If you really want to get down to this, and do the exhaustive research that you did so well for the high def TVs, you'll conclude that it's 95% certain that it's a HD-DVD player.

Yeah, it's not 100%, the 5% is just waiting for an official release from Wal-Mart.

Some numbers:

- $300 mln contract for 2 million players (some taiwanese company), due by end of year (though uncertain if it's fiscal year or calendar year). that's $150 per player. 50% markup for walmart, $225. $199 totally possible, highly unlikely at $299.

- the chinese translation is "blue light"; if you do the research you'll realize most likely this is refering to just the blue laser diode, not "blu-ray". sony has yet to license blu-ray to low cost manufacturers, thus no possibility of being a blu-ray disk.

whatever, not like this affects us one way or another. not like ps3 won't continue to use blu-ray.

in the end, people only believe what they want to believe, and research when they want to have their points proven.  sigh.

Yesterday Toshiba announced all proud that they had sold 100K HD-DVD readers in a whole year ......if Wal mart plans to cash in with such a small userbase they must be mad .

 Blu Ray is winning real fast ,I dont think Wal Mart will play the role of losing potential million sales just to make happy the 100K HD-DVD users ...

By the way ,I think this is just a fake .Its mad how the MS FUD attacks each and every day Sony .Today the PSP ,yesterday the PS3 ,tomorrow Blu Ray ,after tomorrow Sonys corporate numbers ,next week the PS3 reliability ...all with lies and fake news .Pitiful .

This article is nonsense, as it doesn't even have basis. DVD sales aren't going anywhere, as it's HD media that are struggling. Enderle is nearly self contradicting himself.

Even if Walmart was trying to do this, they should understand the market. People who bought expensive Full HD TV won't go for cheap players. Already, the players on the market right now can't cope with judder that comes from movie material on HD content (by outputting 48i/s for example, as more HDTV support that, than 24i/s).

And I bet so cheap a player won't have any of that. Adding the fact that USA are riddled with patents and the like ... 

And if Walmart want to attract people only, there's no point in removing one choice that could make people come to you.

If all of this was true, I bet, with clever marketing, that Sony could say that Blu-Ray is better quality, as it's available at high quality places, not cheap places (Walmart). 

yes if this was true it would be a major victory for blu-ray in the us, believe it all no though the us is not the whole world, in europe wal-mart is non existent, in the u.k they are second by a long way and they have no businesses in the rest of western europe ( they recently had to pull out of germany after losses) wal-mart also recently withdrew from japan, this decision would only give hd-dvd an edge in the us

 The number 1 consumer of DVD today is the us so if they can get money out of the HD-DVD producers to help them they will.

By the way in Mexico they have 50 % of the market and in latin america they are close to 37% in general

This is really a bunch of BS. The article says Wal-Mart is expected to sign the paper work at the end of the year. They can't possibly have these players out at the end of the year if Wal-Mart hasn't even signed the agreement by then.

 Another thing, the original report of this was retracted and the agency that reported it said they mistranslated it as it was "blue ray hddvd." So what does that mean? Is it Blu-ray players? TDK is involved and they're one of the Blu-ray founding companies.  But what about HD DVD? Is that a generic term? Could these be dual-format players?

 In honesty we really don't know. There is no point in speculating about this, it means nothing until there is actual proof.

 Yes they have. Lite-On is already making Blu-ray players for PCs andhave a standalone player coming to market this year. BenQ is also making BD players. Funai (they make Emerson and other generic brands) is also bringing a BD player to market later this year.

 well, i actually read the original chinese articles.  i could care less about the translation report having been retracted. 

http://www.ettoday.com/2007/04/16/320-2082635.htm 

also noted in the article is:

- company plans to go IPO, subscription starts on july 12 2007, IPO March next year.

- company anticipates production of $100 mln deliverable by end of 2007 (i.e. 1/3 of the 2 mln production)

the article says "blue light", and it's because of this the debate rages on.

All of you who dislike walmart can soon shop at Tesco, as they are targeting the US for the next major expansion.

I wish I bought shares in it 8 years ago.  Do a search on Tesco and you'll see that Walmart might be in for a nice challenge in  a few years time :)

Can a retailer really control what you buy? Well you can only buy what they stock :)

I guess in the UK if Tesco and The Dixons Group (DSG) both sold really cheap HD-DVD drives  eg £100 combined with a blockbuster HDDVD it could have a large effect on the market - but this seems very unlikely to happen.

I believe Toshiba will have to win the war on it's own RRP price, still Tesco does have a large "own brand" range....so it's not impossible, and if packaged/advertised well it could sell.

Tesco owns a larger % of the UK market then Walmart has in the US. Could Toshiba target each major retailer and help them do "own brands"? Umm sounds  a bit crazy to me, but it would be very impressive if they pulled something like that off :)

Whether or not this is true, I have yet to see someone here prove the basis wrong: that it's easier to subsidize Hd-DVD than blu-ray. And blu-ray may have the lead, but by a few hundred thousand nationwide. Those numbers aren't enough to convince wal-mart to support blu-ray, especially if PS3 sales don't pick up.

I'm NOT saying this proves wal-mart will support HD-DVD exclusively, but it shows that blu-ray isn't in as attractive to wal-mart in terms of undercutability.

EDIT: Meant to type "not" in the second paragraph. I don't like to predict, merely point out what is likely.