HD-DVD players and software went on sale Tuesday at Best Buy and other select retailers, and a trickle of early adopters came to buy, even though only three movies are available. "The only people who bought are the hard-cores," one industry observer said. More high-definition titles will begin hitting stores next week, but with only three -- The Last Samurai, Phantom of the Opera, and Serenity -- in stores when players hit the shelves, there was hardly a stampede of consumers.

Toshiba, in the process of shipping about 10,000 players to retailers, had no firm first-day sales tally. Marketing VP Jodi Sally would only say, "Retailers who have received players to date have reported very positive sales. I am very pleased to see the demand for high-definition content being fulfilled to the early adopters with our HD-DVD players." Meanwhile, elaborate kiosks with huge widescreen TVs, explanatory boards and a handful of players and movies are going into about 100 Wal-Mart stores during the next two weeks, an unusually aggressive move by a retailer focused on the masses. The discount chain didn't begin selling DVD players until spring 1999, two years after the DVD format was launched. Wal-Mart also has begun selling the cheaper of the two Toshiba players, the HD-D1, on its Web site, listing an anticipated delivery date of Friday. The player is on sale for $498, one dollar off the list price.

Source: Reuters