Toshiba Deploys New Marketing Initiatives Based On Strong Fourth Quarter Unit Sales

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Originally Posted by TheMoose

And guess what the Toshiba A3 is up from it's 1 day fire sale price of $99!!

Did you ever hear of Christmas sales?
There are thousands of items that were on sale in December that have higher prices now.

The Toshiba HD-A3 was never $99. That was the discontinued HD-A2 at the Walmart secret sale of Nov. 7th. BB, CC, etc. lowered the price of the HD-A3 to $199 during that time period to compete with the HD-A2 at $100 cheaper. The price shot back up to $249 for the HD-A3 for most of the season and yes it was too expensive. Ken Graffeo always talked about the $199 price point as being the magic number for consumer adaption.

The secret sale in Dec. for Walmart had the HD-A3 for $199 with 5 free movies in the store and 5 free mail in just as BB and CC had done in Nov. The HD-A3 was never below $199 at any retail store. The HD-A3 at $99 before xmas is fantasy FUD from the blu camp.

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Originally Posted by 1more4HDDVD

It appears the first real attempt at combo only was pretty successful:

“HD DVD [combo] release of Star Trek: Season One, will reach 100,000 units sold. That momentum has led the company to commit to releasing all subsequent Star Trek seasons on high-def, amounting to two more HD DVD titles.”

http://www.videobusiness.com/article/CA6517163.html

Especially when you consider it retailed for $180. I bought mine for $130. Most die hard Trek fans have the entire series on dvd already. If it was a new title no one had yet that would be very telling and interesting indeed.

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Originally Posted by TheDuke

That would mean that Toshiba would have to subsidize hd dvd production costs to all their studios. (you would have to believe uni, para wouldn't want to subtract more production costs off their dvd profits) It would be a great move but how willing are the studios to actually do this?? Thats a lot of combo discs pressed. And we would have to keep the msrp the same price as other studios dvd's right?

That you would, but let's face it new dvd's aren't exactly cheap anymore. They have been steadily rising in price over the past 5 years. Any new release that is a 2 disc set is $25 even at Walmart. The 1 disc set is usually $20 on sale for $17 during it's 1st week only. Not for Paramount, but for Universal and Warner all new releases have been combos anyway.

I do think they need to move onto the twin format disc though. I think it would be a better option.

I can see buying an HD DVD player and movies when they are priced similarly to current DVD and DVD player prices.