Saumsung's big Blu-ray bundle

While much of the attention has been focused on using game consoles to build the installed base for either Blu-ray or HD-DVD, and while everyone acknowledges that the mass-market is what will win the format war (as opposed to high end, chi chi HiFi buyers), Samsung is the first CE brand to bundle Blu-ray playback into an inexpensive Home Theatre in a Box package.

The Retail Bridge: Samsung Intros Home-Theater-in-a-Box With Blu-ray Player

For many in the CE industry, the term Home-Theater-in-a-Box (HTiB) is synonymous with low-end equipment and mass-market, price-before-performance technologies.
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The HT-BD2 is set to debut at CES and will ship in early 2008 at an MSRP of $1,499.

This is a significant move in the format war, and in my opinion, it won't be Playstation 3's or XBOX360's that win the war(nor even $99 players). It will be how many commoditized price point HTiB boxes that the format and it's champions can get into people's homes.

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