Amazon rings up 50% Blu-ray disc discounts

Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) will begin selling Blu-ray movie titles this month for quite a discount -- some for as low as $13.95, according to sources. This pricing moves comes as many customers have opted to stick with the older DVD standard and its $10 to $15 discs instead of the $30 Blu-ray discs -- and $300 players. To most consumers, the marginal improvement is just not worth it.

But now that Blu-ray has a huge upper hand against format competitor HD DVD, this recent price cut by Amazon.com may go a long way toward getting Blu-ray into the hands of consumers who were previously afraid of buying either high-definition format while waiting to see which one would become the standard.

Blu-ray players still aren't nearly as inexpensive as standard DVD players, and the job of hardware manufacturers will now be to get the price to a reasonable level (like $150) and entice customers to pony up for a new Blu-ray player. Once Blu-ray titles hit the $17.99 mark and players hit $150, expect Blu-ray to begin growing. Nothing moves consumers over the edge like price -- nothing. Until then, those $13.99 DVD titles and $60 up-converting DVD players will do most customers just fine.