I read in an article that Toshiba was losing near $500 on this player!!

I don't how many movies you sell. Thats desparte.

Link: http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/format-war/every-99-hd-dvd-player-losing-500-319172.php

 I think it would sound something like this bah bah bah bah bah.

If you believe that they are really losing $500 on the A2, I have a bridge to sell you.

That article quotes iSuppli from 2006.  As we all know, high def components have become drastically cheaper since then.  The diodes alone have dropped nearly $200.  There's no question that Toshiba is taking a bath on these units, but not to the tune of $500 apiece, and probably not even half that.

Just like the $800 60gb PS3s.

Oh right, sorry.  I forgot about the numerous reports from people opening up their $98 HD DVD players and seeing a big rubber-stamped "Made in 2006" on the back.

They were probably losing money at $200, however.  You can tell from the component changes that Toshiba decided they needed to cut costs with the models.  The A2 has fewer connections than the A1 and the A3 has fewer connections than the A2.   Also, the A2 has a better digital audio optical out than the A3.  

When you make a unit that you intend to sell for $500, you chose different components and a different level of quality compared to when you make a unit you intend to sell for $200.  I'm not saying there is anything wrong with the A3 -- by all accounts it's actually better for people with HDMI 1.3 receivers -- I'm simply saying that these units are a fantastic value and Toshiba is almost certainly losing some money.

At the very least this is how you have a fire sale to clear out old discontinued stock. You don't lop $100 off, introduce the new model at the old price then screw everyone who jumped at that opportunity by dropping the high end model's price $100 a month later and introduce a new gimped $200 cheaper model.

Anyhow, I probably still won't buy an HDDVD even at $100 since as far as I know the movies are still $30-40 and few rental places have them to rent. When they do something about the movie price I'll jump. I am a cheapskate on these matters, I've had the TV for 3 years now but only now got HD cable since it was just $10 or the same as getting a SD DVR I wanted.

You can get tons of movies for less you just have to look around.

Check out this link

http://shop3.outpost.com/search?query_string=&cat=-59250&pType=pDisplay&resultpage=0&from=0&to=24