New Technology TV

It's common knowledge the the prices of high definition television sets have been falling fast, but electronics manufacturer Sony has come to suspect that the prices are falling too fast. There are numerous examples of this. Large Plasma screen TV's are now retailing for under a thousand dollars and it's even possible to get massive rear mount projection TV's for less than seven hundred dollars. There are several things that have contributed to this sharp down turn in prices. For one thing, big box retailers like Wal-Mart have been extremely aggressive when it comes to pricing high definition television sets with minimum profit margins in order to gobble up as much of a market share as possible. This aggressive pricing has forced normal electronics retailers to lower their prices at the same time in order to remain competitive. Another factor that's contributing to the decline in prices is that many companies that haven't traditionally manufactured televisions have seen the huge market demand for high definition television sets and have decided that they want part of the action and have started manufacturing high definition television sets at low prices. While this practice is likely to put high def TV sets on the market that are of lower quality than those produced by a lot of the manufacturers that have been in the market for a while, it also forces more established companies to lower their prices in order to compete.

Of course consumers drive this price decrease too. When consumers see lower priced high definition televisions on the market they come to expect that and exert pressure on retailers to keep prices low.

While these price decreases are good for consumers in the short run, the long term effect could be that electronics manufacturers won't have the money to put into new research and development. A lack of capital to invest in new technologies is likely to cause high definition television sets to level off in price after a certain point and for new and improved technology to be slower to develop than it has been over the past few years.

This slow down in technological development is likely to leave consumers frustrated in the future and may hurt the adoption of high definition television. That's because the average consumer of high definition television equipment is impressed by the new and the novel and it new and novel developments aren't forthcoming in the near future, these home entertainment enthusiasts will likely be disheartened and less likely to pay attention when new developments do come about. People with a borderline level of interest in high definition television may also lose interest as well if the pace of technological advancement slows.

Because of all of this, what's good for the consumer- and possibly the reputation of the industry in the short run- will likely be bad for the industry and the consumer in the long run. The only possible advantage is that at some point the electronics industry will recover from this coming setback and in the meantime consumers may have saved money by not buying high definition television equipment. That money can then be used on newer and even more exciting products that are sure to come about after the industry's slump!