’s possible to purchase an HD-A2 or XA2 HDDVD player today for less than the expected June 10 pricing.