Countermeasures

I swear, I will turn this van around right nowYep, there it is: Engadget reports Toshiba will be lowering the list price of its HD-DVD players as of April 1st, with the base model, the HD-A2, now sporting a suggested $399 sticker price.

This news arrives just a couple of weeks after Sony’s announcement of its $600 Blu-ray player, and exactly one week after Sony’s exclusive Blu-ray edition of “Casino Royale” became the first high-definition title to make it onto Amazon.com’s top 25 DVD sales list. (It was selling at #17, right behind the standard DVD edition at #16.)

The comments sections of various blogs are arguing over whether the price drop is a sign of desperation, with Toshiba making a last-ditch attempt to grab the cheapest end of the market, or a calculated strategy to paint Blu-ray players as needlessly expensive and exorbitant by comparison. (Even the 20GB version of Sony’s PlayStation 3 is still going for $500.)

But will it make any difference? With only a handful of A-titles being released on HD-DVD in the coming weeks — and Universal’s “Children of Men” and “The Good Shepherd” being the only ones you won’t be able to buy on Blu-ray as well — it’s looking more and more like the format war might be in its final throes.

Of course, we all know how much “final throes” predictions are worth these days. And as long as “Children of Men” is only available on HD-DVD, I’m gonna need something to on which play it …