The president of Sony Electronics, Stan Glasgow, said that the [lowest] prices of Blu-ray players will remain in the US$399 range for the holidays, according to TWICE Magazine on Thursday.

The remarks came at a media round table hosted by Sony in New York.

Responding to a question about the state of the war between Blu-ray and HD DVD, Mr. Glasgow said, "It continues. I still find it curious that there are 170 companies backing [Blu-ray] and two companies behind [HD DVD]. I find some abnormality in that. Hopefully when all the [movie] titles reach the market this season and the beginning of 2008, [consumers] will see the [difference] in performance."

The remark came just days after Toshiba announced fire sale prices on their HD-A2 HD DVD player for the holidays. While the initial pricing was targeted near $200, now some retailers are planning to offer $99 promotion on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving in the U.S. Others have already started, but have run out of stock.

The difference in performance Mr. Glasgow is referring to is the fact that the low cost HD DVD players are an older generation model and can only output 1080i. Even the $399 Blu-ray players output 1080p, and that visual difference, while sometimes hard to discern, and depends on many factors, may be what Sony is depending on consumers to appreciate. The Blu-ray association has also pointed out that Blu-ray movie titles are currently running at almost 2:1 in sales compared to HD DVD. When the dust settles after Christmas, more will be known about whether that ratio has been maintained.