Comments on: Best Buy $50 gift cards for HD DVD suckers

In a gesture of good will, Best Buy is doling out $50 gift cards to anyone who ever bought an HD DVD player at one of their stores.

[ChesterBentock]

How I spent my Best Buy Gift Card, by Barnett

I fully intend to use this gift card exactly as the company wishes, and buying HD DVD movies. All in all, im pretty happy with my purchase still. It looks great, and I am building a catelog of movies at half off.

[Movieman1942]

HD DVD suckers

i bought mine from Amazon.com, what will they do, if anything????

[sting7k]

More HD DVDs!

Hopefully Best Buy will slash prices on remaining HD DVD discs so I can pick up what is left that is worth getting. I only ever bought 2 movies to go with my HD DVD drive for my xbox 360 so getting some cheap ones would be nice.

Or maybe I will just abandon it and get a new xbox360 game.

[ender21]

I'll buy something else

Best Buy's 30% off discounts on HDDVDs isn't good enough. There are some that will still be over $20-$25 even with the discount. If the discount is upped to, say, 50%, then I'd start buying a few titles, but there really aren't much to choose from that I don't already own.

So I'll use the $150 that I should get back from BB on something else.... maybe something for my wife, or as a discount on the new Canon Rebel XSi when it comes out in April!

[BLU_BOY02]

what? Are you serious?

Am i reading this right?

So HD DVD owners are getting $50 gift cards because they got "suckered" into a failing format and now people are actually admitting they are going to spend that $50 on some HD DVD's to add to their collection?

what!? "with all due respect" You got screwed once and your bending over again giving HD DVD a chance to screw you for the 2nd time. I dont know, just doesnt make sense to me... maybe you guys like it that way... but it's just dumb.

let the format go and use that money to start your blu-ray collection.

[BigStarryEyes]

Best Buy Gift Card

I bought a Toshiba A3 from Best Buy in January but at a Best Buy near Vancouver BC. Seems like the program is limited to the US only. Aren't we Canadians just as victimized by this (abandonment of HD DVD) as the US BB customer?

[oxtail01]

No pity for Canadians

None at all - you folks are making a killing on the exchange rate.

[afritz123]

Discount on a Blu Ray

Why not wait until later in the year and use it to defray some portion of the cost of a blu ray player. If someone bought a hd dvd player, they obviously enjoy the hi def experience, why not continue it with the winning format at a lower price (in effect) than most of the general public?

[deMs83]

This is my opinion ..

Okay the format is over and the BIG BLUE won. Who cares? I always disagree with format/console wars. To me the hype is created just to boost sales and entice buyers to give in to ONE and only ONE particular product. SCREW THAT! I appreciate all that HD DVD offers and think its a great source for high definition material. Just look at Pans Labyrinth, blade runner and batman begins. I am also a Blue Ray supporter and have the same feelings towards that format. All im saying is that when it comes down to it, both formats are equally as good and it just comes down to preference when comparing audio and video. If you have the means and some do. Just buy them both and stop with all the its better, im glad its gone FANBOY mess. HDDVD/BLUERAY? SACD/DVDA?..BUY A MULTIPLAYER! They are both good!

[sommer182]

Slick PR Move

This is a slick PR move from a company that not to many people (especially in my home state of Minnesota) like very well. I picked up my HD-DVD at the Wal-Mart sale pre-Thanksgiving, so no relief for me. But I agree with other posters, nothing wrong with buying up a few more HD-DVD movies. Michael Clayton, I Am Legend, American Gangster, Jesse James and several other good movies have just been or are still to be released on dual format HD-DVD / DVD discs. AT 30% to 50% off depending on where you buy your flicks, thats a darn fine deal!

[cjwalker]

No pity...

Anyone who bought either HD DVD or Blu-Ray in the middle of a format war had to know they were taking a huge gamble. The media has been talking about this for a LONG time. One of the two formats was going to survive, the other would disappear.

Anybody who was foolish enough to buy *either* deserves no pity whatsoever if they happen to be on the losing side in the end.

Was it SO important to have the only-slightly-better picture quality as soon as humanly possible, that it was worth wasting money and being saddled with instantly-obsolete tech?

[GASTURBO1]

Thank you Best Buy for the $50 Gift card.

I personally think this is a very nice gesture for Best Buy to give away $50 gift card. When was the last time you got your tickets refunded when your favorite sports team failed to win the championship? Most of us already knew about the ongoing format war and the possibility to ending up on the loosing side, yet we chose to take that risk. I feel that if anyone should be handing out any kind of refunds is Toshiba for giving up this soon and for its lack of aggressiveness in marketing a great product.
I?m not trading in my player not just because of my existing HD DVD library, but because it still makes a very decent upconverting conventional DVD player. And with the declining prices of all the discontinued HD DVD?s, I should be able to rack up a few more titles. I hope Blu-Ray stays around long enough to savor its victory since I recently purchase a BD player also. I also hope this format war doesn?t end up like the one between DVD-Audio vs. Super CD, which after all the hype ended up nowhere. Remember that format war?

[CYBERPENPAL]

bundling is not "preferance"

sorry, but i dont think sony bundling blu-ray with playstation counts as "preferance". blu-ray became more popular because sony bundled a blu-ray player with playstation and x-box 360 didnt give away a hddvd player.
last time i checked, in the consent decree of 1970 that ibm signed when they bundlded a fortran compiler with the ibm 370, it has been illegal ever since to bundle. i would no more buy a blu-ray player than i would buy a stolen laptop from a fence.

[shaun1978]

This is not bundling

By your definition, Microsoft is guilty of bundling on the XBOX since they use DVD's. All PS3 games, or at least all the ones I have bought, are on Blu-ray. Obviously you can't play the games if there is no blu-ray capability in it.

Did Blu-ray win because the PS3 had a Blu-ray player? The quick answer is no. What putting a Blu-ray player in the PS3 did was guarantee the survival of Blu-ray.

Since they were going to have to make the games for PS3, it only makes sense to make Blu-ray movies as well.

BTW, I do have a PS3, but I didn't buy it until the WB decision back in January.

[Sophistra]

HD DVD Dead, Deals to Follow

I've had a ps3 for many months, just bought an hd dvd player with 32 hd dvds for 175. Thats 5.48 each HD DVD. So to the people that think this is a waste of money, then tell yourself that when your spending 30-40 for blu, when I spent 5.

HD DVD people: save your disks, at least you have that fav movie in hi def.

[DCBRONCO]

Carnoy hypes Blu-Ray just to keep from being fired or to keep being payed by Sony. Anyone who trust CNET after seeing how they do business at Gamespot is the true sucker . Look at Carnoy's history of articles and CNETs blind support of Sony in general.