UPDATE: Apparently, Best Buy is already selling the HD-A2 for $99 today. I’m unable to link to the right page at the site, but a reader has provided a link in the comments. There is no HD-A2 listed online, so this is likely to be an in-store deal. Call ahead to make sure, but word on the AVS forum and elsewhere is that Best Buy stores may already be sold out — which brings Walmart back into play for Friday.
We all expected Walmart to start offering the HD-A2 for $198 on Saturday, November 3, and then Circuit City and Amazon immediately started offering the player for a penny less. Next, we heard that Sears would feature the HD-A3 for $169 during their Black Friday sale.
It’s still not over folks! Walmart is now offering up the HD-A2 for $98.97 this Friday, November 2, in a “secret sale” at selected locations. It’s actually not much of a secret considering that they’ve got information about it plastered at one of their websites.
The sale also features the following HD DVD movies for $14.96: 12 Monkeys, The Big Lebowski, and Blood Diamond. I also read that the following movies should also be available for $14.96: Clerks 2, Lucky Number Slevin, Pulse, Failure to Launch, Four Brothers, Italian Job, Sleepy Hollow, Casino, Backdraft, Sea Biscuit, Alexander Revisited, Full Metal Jacket, The Last Samurai, Swordfish, and Unforgiven.
And that’s not all that Wally has in the works for HD DVD. Behold the following commercial that’s been appearing on the TV networks:
(Click here if the video does not appear above)
I’ve read that the sale on the discs goes for the entire weekend, and it should be available at all stores, but the HD-A2 sale is only at some locations. If you’re interested, then visit the website to locate your nearby stores, and then give them a call to find out more.
- Walmart’s “secret sale” site
- AVS Forum thread about the big list of $14.96 movies
- AVS Forum thread about the Walmart website
A big thanks to all of the Walmart employees who submit the first bits of news about these things to the AVS forum, and the Walmart customers who post verifications of those reports at the AVS forum too.
November 1st, 2007 at 6:38 am
This is great news if you are a backer of HD DVD, though not unexpected. The next 8 or so weeks leading up to Christmas are the most crucial weeks on the retail calendar. Some retailers do as much as 70% of their annual sales during this period. This also gives companies like Toshiba with HD DVd a great opportunity to spike in market penetration in a very short period of time. It is also why Sony has been positioning a lower cost PS3 to spike THEIR sales during the holidays. I am still not sold on a gaming system as the main channel for getting players into consumer’s hands but there is no denying that it has some impact as Blue Ray movie sales are ahead of HD DVD. I expect that gap to close as Toshiba sells more stand alone players and a between $100 and $200 a pop it is going to sway a lot of people who are still on the fence about high def in general. I will be surprised if Toshiba does not market a player designed for this price point 12 months a year going forward. Once you break that price barrier, there is no going back.
November 1st, 2007 at 7:11 am
It’s not that gamers don’t watch movies or like them, but that the typical gamer is ready to spend upwards of $50 on a game disc and invest a lot of time into the nonlinear and immersive experience the game provides. This is 50 fewer dollars, and fewer weekends and evenings spent on other activities. Gamers are often credited (blamed) with the downturn in TV, DVD and movie viewership in the last several years.
Statistics suggest that if you have enough PS3s out there, then that small number of movie buffs in the gaming population (or people who bought it strictly for movies) will make their presence known. Though its sales are disappointing compared to other game systems (even the last-gen PS2 outsells it), the PS3 has still sold millions of units in its first year, and even with the low predicted attach rate (number of movies sold per player), that has been enough to generate strong sales numbers on discs. It only takes one or two hundred thousand of these people to buy a couple of movies each month to create a lot of sales on movie discs.
At sub-$200 and sub-$100 prices, HD DVD takeup should accelerate. It will help sell HDTVs and vice versa at Walmart, Kmart, Sears, etc., and in turn, those new HD citizens will start looking for movies to go along with their players. In the end, it will have positive effects on the software side so that all the HD DVD supporting studios will have an opportunity (if they desire it) to throw back some of the distasteful trash talk they’ve endured from the other side.
November 1st, 2007 at 11:42 am
This was reported by CNET.COM an hour ago!
Not to be outdone, it also looks as if Best Buy is selling the Toshiba HD-A2 for $99 as well. You can’t order from Best Buy online, but it seems like if you get to your local Best Buy before they run out of stock, you can nab an HD-A2 for $99.
And so it goes
November 1st, 2007 at 1:23 pm
$100 HD-A2 at Best Buy and other deals
http://www.engadget.com/2007/11/01/best-buy-offers-the-toshiba-hd-a2-for-100-too-and-other-hd-dv/
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=8021767&st=hd-a2&lp=1&type=product&cp=1&id=1158323325814
November 3rd, 2007 at 9:15 am
Well I got down to my local Walmart at about 8:30 last night. As I already have a player I was not looking for one, but wanted to get a few movies at the $14.96 price point. They still had plenty on a free standing display. Clearly it had seen a lot of action during the day as it was better than half empty. I picked up Last Samurai and Unforgiven for under $30. All the players were gone of course and there were no Blue Ray players on display either. Looks like it was a good sale all around.