NH900 - Another price drop at Amazon. Bad news for Sony?

[horace]

Hi

I note that amazon.co.uk have dropped thr price of the NH900 to £149.99.

Is this a sign that HI-MD players are not selling as well as had been hoped?

My local branch of Dixons (who have the NH900 in stock at a whopping £249.99!) told me yesterday that HI-MD players have been very poor sellers - people have taken a look at them and mostly decided to buy MP3 hard disk players instead.

As a long term MD user, I am very disappointed by HI-MD - nothing wrong with the format itself, but Sony could hardly have done a worse job on the launch. No advertising, no 1GB disc availability (at least, not in the UK) and as for the DRM issues, well, you all know about those.....

As for the players, the flagship is very sexy indeed, but the 900 is simply not what I would expect from a player of its price - too plasticy, too cheap-looking.

The other question I ask myself is who are Sony aiming these players at?

Anyone who already has a number of MP3 files may be unwilling to convert them to ATRAC, as this involves a futher loss of quality and more hassle. Hard disc players with 40Gb drives cost about the same as the top HI-MD players. If you add the cost of 40 1GB discs to the cost of a player, it starts to get frighteningly expensive.

Recording: This is where HI-MD should wipe the floor with the competition, but instead Sony have shot themselves in the foot once again with the DRM issues. Microphone recordings of CD quality? certainly Sir. You want to upload it and burn it to CD? HA HA HA!!!

The bottom line is that I am still interested in Hi-MD, but am wondering whether it might go the way of Betamax very soon......

Oh, and why does the EU law about maximum headphone output (which has castrated the european HI-MD units, flagship model excepted) not seem to apply to Hard disc players, which boast much higher output figures?

I do hope Sony get this sorted.

What do you think?

Thanks

Martin

[tripleeye49]

It has had a very bad start to things over here in the United States as well, the low end model gets skipped over at major stores, and for the core fans, they are getting frustrated not being able to get the 1GB blanks, and how come no one else is making 1GB blanks, yet.

This could be the solution to the problem.

Also no home units in the U.S.. These guys are very smart! LOL! Even the guys who work for them at the Sony Style NYC store has to bad mouth them, for some of them would like to get some 1GB blanks, and they can't. I check at least once a week there.

I agree at some point for a music player, I will own the 40GB iPod (or whatever their high-end AAC/mp3 player will be). However, the recording as you said is the selling point, and Sony mismanages again, with DRM features on WAV recordings. What are they thinking!

Marketed correctly, Minidisc would be mainstream here in the U.S. They need to market it in three ways:

1: Recording, Recording, Recording of your studio sessions

2: Converting your old mixtapes and records to a new, permanent format.

(You can do it directly with some devices, BTW, STOP selling player only

devices)

3: Burn Baby Burn (Using as a data storage medium). Start making Hi-MD drives so that people can move their data files or ATRAC files as audio to an actual drive within your computer. In fact they should have these drives standard within all of their computers to start. Think about having your next version of Windows bootable on Hi-MD minidisc.

4: DISCONTINUE NET-MD. With backwards functionality of Hi-MD, it is absolutely not necessary to sell Net-MD devices. Discontinue the MZNH600, and have the MZNH800 be the low end model. In fact, the latter models of the MZNH800 should look more like the MZNF520 (white)

5: STOP WITH DRM ON YOUR RECORDINGS: This will only hurt your sales in the long-run. People will want to record and then transfer their stuff to another medium in order to edit them or listen to them on a HDP, or even another Hi-MD minidisc after editing.

6: Partnerships: Immediately Sony should have partnered with current MD makers, to make 1GB blanks all over and to have the best designs possible brought to this new format. You have the patents to this technology, let others make new recorders, blanks, home units, etc. along with you so that your new technology can get more market share.

7: Design (Reiterating point 4): All these slick new designs that you have in your Net-MD players/recoders since you annnounced Hi-MD, should be incoporated into Hi-MD. Do what Real player did and drop your MD prices. Net MD right now, should cost no more than $50, and the low end Hi-MD player should cost $149 (and should have a radio/TV/weather band). The MZ-NH1 should cost no more than $299.

[bongomaniac]

Thats very currious, It is indeed listed on Amazon UK at £149 95 (the description says it comes with FM radio remote!) but the MZNH800 is listed at £194 95 so my guess is its a mistake or there's some bullshit going on here.I bet they dont have one in stock .

Is this a loss leader or dead loss?

I once ordered a Sharp ??420 from them and canceled when it hadn't arrived after four weeks.Maybe Dixons will do a price match. :grin:

[mutant1345]

okay...correct me if im wrong here but i wanna adreess everyones frustration with the drm thing, im not gonna b**ch about it i just wanna say...

sony is going to do what they want ith the format and i dont think rambaling on and compaining will stop them...they are raking in so much money from other selling products out there that they are famouse for that minidisc is just a double money in from the ppeople who DO buy it...abviously they are making money and arent too worried about whats going on with it and how angry its making people...this is not a vital part of there industry its is just a sub portion ( a bonus money maker) untill it does take a huge turn to being cruxhal sales happening its nothing to them except another little thing on there menue for the little people

now i know this little opinion of mine wont stop people complaining on and on about the formats drm ut i just have to say, let it go people... just stop.... you have beter things to type than complaints espesialy when they most likely arent going to be met with unless in small little comforts like the "wave converter" may come out but with sony it could be months to years before they decide to address the release of this program to me this is still a rumor ...they released an official announcment, so what that doesnt mean anything, sony released an offician announcement about the hi-md format in february and we didnt see Sheiza untill july and that was in a rush too....this is a program they hardley care about think about it,

again if im misiing new info or whatnot tell me cause this is my conclusion

thats my ramble...whats yours? :happy:

PS <---(what part of the alphabet would look like it q and r were eliminated) excuse my spelling i rush and dont look when i write these, still full thought though :cool:

[Christopher]

Moving this to the relevant forum..

Good thread, btw.

[aeriyn]

I just think we should stop expecting Sony to give us anything new with MD/Hi-MD and just hack the shit ourselves.

:laugh:

[jadeclaw]

Thats  very currious, It is indeed listed on Amazon UK at £149 95 (the description says it comes with FM radio remote!) but the MZNH800 is listed at £194 95 so my guess is its a mistake or there's some bullshit going on here.I bet they dont have one in stock .

The NHF800 is an import model, that could be the reason.

Btw, the NH700 is £119,--, the 600 is £99.99 and the NH1 is £224,-- , so the ratio is correct between the models. Aaand, they are cheaper than here in Germany. Could it be the first time, that the punters in old blighty don't get fleeced?