It starts off by analyzing a bill of materials for "blue laser players" and came up with a round figure of about US$400. This includes not only the hardware, but royalty licenses for the various codecs included in the players.
Blu-ray players are thought to cost more to manufacture than HD DVD ones, and this appears to be borne out by the current retail price of the cheapest HD DVD player (the Toshiba HD-A1 at US$499) compared to the least expensive Blu-ray device (Samsung's BD-P1000 at US$999).
The high cost of next-gen optical players raises concerns not just for the early adopters, but for Sony's PlayStation 3, which will incorporate a Blu-ray player.
Will the ability to play Blu-ray discs and store up to 50 GB of data on each game disc be worth it?
More...Credit: ars technica
Home
