Wal-Mart Bringing Back $78 Blu-ray Player

9 Dec, 2009 By: Erik Gruenwedel, Chris Tribbey

Wal-Mart Dec. 9 said it would bring back Black Friday pricing on a select home entertainment and consumer electronics, including the $78 Magnavox Blu-ray Disc player without Internet connectivity.

The Bentonville, Ark.-based retail behemoth from Dec. 12 to Dec. 18 will offer new-release Blu-ray titles Star Trek, Public Enemies, GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and X-Men Origins: Wolverine, among others, at under $20 each.

The retailer, along with other big box competitors, is selling the top 50 Blu-ray releases at steep discounts, including Walt Disney Home Entertainment’s G-Force at $9.48.

Wal-Mart is also selling a 32-inch Vizio 1080p LCD high-definition television at $398, and a Sony 46-inch 1080p HDTV with PlayStation 3 game console for $958.

From Dec. 13 to Dec. 19, Wal-Mart will again offer the Xbox Elite with a $50 Wal-Mart gift card, in addition to a $299 Toshiba laptop computer with 3GB memory, 250GB hard drive and Windows 7.

“It’s classic shark tooth marketing, where you hit [the customer] and then you hit them again and again,” said independent analyst Bruce Leichtman.

Leichtman said Wal-Mart is traditionally a madhouse on the post-Thanksgiving retail holiday and this gives consumers a second chance on heavily discounted consumer electronics and home entertainment.

"Wal-Mart wants to bring the momentum back, which it can easily afford to do,” he said.