Crazy End of Year Prices on HD-A30 and HD-A35
by Pravin on December 19th, 2007 in shopping.
With Christmas less than a week away, the pressure is on to get all of your gifts picked out. But there’s also pressure on the retailers to move out as much of their merchandise as possible because this is the season when they sell the most of everything.
If you’ve been following the stories about prices at this site or elsewhere, I’m sure you’re already familiar with some of the recent promotions about 10 and 12 movies with an HD DVD player purchase at Amazon and Walmart. Those movie deals are gone for the moment, but they’ve been replaced by lower prices across the board on HD DVD players. If you made a purchase at Amazon recently, then pay close attention because you might have an opportunity to invoke their price protection policy and take advantage of these new savings.
As I write this, Amazon is carrying the HD-A35 for $299, the HD-A30 for $232, and the HD-A3 for $198.50, and they’re offering FREE 1-Day shipping so that you might still get these in time for Christmas.
Looking elsewhere on the web, I also found the HD-A30 for $199 at PCRichard.com, who offers free shipping, but not of the overnight kind. That’s right, the HD-A30 for $199. It’s only cents more than the HD-A3 at Amazon!
This is ridiculous pricing on the higher-up models. It almost makes me wish I had a second and third HDTV so I could take them up on these deals.
There are going to be a lot of new HD DVD users next week joining the rest of us in the hunt for movies, and my fingers are crossed that we’ll see some more movie promotions. Best Buy still has their BOGO (Buy 1 Get 1) deal through this week, both online and in-store, and I’m hoping for Amazon and others to come to our rescue.
December 19th, 2007 at 10:29 am
I grabbed my HD-A30 from Amazon last week at $238. I’ve noticed from the Amazon Sales Ranking that the A30 is outselling the A3.
It’s also interesting to see that even the high-end A35 is outselling cheaper Blu-Ray models.
December 19th, 2007 at 11:42 am
The Best Buy BOGO is getting a little thin for both formats but if you find titles you like on the list, you can really save. Of course Amazon always has the lowest proices on HDDVDS so I tend to order directly from them. Any serious film fan should definitely check out the Blade Runner collection. It was a watershed film when it was released and is still one of the most engaging and intelligent Sci-Fi films ever made.
December 19th, 2007 at 5:14 pm
Don’t know if it’s true, but just in case it is. A Best Buy employee, whom I personally know for about 3 years, told me that he heard that next week Best Buy will have a Buy 2 get 1 Free deal from any of their HD DVD and Blu Ray discs in store.
Let’s hope this is really going to happen.
December 19th, 2007 at 5:27 pm
I read somewhere, perhaps at the AVS forum, that Circuit City is doing a “Buy 2 Get One” sale in two weeks. B2G1 is not as good as B1G1 because your savings are diluted, but it’s better than no sale at all.
Another issue that needs to be addressed is that retail stores need to stock more movies in the first place. Online merchants like Amazon don’t have shelf-space issues and can offer a lot more movies when you go looking, but not everybody goes online.
December 20th, 2007 at 7:12 am
Actually Amazon really is the best way to get your HD DVDS. They have the widest selection. A lot of titles not in the sotres are available through Amazon. Add to that the fact that Amazon has prices that are much lower and it really is the best alternative.
December 20th, 2007 at 12:45 pm
Seconding what Holmes wrote. I bought my very first HD-DVD at BB and was later steered towards Fry’s and Amazon. I haven’t bought a title from them again since.
January 1st, 2008 at 7:07 am
Does anyone have or know where I can view the sales numbers for the HD-A3 series of players for Nov-Dec 2007? Considering the fact that “300″ is bundled with the new players and that WB was paid for the discs by Toshiba, I would like to figure out the true tallies for the HD DVD version of the film against the claims that the BR version is outselling it.
January 1st, 2008 at 7:28 pm
I’m sure the manufacturers know how much of various things they have sold, but they keep a lot of that information to themselves. I had the same curiosity and even looked it up in Warner’s stock filings, but they didn’t break out their sales numbers by title, only by corporate division. In other words, they’ll say how Warner Home Video is doing, but don’t give specific numbers.
Instead, we have to rely on third parties who monitor this stuff, but the problem with them is that they’re usually not comprehensive enough and miss out on a vendor or two.