Daveee:Hopefully this latest price rise hammers another nail into the 3D coffin. Panasonic have done exactly the same with the VT20. Were just coming out of a recession and these companies keep hiking up already over inflated prices. Are we now expected to spend around £3K on our new TV, specs and Blu-Ray player and then on top of that start shopping around for a new AV receiver. Should anybody be daft enough to go and do all of that they will find they have no 3D content to watch anyway. They could wait until Sky release 3D channels and then probably have to pay another 3D premium on top of the HD premium and package subscription. Absolutely ridiculous, I hope these greedy companies fall flat on their faces. Rant over for now
I think they'll have to drop prices soon Davee or that will be it, at least in the UK.
Everyone is now used to paying as little as £400 for a 40" TV (more for the very top brands admittedly - around £800), but the main market is in the hundreds not thousands range.
The initial high price is sustainable for a short while whilst enthusiasts buy up "the latest gear", but as soon as that is over it will be do or die for the manufacturers. If the prices don't reach current set levels within maybe the next 6 months to a year then I see 3D dieing rapidly. The vast majority of the population in the UK are simply not willing to pay those prices for technology anymore.
Take a look at Blu Ray take up - DVD players as low as £20 - fly out of the shops to the general population. Blu Ray, cheapest players around £200 for the last couple of years, take up very slow depsite high numbers of HD tv sets (9 million est (from memory) in 2008).
BTW as an aside, blu ray manufacturers really have no excuse for high prices as I see it. When they 1st came out the rumoured reason for high prices was always the cost of blue laser diodes. Well 405nm diodes are 10 a penny these days yet players persist at high levels. When someone brings out a decent £40-50 player, I see a big change in take up, well assuming they haven't already put the population off too much.
In my opinion, manufacturers really are their own worst enemy with technology what with format wars and wanting to make back all their development costs up front in the 1st few months..