Give Us Your HD DVD, We'll Give You Blu-Ray

It doesn't look like HD DVD can win anymore ground these days. It's almost as if they are just clawing to keep what headway they've made, and unless they have something spectacular up their sleeve, I just don't see the HD DVD camp digging out of this whole anytime soon. Especially when you have retailers offering you store credit toward a Sony Blu-Ray player if you trade in your HD DVD player.

German retailer Saturn is offering 150 Euro credit towards a Sony Blu-Ray player when you bring in your used HD DVD player. That comes out to about $221 off your new Blu-Ray player! While PC HD DVD drives and XBox 360 HD DVD drives are excluded, all others are being accepted.

While this is likely yet another nail in the HD DVD coffin, I look at it more as a great move for consumers. If you early adopted into the HD DVD camp, you're not completely out of luck, at least in Germany. I'm not sure if they had the equivalent of our $99 HD DVD players in Germany, but if they did, I can see more than a few customers being happy at the increased trade-in value of their original hi-def format of choice, even though all indications point to the fast depreciation of the HD DVD hardware. If I were in Germany, I think I'd have to hop on board with this deal yesterday.

German Retailer takes your old HD-DVD Player when you buy a Sony Blu-ray Player [I4U]