I am a huge movie fan and one of the biggest reasons I jumped on the PS3 when it launched, even though it was $500, was to get the Blu-ray player. When Sony added DVD upscaling to the PS3 mix I was even happier with the console. For a long time the PS3 has been the cheapest and arguably the best Blu-ray player on the planet.

According to ABI Research the Blu-ray landscape will change this holiday season with players selling for $150 to $200. These aren’t cut down, feature weak players like the cheap HD DVD models we saw before the demise of the format. The players will be older, so-called tier two players that are 1080p. ABI points to a player being offered by Amazon at $200 from Samsung that also includes four Blu-ray films. A quick look at Amazon will show several players selling for $200 or under.

ABI believes that Blu-ray players could fall to as low as $150, a price that should attract new consumers to the format. The catch is that price isn’t all that Blu-ray hardware has working against it. As a big movie fan I find myself increasingly going to streaming movie rentals via iTunes.
 
I can get the films in HD format and not have to drive to the movie store to get them. Movie sources like iTunes, Netflix, and even pay-per-view are putting heavy pressure on traditional hardware sales as more and more consumers look to new and more convenient delivery methods for films. DirecTV and Dish Network are both offering (or soon will be) 1080p films via pay-per-view.

Standard DVDs are still outperforming Blu-ray and the fact that many of the DVD players will now upscale to resolutions close to that of Blu-ray makes the format that less attractive to some users. Despite the stiff competition arrayed against Blu-ray, price reductions will go a long way to getting more Blu-ray players into the market. This price drop is the first step towards seeing Blu-ray players overtake traditional DVD in the market.