Many folks in the industry speculate the PS3 sales sparked higher blu-ray player unit counts. Now, with a real blu-ray player dropping below the cost of the PS3 you'll be buying a "player only" model.
This begs the question, were gamers buying the PS3 for gaming and movie playing? If the PS3 has been purchased for gaming with the added benefit of playing blu-ray movies than the price drop of a standard player shouldn't effect consumers choices, right?
The blu-ray player is still more expensive than an HD-DVD player. If consumers aren't buying the HD-DVD players why would they then choose to spend more money for a blu-ray player? Neither format has a huge market share and movies are still being re-designed for the new hardware.
It will be interesting to see if the BDP-S300 increases sales with the lower price. If anything, it brings the price down a bit closer to consumer acceptance and wide-spread purchasing.
On thing is for certain, with the cheaper blu-ray alternative there is no advantages to the PS3 as a movie playing device for hardcore movie fans looking for a cost effective player. The PS3 will now have to hang tightly onto its focus as a gaming platform.
