Toshiba didn't really have anything to do with those price reductions. It figures. If the company is losing hundreds of dollars on each player, selling 90,000 of them is probably nothing to brag about. Just think, if the company loses $500 per player, we're talking $45 million over one weekend. Apparently, somebody really wants the HD DVD format to emerge victorious. Or just wants a bigger piece of the retail pie and to get old tech off their shelves pronto. [Video Business]

"You're part of a randomly selected group for a price test. We run price tests all the time. Since it's just a test, we don't disclose how many members are in the test, what the test results are or what the outcome may be."

The good news is that Blockbuster has decided not to raise prices for its existing customers. Our tipster was understandably relieved to see that his plan won't be affected by these changes. The tipster's two-DVDs-at-a-time unlimited plan (as long as exchanges are made in the store) runs $14.99 a month, but he's telling us Blockbuster will be charging $21.99 for that same unlimited plan for new subscribers after August 31.

Blockbuster decided to make those changes a few weeks ago—we knew about its crippling of its unlimited plans back on July 27. That was long before Blockbuster heard about that Netflix price cut announced yesterday, which some commenters here on the Giz told us was not applicable for subscribers living on the East and West Coasts. But then we heard that a Netflix call center employee got a memo saying that the Netflix price decrease on its "three discs at a time" plan affects 6.7 million customers. Sounds like a majority.

It's great that existing Blockbuster customers won't see a price increase unless they change plans. But come on, Blockbuster, you can do better than that. It's your move. Netflix has a three-movies-through-the-mail price of $15.99, and your price for that same plan is $16.99. Let's see a corresponding price cut for 6.5 million of your customers. [Thanks, Ben!]

The burning question now is, will Blockbuster match this price reduction by Netflix? Blockbuster now offers three DVDs at a time for $16.99 through the mail only, or $17.99 to get your movies through the mail and then get free in-store exchanges. Incidentally, the company just crippled that "total access" plan, limiting it to five free in-store exchanges a month with a charge of $1.99 each afterwards. That may be one of the first things to change back to the way it was before.

The next front in this war will be movie downloading, which just heated up with Blockbuster's August 8 acquisition of Movielink. That buy might give Blockbuster access to lots of content from the major studios, putting the onus on Netflix to improve its "Watch Now" service, which suffers from a paucity of selections.

How low can these prices go before the by-mail movie rental services are completely unprofitable? Will this be a situation like a gunfight where both participants shoot each other and die?

Is this enough of a price break, keeping with Sony's traditional "brand premium"? Or will Sony continue to pursue Toshiba down below the hard deck, where stakes are high and profit margins are low? Will Sony ride into the danger zone, so to speak? We'll certainly know by Christmas. – Wilson Rothman

Sony cuts price on new Blu-ray player [AP]