Blu-ray player sales up seven-fold

Play.com big-boss-man tells T3 that new Blu-ray punters have sky-rocketed, since the end of the format war.

Those cagey folk who refused to hedge their bets in Hi-Def Match showdown sure didn't waste much time once Toshiba closed the door on HD-DVD, this week.

Play's Stuart Rowe informs us that on VHD (Victory in Hi-Def) Day this Tuesday, the company sold more Blu-ray players than in the previous week combined.

"There was a seven fold increase in Blu-ray player sales, on that day alone." said the Chief Operating Officer.

"People have been waiting a long time to move into the Hi-Def era and now they have the confidence that this is going to be the format.

"Our cheapest player (The Samsung BD-P1400/XEU) is now £199 and you'd expect the prices to come down further as Sony try and build the brand. It's all great news for the consumer."

Play was among the first to react to Toshiba's white flag on Tuesday by knocking £40 off their cheapest HD-DVD player, making it just £79.99 - the first of what Stuart is predicting will be a slew of bargain basement offers.

"There's going to be a lot of great deals out there in the coming weeks. HD-DVD player prices will fall in line with DVD players with people now buying them more as great DVD players with the capacity for upscaling."

Don't expect to be finding too many HD-DVD flicks on the clearance stock shelves just yet however...

"There are no real plans for us to slash prices on the disks," says Stuart. "A lot of people have the players and collectors will keep buying them for the time being."

http://www.t3.com/news/blu-ray-playe...en-fold?=35296