Well, we'll see. I agree they should be at that pricepoint by then (manufacturing and r&d costs go down over time). Failure to be at a "reasonable price" in the proximate future will not bode well for the format. Without competition, keeping prices high is tantamount to greed, and short-sightedness. Either way, I believe BD days are numbered (whether that be two years or three...I don't know). And I believe they need to do much to get out of the niche market they've always been in...that's all.
Yes, and if your post was dated June 1999 and was about DVD you could have been bang on the money too, but it turned out DVD prices fell and later that year, in September 1999, two and a half years after the format launched, DVD finally had a title sell 1,000,000 copies; The Matrix.
I believe BD's days are numbered too, but I believe it will be in about 20 years, not 2-3.
As to the niche market, the format is still 3 months away from its 2nd birthday, so I don't think they have to be concerned about anything just yet. If they weren't seeing any growth then there'd be reason for concern, but there is growth. SonyDADC have already replicated over 115 million Blu-ray Discs. (Keeping in mind they're running lots of BD-ROM for PlayStation 3 games also)
Prices will continue to fall. This time last year $799 was a good price for a non-PS3 player, now it's $350. Soon it will be $300, then $250, then $200, etc.
Fox just dropped their MSRP's on over 20 catalogue titles by $10.
Without competition? So Pioneer, Denon, Onkyo, Oppo, Sony, Samsung, Sharp, Sylvania, Funai, Arcam, Loewe, Panasonic, Philips, etc., are not going to be competing with each other to get the consumer to buy their product?
Do Sharp, Sony, Vizio, Samsung, etc., not compete with each other for LCD products?
Do Pioneer, Samsung, Hitachi and Panasonic not compete for plasma products?
Are all Windows based PC manufacturers not competing with each other?