A user who claims to work for Wal*Mart posted in the High Def Forum about a new Toshiba UPC in their system – a UPC for a Toshiba HDA2-W with an MSRP of $198.00. The Wal*Mart item number is 564786/570634. The model number sounds like a special version of the HD-A2 for Wal*Mart (the -W).
PC World is reporting on it. Toshiba told them that there is no official pricing moves regarding their MSRP, so this may be handled as some kind of ‘promo’ for Wal*Mart. That would allow Toshiba to not lower their MSRP across the board, yet still sell the units cheaply via Wal*Mart. This is Toshiba’s lowest-end player, limited to 1080i output and with the fewest features, but for $200 that might be acceptable.
If this is true, we’ll probably see some pricing response from the competition.
Picked up from Gizmodo and EngadgetHD.
