Walmart Pulls Another Fast One
by Pravin on November 29th, 2007 in players.
Months ago, a lot of HD DVD haters gleefully quoted from a Los Angeles Times article which seemed to imply that Walmart was ready to “boot stand-alone HD DVD players from its shelves in favor of Blu-ray.”
Or so it seemed.
Instead, Walmart got November off to a big start with a $99 deal on Toshiba’s HD-A2 player, helping to put several tens of thousands of units into people’s homes. So what comes next? As November draws to a close, Walmart has started offering Venturer’s SHD7000 HD DVD player for $199 in the USA, just a short while after it first went on sale in their Canadian stores. This player debuted at Target a couple of months ago for $249 (and it’s still $249), but Walmart is cranking up the competition and selling the same player for 50 bucks less.
This, again, completely contradicts what many people thought Walmart’s HD DVD plans were for the holidays. Walmart execs had been quoted as saying they would only sell a major brand name player, but here they are offering a second or third-tier brand.
Pretty sneaky of Walmart to misguide their competitors, huh?
The SHD7000 is very similar to the HD-A3, and numerous pictures demonstrating the similarities between the instruction manuals and setup screens for these players have been posted at the AVS forum in the last week.
It’s common for consumer electronics devices to have the same or similar innards. Sometimes it’s because they’re made at the same factories, but labeled differently for different brands. This situation also happens when devices are built from the same reference designs. In this latter case, the devices can be manufactured by different companies in different factories, but they end up with lots of things in common, like buttons and jacks in all the same places.
Though they may share a lot of things, one thing that’s certainly different between the SHD7000 and A3 is that the Toshiba players come with free movies in the box, and qualify for the “5 Free movies” offer. Though this might change in the future, the Venturer comes with nothing except its guaranteed lower price.
What is this player good for then? Well, the HD-A3’s official retail price is actually $299, and its natural discounted price is something closer to $250. If or when the $199 sales promotions stop coming on the HD-A3, the Venturer is going to become very appealing. Afterall, it’s got most of the same hardware features (perhaps all of them) as the Toshiba, but at that $199 price instead.
My guess (and I’ve been doing really well with those guesses so far) is that we’ll see this Venturer go below $199, and that the HD-A3 is likely to hover around $199. Merchants will probably sweeten their Venturer SHD7000 deals with promotions on free movies or accessories, and close the gap between it and the HD-A3. For example, the Canadian Walmart stores that this player first appeared at (according to AVS member postings) included some random HD DVD titles. And anyone who’s waited for their five free movies can tell you that it’s better to get your freebies up-front rather than wait weeks and months for them to arrive in the mail.
Only time will tell. One thing we know for sure is that pricing has fueled a lot of high-def purchases, even making lesser known brands of HDTVs outsell the bigger names. And in the case of HD DVD players, perhaps the lesser known Venturer brand might prove to be a big part of the push to achieving an installed base of 1 million HD DVD users.
- AVS Forum Thread about the Venturer
- Walmart product listing for the SHD7000
- Target listing for the SHD7000
UPDATE: Venturer has been busy getting their player out there. Europeans will get a chance to purchase the SHD7001 model on the QVC shopping channel soon. The player will come with two movies, Hulk and Troy.
November 30th, 2007 at 10:07 pm
When is Sony going to learn that sometimes the best format is not always the format to come out on top? Their media has always been the pricest and hardest to make by third parties let alone themselves. Yes Sony’s betamax was a better format for audio and pq, and atrac3 was a much better format over mp3, but they like Blu-Ray never caught on and never will! Wal-mart is the Porno Industry of the future, b/c now it all comes down to price. The laws of supply and demand here do apply. Toshiba, Venturer, and Microsoft are leading the way for the best priced next-gen format. I am just thinking how many more HD DVDs I would own of other studios (Fox, Disney etc…) would at least make both formats available and not just BD. HD DVD would have by now won the format wars and BD would be a thing of the past like Betamax and Mini-Disc and Atrac3!
December 1st, 2007 at 5:41 am
Blu-ray movie sales have done really well, however they could have done even better if the players were cheaper and more accessible. I remember when I was looking at getting my HDTV, that it hurt to think that I’d have to come up with another $500 or more for a disc player. Hey, if I had the extra $500, I’d rather have purchased a bigger or better HDTV instead!
This is where a $200 (or less) player comes in to save the day, and it’s the lesson that Walmart and HD DVD are teaching. Early adopters are accustomed to paying more, but bigger success happens when the mainstream consumers embrace your product. In that regard, Walmart, Kmart, QVC, and lots of other mass merchandisers will end up being a big part of the HD DVD success story.
