SlashGear Japan
When I’m contemplating the purchase of a high-end electronic device, Kmart doesn’t exactly top the list of places I’m going to look. Honestly, it doesn’t even make the list at all, I’m not even sure when I last graced the door of my local Kmart. The sad thing is that I pass it on a regular basis, I just feel no need to stop in.
That being said, I don’t think that Kmart will be the tipping point in the HD format wars. However, they have publicly announced their allegiance to the HD DVD camp by shunning standalone Blu-ray players.
The reason for Kmart’s decision? They feel that Blu-ray players are too expensive. While I don’t see Kmart tipping the scales, I think they’ve got the right idea. Your average Joe is going to look at a $200 (if you’re lucky $100) HD DVD player and a $500 standalone Blu-ray player (average Joe just thinks the PS3 is a game console) and his choice won’t be hard. For most people, the differences between the two standards is too small to care, they’ll go where it’s cheap.
Toshiba says Kmart will go to HD DVD exclusively [via tgdaily]
4 Responses to “Kmart decides to stock only standalone HD DVD players, no love for Blu-ray”
Uiergrew November 2, 2007
The ‘average joe’ will see more Bluray discs than HD-DVD in the DVD sales chart at places like Amazon and will see BluRay maintaining their hardware prices while HD-DVD are slashing theirs. To me it seems one format is winning and one is getting a bit desperate.
HD-DVD has always been far cheaper than BluRay so why do their players only make up 60% of the standalone market?. The fact is ‘the average joe’ couldn’t care less about HD until one format has won. In the meantime the PS3 keeps getting millions of players into peoples homes. The new cheap 40gb PS3 is coming packaged with Spiderman 3 on BluRay so everyone who buys that will know its a BluRay player.
Neutraljohn wayne November 2, 2007
piss off sony fanboy we don’t like you
-2Denis Bergeron November 2, 2007
Did “John Wayne” is a “Average Joe” ?
+1Jasmine H November 2, 2007
You’ve got some bad info, K-mart will still sell blu-ray.
+1