Not only is Best Buy, Inc. (NYSE: BBY) moving swiftly to kick out the dead HD DVD format from its store shelves, but now the largest consumer electronics retailer in the U.S. is starting to aggressively price the victor format of the next-generation DVD -- Blu-ray. Although there is now just one next-generation DVD format available, consumers still haven't ponied up tons of cash to buy Blu-ray hardware players and accompanying $29,99 Blu-ray movie titles. Why? Standard DVD is good enough for most of us.
That is, until the prices come down on the players and the movies themselves. Blu-ray players are still pricey at $399 and up in most cases, but Best Buy is taking the sting out of some movie prices by cutting many popular titles to $19.99 each. Psychologically, that gets Blu-ray pricing on some level of parity with normal $14.99 and $16.99 DVD prices. Even some new releases on standard DVD start at $19.99 as well.
And not only that, online competitor Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) started offering more than 100 Blu-ray titles this week at up to 47% off. Is this the start of aggressive Blu-ray movie pricing meant to finally spur sales of the new DVD format? Now that the competing HD DVD format is out of the way, the path becomes much easier for retailers. Perhaps aggressive movie titles will actually cause the more expensive hardware to move faster off shelves.
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