The dealnews 2009 Black Friday Predictions

Published September 8, 2009

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As far as audio/video is concerned, high-definition Blu-ray disc players will take a leading role in this year's sale. That's ironic, since Blu-ray is a technology that may be already approaching irrelevance: Geeks say, why buy Blu-ray when you can stream 1080p movies online? Non-techies say, why buy Blu-ray when it offers no obvious advantage over DVD?

Maybe that's why the bottom fell out of Blu-ray players over the past three months. We've seen numerous deals at $100, a 45% drop compared to April and May. So a $100 Blu-ray player isn't exciting enough for Black Friday.

Based on the data alone — examining recent price trends and drops on Blu-ray from last year and HD-DVD the year before — Blu-ray players should hit $69. But we're going to go out on a limb and predict that a Blu-ray player will hit an earth-shattering $49. It's simply a deal that Blu-ray needs, as a platform. Oh, and one more thing to back up our prediction: we're totally cheating. There's already been a $50 Blu-ray deal, back in July from a small retail chain based in Madison, Wisconsin. (Blu-ray has totally taken over the World Dairy Expo.)

Like last year, we expect some retailers will take the package approach, bundling a name-brand (Sony, Samsung, Sharp) Blu-ray player and Blu-ray movies for $99. As for Blu-ray movies themselves, expect to find last year's titles for $5 (e.g., Iron Man) and this summer's blockbusters for $10 (e.g., Transformers 2) around Black Friday.

Summary: Black Friday Predictions for Blu-ray

Blu-ray player for $49
Blu-ray player / movie bundle for $99
Blu-ray movies you actually want from $5

Please note that, although prices sometimes fluctuate or expire unexpectedly, all products and deals mentioned in this feature were available at the lowest total price we could find at the time of publication (unless otherwise specified).

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