Now that the HD optical disc wars are over and Blu-Ray has won I have been wondering why Blu-Ray players continue to cost so much. Arguably one of the best and most versatile Blu-Ray players is the Playstation 3 and interestingly it is almost always the least expensive. This begs the question is Sony losing hundreds on every PS3 made or are all the other Blu-Ray makers (including Sony) making hundreds in profits on each player. I am going to compare the new soon to be released 80 GB PS3 (old 40 upgraded to 80), Panasonic DMP-BD30, Panasonic DMP-BD50 and Samsung BD-P1500.
| Player | PS3 | DMP-BD30 | DMP-BD50 | BD-P1500 |
| Price | $399 | $399 | $599 | $399 |
| Profile | 2.0 | 1.1 | 2.0 | 2.0 (Upgrade) |
| Storage | 80 GB HD | >1 GB Flash | <=1 GB Flash | >1 GB Flash |
| RAM | 512 MB | ? (256 MB) | ? (256 MB) | ? (256 MB) |
| Processor | Cell | Panasonic UniPhier | Panasonic UniPhier | Broadcom BCM7440 |
| Video Card | nVidia | Panasonic UniPhier | Panasonic UniPhier | Broadcom BCM7440 |
| Ethernet | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
| Memory Card | No | SD Card | SD Card | No |
| USB | Yes | No | No (?) | Yes |
| Wi-Fi | Yes | No | No | No |
| HDMI | 1.3 | 1.3a | 1.3a | 1.3a |
| Bitstream | None | All | All | All |
| Internally Decode PCM | All | None | All | Partial (Upgrade All) |
| Analog | Stereo | 5.1 | 5.1 | Stereo |
| Remote | Dual Shock 3 / Bluetooth | Standard | Standard | Standard |
Anyone have any guesses on why Blu-Ray players are still so expensive? Hopefully the player makers will wake up soon and realized to expand the market they need to reduce prices. Also if you compare the two Panasonic players where is the $200 worth of upgrades? All I can see is the addition of an Ethernet port, a little more flash ram and the ability to decode Dolby TrueHD and DTS:HD MA. Is that really worth $200, I don’t think so.
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