Following Toshiba's decision to pull out of the HD-DVD playing market, and news that Microsoft will stop producing its own HD player, the Xbox company has slashed the price of the console player by more than half in the US.
North Americans fancying to get as much life as possible out of the failed disc format can pick up the 360 HD-DVD player now for $49 - that's just under 25 quid!
"From tomorrow, we will cut the price to $49 and will not make any more of the HD-DVD players," Grace Chou, a Microsoft spokeswoman, told Bloomberg.
Microsoft issued a statement last weekend announcing the discontinuation of the player, but promised that it will "continue to provide standard product and warranty support for all Xbox 360 HD DVD Players in the market."
The statement continues: "As we stated earlier, we do not believe this decision will have any material impact on the Xbox 360 platform or our position in the marketplace. HD DVD is one of the several ways we offer a high definition experience to consumers and we will continue to give consumers the choice to enjoy digital distribution of high definition movies and TV shows directly to their living room, along with playback of the DVD movies they already own."
The UK price of the 360 HD-DVD player is currently hovering around the £65 mark on both Amazon and Play.com, though following the disc format's death it's inevitable that the price will fall further.
Feb 26, 2008
