Did they announce a price for that Funai? That should hit $199 pretty soon. What about 2.0 players? Were any announced?
I'm trying to stay away from this thread because I can't believe how much sour grapes there are on the red side (and not by the typical regulars). Unless you bought into the format in 2006, you bought an HD DVD player when it was already behind in software sales and you've NEVER seen it take not even a WEEK of sales, ANYWHERE in the world. That means we all took a gamble on it to enjoy the movies. The movies were great, the format had some awesome stuff going for it, but now the seemingly inevitable has happened.
I think part of the problem is that Blu Ray really doesn't have any affordable options like HD DVD did in terms of players, so a lot of folks who picked up the format for a very low price are now facing the prospect of having to sit out until probably late this year before they're able to get back into the HDM game. This is why I hope that Universal and Paramount/Dreamworks continue to pump out titles all year long. I was fortunate that I was able to squeeze a Ps3 into my budget, but otherwise, I'd have no option right now but to continue with just the exclusive HD DVD studios and SD DVD movies. There's no way I would want to jump on a gimped 1.0 player coming from the HD DVD side, were ALL players are the Blu Ray equivalent of 2.0
So while I can understand some of the frustration, talk of digital downloads and Warner's motivations (which are obviously software sales AND a moneyhat) just seem like needless bitterness. I think Toshiba got about as far as they could go without the majority of studios and CE support, but its time to unify behind Blu Ray. I hope the Blu Ray group focuses as much energy as possible to drive down their player prices and allow more people to just stop whining and get themselves a Blu Ray player. I guarantee you there would only be a tiny fraction of bitter tears here if there was a Blu Ray player on Amazon right now at $179 with free movies.