As I just wrote on this week, HD DVD players hit a new price low when Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT), Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) and others dropped the price of an older HD DVD player to right under $200 in perfect timing for holiday blowout sales. In the span of just a few days, that price has been cut 50%. Want to get into HD DVD? The price of retail admission now is just $99. Mass market purchase adoption now has clearance to take off.

In Wal-Mart's secret holiday shopping site that was unveiled yesterday, the Toshiba HD DVD unit is featured for $99, although it's not available in stores (just online). My educated guess is that this is a one-time fire sale to clear inventory of an old model, but it could usher in a new low price range for the HD DVD format in the wake of extremely lukewarm customer acceptance.

To be blunt, many just don't see the advantages in a player costing $250 to $500, even with hi-def and all that. At $99 or even $150, things change. Call it the power of the mass-market price model for consumer electronics.

Best Buy, Inc. (NYSE: BBY) has jumped into the fray as well with the same $99 price on the same Toshiba HD DVD model, something I hinted at yesterday. With the largest consumer electronics retailer chiming in here, this confirms it: either Toshiba reduced the sell-through price to its distributors (retailers) to make room for newer models or the retailers want to get the hardware into the hands of consumers to spur software sales.

HD DVD movies range from $25 to $30 generally, which is a much nicer cushion than standard DVD prices of $10 to $18. Sometimes loss leaders are the way to go, just like that nearly-free razor that requires $8 razor blades to function.