Quote Originally Posted by Feanor
I'm not entirely convinced. There is a loose connection between cost and price.

And there are to ways to recoup development costs:
  1. Keep the prices high and "skim" the rich enthusiast market;
  2. Lower prices to capture the mass market and make up initial costs through volume.
For my part, I predicted that principal Blu-ray makers would go No.1 for a couple of years and that Blu-ray would not go mainstream only prices were permitted to sink to US$150. As I recall, SirTtT insisted that prices would remain high for a while, not because of a No.1 startegy, but just because unit costs would be too high to permit the No.2 strategy.
Feanor, while I said prices would remain high "for a while" that does not mean two to three years or more. My window was aimed more at 2008 than 2009. I knew what the BDA had up its sleeve, I have attended many a meeting on behalf of the company I work for. The larger popular brands by and large have kept their blu-ray player prices fairly high, and are not selling any player at a loss. That was the goal. As things like all in one laser assemblies, cheaper laser prices, and manufacturering efficiencies(as a result of a lack of format war) were realized, player prices were lowered but not the profit made per player. Manufacturers still get the same profit per player they were getting in 2007 and 2008 in spite of the economic downturn through these efficiences. Back in early 2008 they were talking of player prices being down around $100 because they were beginning to liscense chinese manufacturers to make players(not design) and everyone knew this would mean cheaper prices. The original concept was to create several "tiers" of prices that could support the taste of budget consumers, mid price consumers, and the high end consumer as well. That is largely in place now. During the format war, this was impossible to do.

Whatever, but I think we were both pessimistic. In fact mass acceptance probably began at a higher point than I predicted, perhaps it was $225-250. When it became evident that BR was catching on relatively fast, parts manufacturers began to tool-up big time for large scale production. This, in turn, permitted the entry of mass market providers earlier than SirTtT predicted, (I suggest, though he'll likely disagree 'cause he's never wrong). Of course, the up-market providers and still trying to "skim" with higher-priced models with more features and -- maybe -- better quality.
Not quite right here. BR began to catch on in mid 2008 in terms of software and hardware sales. However it was still expensive and complex to make a blu-ray player, and prices remained stable at pretty high prices. It was not until unified laser assembly heads and SOC hit the manufacturing market at the end of 2008 that these complexities were conquered, and manufacturing efficiencies took hold. This also enabled the flood of cheaper players to hit the market because not it was possible to create a low priced player without killing the profit per player ratio that most manufacturers desire. Feanor, I knew the mass market producers of Blu-ray players were coming on line in 2009, but I also knew that there would be a dearth of profile 1.1 players that would be heavily discounted in 2009 as well. So nothing was earlier than I predicted, as I was following the BDA plan, a plan that worked very much on time. And your asinine comment about me never being wrong was completely unnecessary in the context of this discussion. It hard to maintain any civility around here without trying to take diggs at people. I didn't attack you, so you should not be so quick to attack me. This is part of the reason I don't come around here much anymore.