Adding to its high-end 3D capabilities Sony has announced new entries into its ES line that feature HDMI 1.4 capable receivers and, more significantly for this article, the BDP-S1700ES 3D Blu-ray player. The new Sony equipment is designed to sit alongside your BRAVIA HDTVs with 3D capabilities. But if you want to spend mid-fi money on products with the Sony logo, you’ll now have to go to the brick-and-mortar store to buy your hardware as internet dealers are getting the-pinch. Sony has basically announced that the new products are available exclusively at specialty AV shops and custom installers.
Discuss "BDP-S1700ES Blu-ray 3D Player First Look" here.
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Sony's practice(in prohibiting online sales of these products) is better known as price fixing. Sony won't be the only game in town for 3D blu-Ray players for long, if they even are right now.
I'm reminded of Sony's introduction of the first Compact Disc player. They priced it at an absurd $1000 and restricted it to only two dealers in each state, snubbing thousands of long-term dealers. The restricted availability was to make sure that nobody discounted it.
The "advantages" of list price "salon" hifi dealers are grossly exaggerated. Their repair services are not neccessarily any better than those of so-called "Factory Authorised" service centers, and in my experience, the salon dealers have been much less successful in repairing equipment. And for major brand, mass market,mid-price equipment, these days, more people are throwing out equipment(and buying new products) rather than repair, which has led to a drastic drop in the amount of electronics repair shops around the country.
I expect that Sony will eventually end their restrictiveness over the 3D blu-Ray players, when the majority of their competitors all bring out similar units. After all, their restrictiveness over CD players couldn't last. Today, hundreds of companies make CD players. There are many parts of the country with few, if any audio/video dealers, and for consumers in these areas, buying from online or mail-order dealers is the only way to purchase. If Sony doesn't want that part of the market, their competitors will be more than happy to fill the void. Sony's actions are essentially cutting off their own noses to spite their faces.
Personally, I have no interest in 3D. Early adopters will have to deal with an assortment of brand to brand HDMi compatability issues, and reports are that prolonged 3D viewing is giving many viewers headaches. 3D is a headache that I don't need. It is a rather significant omen that Japanese consumers have shown little interest in 3D.
And, to what extent is a Sony product really a Sony anymore? (except at the design stage). The major brands are all farming out the actual manufacturing to anonymous Chinese OEM suppliers. Sony has long counted on the idea that having the Sony name on a product is justification to get the consumer to pay a higher price than that of a similar product by another major brand. Mystique can only go so far, and there's a fair amount of consumers who couldn't care less about mystique.
Attempts at price fixing(and the trend of the high end companies to raise the list prices on existing products) are not going to do anything to help sales, during times that the media portrays as the new "great depression"......when consumers are much less likely to buy.
