http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=12003973#post12003973

This is getting awful close to mass consumer pricing. If Sony can't get the price on BR players down, the tide could change very quickly.

200 bucks? SOLD!

Is this that player that doesn't come with 1080p standard?
I thought one of the lower-priced HD-DVD models lacked that ability, although I could be wrong.

Either way, it's getting awfully cheap. Although with the amount of industry support Blu-Ray has, it's just a matter of time before we see a counter.
Should be an interesting holiday for the two.

Its so tempting to buy!! I support blu-ray but dam!! Its so cheap!!

Unless you actually have a full 1080p television then 1080i is fine. My HDTV is only capable of 1080i so im perfectly happy with one of these if its $100-200 cheaper than a 1080p one.

Even if you have a 1080p TV, it doesn't matter for movies at all. 1080i and 1080p input to a 1080p TV for movies will look identical. This is due to the fact that movies are filmed at 24fps and the 1080p displays accept 1080i/1080p at 60fps. I had a quote somewhere.

Found it.

Below is Evan Powell's (Projector Central) appraisal of the 1080i vs 1080p controversy.

"The truth is this: The Toshiba HD-DVD player outputs 1080i, and the Samsung Blu-ray player outputs both 1080i and 1080p. What they fail to mention is that it makes absolutely no difference which transmission format you use—feeding 1080i or 1080p into your projector or HDTV will give you the exact same picture. Why? Both disc formats encode film material in progressive scan 1080p at 24 frames per second. It does not matter whether you output this data in 1080i or 1080p since all 1080 lines of information on the disc are fed into your video display either way. The only difference is the order in which they are transmitted. If they are fed in progressive order (1080p), the video display will process them in that order. If they are fed in interlaced format (1080i), the video display simply reassembles them into their original progressive scan order. Either way all 1080 lines per frame that are on the disc make it into the projector or TV. The fact is, if you happen to have the Samsung Blu-ray player and a video display that takes both 1080i and 1080p, you can switch the player back and forth between 1080i and 1080p output and see absolutely no difference in the picture. So this notion that the Blu-ray player is worth more money due to 1080p output is nonsense."

Wal-mart sells nearly half of all DVDs sold in the USA. Don't underestimate how big a deal it would be to get $198 HD-DVD Wal-mart end caps for the holidays. It's a really, really big deal.

Even at my local costco, the $249 HD-DVD players are completely sold out. There are plenty of $449 Blu-ray players left though.

If they get a large amount of $198 hd dvd stock with the free five Dvd's rule into Walmart across the USA this christmas, it will be a blow to Blu-ray unlike anything seen from either side thus far. Im not saying it will end the war, but it will be a huge blow to sony

Wal-mart sells nearly half of all DVDs because they have gigantic bins full of $5 DVDs in the electronics section.

A $198 HD DVD player should sell well, but I think it's still a bit to pricey for the Wal-mart demographic. If it was at Best Buy, it would be a much bigger deal, imo.

 Damn, I couldn't have said that better myself.