HDDVD players under $200

[Crippler]

HDDVD broke the magic barrier of $200. Toshiba's own HDA2 player can now be had for $198 at Circuit City and Amazon.com. I would bet it's only a matter of time before Walmart drops to this price also.

Edit: Apparently Walmart is already offering this price on the HDA2 model IN STORE only. Not on the web.

Wal-Mart confirms that it will start to sell the Toshiba HD-A2 HD DVD player for $198.

"We reduced our HD DVD Toshiba player, the generation-two, to $198 earlier in the week," Wal-Mart spokeswoman Melissa O´Brien confirmed to Fortune Magazine. "It´s happening now, and that´s really all I can tell you. We don´t give any information on what we´re planning to do for the holidays. We know HD DVD and Blu-ray are going to be popular items this holiday season for some of our customers. … They will be more popular this year than they were in previous years."

[GoatMother]

At the rate the prices are dropping on these we should be able to get one for $100 with 7 free HD DVD's early next year!

[Peench]

Wow, that's a pretty good deal. So far the HDA1 has been decent, but I wouldn't mind a faster player. Thanks for the heads up!

[Crippler]

The 360's HDDVD add-on is fairly fast. Not much of a difference from a standard DVD really. I don't have a stand alone player to compare to though.

[Peench]

The HDA1 is slow as hell. My 360 is in my office so the add-on wouldn't help me much there.

[BiffCo]

I keep reading all over the internet that HD-DVD is going to win the format war because of these sub-$200 players. I just don't believe it. While Bluray is outselling HD-DVD by about 2:1, I still don't see either going away anytime soon. I think if rumors are true and Warner Bros. chooses a side exclusively, we'll see much more impact from that.

Prices of the players are coming down, but what about the price of HD media? When Fox can still charge $40 MSRP for a catalogue title, something definitely needs to be done. Majority of the movies I buy are still on Bluray, with a few here and there on HD-DVD. I don't think anyone can disagree with me when I say both formats need many more releases.

-Brad