Blu-ray needs to have a banner holiday season and with excess inventory of previous generation players, prices will continue to fall on more models, with a variety of players dipping into the $150 to $200 price point.

While we have reported that a small number of stripped down Blu-ray models have already reached prices below the $200 price point, it now seems that many older models that are 6 to 9 months old could also drop to this range, as well.

The majority of these older models are higher-end units that have already been replaced by newer models, but many manufacturers still have a lot of excess inventory of the older generation models that they need to move. Our sources suggest that starting with Black Friday in the U.S. these players will be sold at bargain basement prices to clear the way for newer updated models.

Blu-ray continues to struggle, as the manufacturers have not been able to achieve the sales targets that they thought they would be able be able to hit with the end of the format war. It was initially thought that price and format confusion were the biggest stumbling blocks to increased sales. It now appears that while this might have been true, consumers continue to complain about the high cost of Blu-ray titles along with the general impression that they just don’t seem to see what all of the fuss is about where Blu-ray is concerned.

Player manufacturers as well as studios are trying very hard to hype up Blu-ray as the ‘must have’ gift this holiday season, but so far it appears to be falling on deaf ears where consumers are concerned. Warner Brothers is rumored to have ordered the largest pressing of Blu-ray discs ever for a single title with the December release of the Batman movie, The Dark Knight. Sources suggest than Warner will attempt a big push for the Blu-ray version that will include a digital copy of the movie, as well.

It remains to be seen if all of the price cuts and promotions will have any effect on sales this holiday season, but it certainly can’t hurt. Now if they could just drop the price on Blu-ray movies maybe more people would be paying attention.