Sony: $200 Blu-ray players likely for 2009

With the high-def format war over, Sony is now looking at Blu-ray pricing for holiday 2008 and beyond. The lowdown? $300 players by the end of the year, and $200 models likely for 2009.

Somewhat in line with my earlier prediction, Sony is indeed now targeting high-end DVD players in an attempt to get consumers to make the jump to Blu-ray. The best way to do that? Knock prices down to a level where they're within striking distance of better DVD hardware. Many see that sweet spot at $199, a commonly held "magic price point" for consumer goods where the unit becomes an "impulse buy," but $299 is also seen as another critical threshold where consumer acceptance begins to pick up. (Of course, with $30 DVD players on the market, Blu-ray has a long way to go before it starts to appeal to the mass market. The cost of Blu-ray movies is another big issue, but those appear to be on the decline as well.)

What's holding up bigger cuts? Well, as many suspected, Sony and the Blu-ray Disc Association, which has so far refused to license its spec to the Chinese manufacturers. If given a foot in the door, these vendors would instantly crowd the Costcos and Wal-Marts of the world with inexpensive, off-brand hardware. Such hardware is already rampant in the DVD space (you can even buy a DVD player at Walgreen's, for God's sake), and it's just a matter of time before the BDA decides that the royalties it can make from licensing the technology in volume more than makes up for the profits to be made from selling fewer artificially expensive players. When that will happen is anyone's guess.

Meanwhile, all eyes remain focused on the PlayStation 3, where competitiveness with the Wii and Xbox 360 remain a priority. Ultimately, it could be price cuts on the gaming console (finally gaining momemtum) that gets expensive Blu-ray players to come down from the stratosphere.