Blu-Ray Prices Remain Stubbornly High

Want to make the jump to Blu-ray now that HD DVD is out of the picture? Well, expect to cough up at least $250 for a new player.

I just did a quick check of online retailers, and for now, prices for most new Blu-ray players remain stubbornly over the $300 mark (at major retailers, at least), and that includes some of the models that had seen steep price drops in recent months.

Take, for example, the Sony BDP-S300, a full-on 1080p Blu-ray player that was selling for $299 at Best Buy and Circuit City just a couple of months ago. Well, that same player is now retailing for $369 at Circuit City and $399 at Best Buy and Wal-Mart.

Meanwhile, consider the Samsung BD-P1400, one of the first Blu-ray players to fall below $300. Back in December, the deck was selling for $270 at Amazon; now it's back up to $356 at Amazon, and $399 at Circuit City.

That said, I did find the BD-P1400 on sale at CompUSA (yep, they're still around) for $250; if you're interested, though, you'd better snag it while it's still in stock.

Another option is to snag a Blu-ray player on Ebay, but the savings there aren't all that spectacular. Taking a look at soon-to-close auctions, prices were well above $200 (save for a handful of broken, as-is players), with the cheapest being Samsung's BD-P1400 for about $215.

Combo Blu-ray/HD DVD decks, on the other hand, are showing some decent price drops. LG's second-generation combo player, the BH200, is selling for less than $700 on Amazon (the original price tag was $1,000-plus), with used units going for $550.

Meanwhile, the Samsung BD-UP5000, originally prices at $1,050 and then discounted to $799, is now going for $629 on Amazon. I'm guessing these combo decks will see even steeper price drops in the coming months, and they might be good options for those with substantial HD DVD collections.

Through it all, the best Blu-ray bargain remains the 40GB PlayStation 3, which sells for $399 and delivers Blu-ray goodness as well as next-gen gaming. The PS3 is also the only future-proof Blu-ray player on the market (most older Blu-ray players can't be upgraded to the latest firmware versions, which allow for features like picture-in-picture commentaries).

Anyone out there have a lead on some cheaper Blu-ray players? We're all ears.