December 1st, 2007 at 8:15 am
I wouldn’t have a HD DVD player if it were not for Walmart’s amazing $98.87 HD-A2 deal. Blu-Ray fans like to ignore the high price of BD. But in the end it is about how many stand alone players are out there? HD DVD is selling for $99-$399, and Blu-Ray is selling for $399 and up. I think this gives HD DVD a big advantage. People are looking for a bargain and HD DVD fits that category. Blu-Ray is no bargain. There are a lot more people shopping at Walmart for electronics than there are people who are willing to pay anything for Sony quality. I think the Sony CEO was telling the truth when he recently called the war a “stalemate”. Just when Sony thought the prize was theirs to win; HD DVD comes along with a price that makes it clear this isn’t over yet. I absolutely got my money’s worth from buying an HD-A2. I could have opted for BD, but that would mean I would have $400 less to spend on HD movies.
December 1st, 2007 at 3:36 pm
It is a shame that a winner has not been named for this Xmas season…I own a neighborhood video store and still waiting to see where I am going to but my money…Video stores can really generate a consences to the public and will make the decision for the consumer for its local customer base. My vendor as decided to stock BD but I am not sold. I will partner with a local full service local TV retail co. and he is waiting for me to make a decision, so we can cross premote our decision. With video stores going out of business every day, to survive, you can not make a mistake and to have both formats is a no-can-do, but to do nothing is the kiss of death. With all that the consumer has to choose from, it make it tough to make a buck.
December 3rd, 2007 at 8:59 am
I work at a fairly large electronics retail chain (not bb or cc) and so far just off of the new generation disc changers (hda3 and hda30) which have been out maybe 3 or 4 months we have sold 115 units of stand alone players, however in the bluray players (bdps300) which has been out longer we have only sold 41 of them. so go figure the players are selling very well (hddvd that is) and I myself have one the only problem I have is finding discs on hd dvd seems like there are way too many titles on br. I wish the studios would pay attention to the numbers of players and atleast do both formats.
December 3rd, 2007 at 4:32 pm
This is what I want all the retailers (Best Buy, Circuit City, Target & Wal-Mart) to do so I can buy my HD DVD player. Drop the price of the Toshiba HD-A3 back to $98 so I can buy one along with all my family and friends. You can’t go back to charging $300 for a player that sold for $98; the majority of people will not buy. At $98 I may even pick up two; one for my bedroom too.
December 5th, 2007 at 5:39 pm
What do you have to say about Onkyo discontinuing their HDD player due to this pricing by Toshiba products? How will any other manufacturer be able to produce these players to compete with the much cheaper Toshiba prices, unless they are virtually a no name producer, such as Venturer? Just curious as to what you know that I don’t.
December 5th, 2007 at 5:54 pm
The only story that says Onkyo’s product was pulled is something from Italy, where the overall HDM market is tiny in the first place, and even your beloved format doesn’t sell that well.
Do you have a link to some information that says this product is discontinued? It’s still here at Onkyo’s site:
http://www.us.onkyo.com/model.cfm?m=DV-HD805&class=DVD&p=i
and it’s still on sale at B&H Photo:
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/484716-REG/Onkyo_DV_HD805B_DV_HD805_HD_DVD_Player.html,
so maybe you PS3 guys know more than those of us who follow HD DVD more closely.
December 5th, 2007 at 6:29 pm
The internet is full of stories based on a tiny germ of truth which then has many people add their own two cents to create a much bigger story.
The Xbox 360 HD DVD drive went on sale briefly at Amazon for $129, and the next thing you know, many sites reported that Microsoft dropped the price, and they even elaborate about this as if they’ve read an official release on the matter.
The truth is probably that the price will be dropping, however it has not officially been dropped. If you look around, there are still new stories about this coming up at various sites.
Similarly, the Onkyo player story is true in some amount for Italy. And that’s about all anybody can go on.
December 15th, 2007 at 12:02 am
I remember seeing an article recently about the new Venturerer HD DVD player that stated it will come witha free HDMI cable and 2 free ovies in the box ad it does qualify for the 5 free discs.
December 15th, 2007 at 12:06 am
The “5 Free Discs” offer hasn’t been extended to Venturers sold in North America just yet. I have no doubt that it eventually will, but for right now, it’s only the Europeans who are going to get the extra discs.
I think this has something to do with the fact that there’s no HD-A3 in Europe, and the Venturer model sort of takes its place there. But that’s just my conjecture.