**CONFIRMED**! Toshiba HD-A2 HD DVD Player for $98.87 at Wal-Mart Friday!

Proof: http://holiday.ri-walmart.com/?secti...ign=holidaygif

Edit: Oh crap..

All I can say is WOW!!!

HOLY CRAP, IT'S TRUE......

Queue Nuclear Explosion.....

Queue BD Group saying "Blu-Ray has already won, stop prolonging the war"....

Queue Blu-Ray.com yelling and screaming that this means nothing......

Amazing.....

Toshiba just dropped THE bomb, and no, I don't mean loosing my bowl movement just now.

The people at Walmart have the A2 marked as a DVD player.

Does Walmart have a 30 day price match guarantee? Buy one before the sale and match it later on BF would be the way to go if that would work.

edit: are these players still eligable for the 5 free mail in HD DVD's?

This assuming the store near you has any.

That is indeed the coup-de-grace...

Absolutely amazing.

The analysis of this situation is pretty logical, in my view.

Sales of each format are becoming more equal each month. In fact the last 8 weeks have averaged about 60:40 for the movie sales - contrast that with the first 8 weeks of the year.

And now with new HD DVD player pricing, HD DVD player sales have a very good chance of leaving Bluray player sales in the dust. If this happens, Warner will recognize that future disc sales will be in HD DVD's favour, by a wider and wider margin.

In addition, the absence of BD 1.1 players from the market does not give comfort to any consideration Warner may be giving to choosing Bluray over HD DVD. Although a couple of BD 1.1 players are now on the horizon, most existing models will still be only BD 1.0 compliant, meaning that Warner's development efforts will be split, and further increase the costs of developing for the *already* more expensive Bluray format. And let's not forget that these "BD 1.1" players will actually be shipping as only BD 1.1 "capable" meaning that they STILL can't get BD 1.1 working, but will supposedly get a firmware update to enable it next year...

It's pretty obvious that this would make HD DVD the logical choice for Warner.

Of course, if the new HD DVD pricing has no effect at all on HD DVD player sales, then this would complicate the otherwise very easy decision. But I feel that it would be unrealistic to bank on this possibility.

Didn't work for me in Firefox, but in IE I got

Toshiba® HD-A2 DVD player - $98.87 while supplies last. Not available in all stores

Well, in that case I would assume that everyone RUN, not walk, to their nearest store as fast as possible.

PLEASE NOTE - this sale is THIS FRIDAY, in just two days!

I wonder how many they are getting at this price? Knowing Wal Mart it's in the 10's of thousands.

OH MY GOD!!!! and I was going bananas about the 2 players for $198 I was going to get for christmas gifts...true story!!!!...now I'm getting my brother one as well and will save $100...WOW!!!!!!!

Format War over.

Everyone I know that has even had passing thought at getting HD DVD will now be receiving a phone call....!

I had to post this

WOW. Great for those who want to break into the HDM lifestyle. But, is Toshiba getting desperate or what? If you don't think so I don't have any other explination for such a price decrease for Black Friday.

Worked for me in Firefox, FYI. 2.0.0.8, Flash 9.0.47.0

I have the addon but I am so thinking of getting one for myself.

Once I make sure my dad still has no HD DVD player for his 60" xbr I am totally buying this for him, early xmas !

The fact that HD DVD dominates the ONLY five items they are putting in this sale PROVES that Walmart has thrown it's support FULLY behind HD DVD.

The 800 pound Gorilla has just spoken...
http://holiday.ri-walmart.com/?secti...e117144-lLink1

It was a strategy. They saved their cash ALL ALONG and let BDA toot their horn non stop and spend their money on BOGO after BOGO.

Now it's time to spend money when it counts - Q4.

It's could turn out to be the checkmate of the century by a technology business.

NOW it's not a rumor anymore.

Now I have to decide if I want to get the guns out and brave the Wal-Mart crowd at 8am on a friday to attempt getting one and returning the one I got from Amazon. hehe.

I may have to get up and pick one of these up for that price! Not that I really have a use for another HD-DVD player, but at that price, it's hard to pass up.

Word... +100

Will Best Buy Price Match this?

question, since i'm out of hdmi ports on both the tv and the receiver. if i were to connect a A2 to my receiver via component for video and optical for audio, do i get full benefits of the player? will i get DD+1.5 in full form via optical?

Hell yeah! I don't even mind that I spent $500 on one less than a year ago! Thank you Wal-Mart! (can't believe I said that)

lol so predictable.

This is great news for you guys in America, no one should be without a HD DVD player now. Hell you guys should be giving them to everybody for christmas just to piss sony off!

But over here in Australia the A2/E1 costs $600 and our dollar is not that different to yours. (AU600 = US558)

We are getting totally ripped!

Too little too late globally.
Q4 of what year. 2006, 2007, 2008 etc. This battle will go on forever. Sony will sell tons of PS3's and toshiba can't compete with no matter what.