Sony BluRay Player only $499!

Sony released their new BluRay player at an incredibly low price of $499 (that's $100 less than the PS3- excellent way to kill off your PS3 sales as a BluRay player Sony!)- and the Toshiba HD DVD player on Amazon is going for $250... oh- and you get 5 free HD DVD movies (via mail) with purchase of a Toshiba HD DVD player.

Let's see; both formats are basically identical (save some film companies are backing only BluRay or HD DVD) and the cheapest BluRay player is twice that of the cheapest HD DVD player. I think Sony will soon have a HD BetaMax item.

Personally, I think price will be the deciding factor in this 'standards' war- one that Sony cannot win as it wants to controll the format and rake in the profits by licensing their (expensive) proprietary format to everyone else (just as they have failed to do for the past 2 decades).

Another good read on the joy of Sony formats on this blog...