Hot Hardware News Spooks Market; Large Screen Prices Plunge

Earlier this week, Hot Hardware mentioned that Canon and Toshiba had announced their deal to build a factory in Japan to build great big SED widescreens, and predicted it would put pressure on other screen prices. Now the latest  Business Week outlines the coming race to the bottom for prices on LCD and Plasma screens, just in time for Christmas. Coincidence? We think not.

"The only ones making money in the TV business this year will be the guys who deliver the sets and the people who sell the stands and the mounting brackets," says analyst Rosemary Abowd of Pacific Media Associates in Menlo Park, Calif. The imminent price war will pit so-called liquid-crystal display (LCD) screens against plasma screens, with consumers reaping the primary benefit. For the first time, LCD TVs in sizes above 40 inches are priced competitively and in some cases far lower than plasma screens in the same size. And sales volume for both types is expected to surge this year. That augurs a market where buyers will have a lot of choice and vendors race to undercut each other.

We'll see what we can do to frighten Microsoft into giving away Vista by Valentine's Day.