Saturn, a retail consumer electronics chain in Germany, is currently offering a rebate from Sony of about $221 to all owners of a rival HD DVD player for a Sony Blu-ray Disc unit, in a special deal that is not expected to be duplicated in the United States and other large countries with much higher numbers of HD DVD owners than Germany.
Sony is offering the rebate (in Germany it amounts to 150 Euros) off the purchase of Sony’s BDP-S300 player.
HD DVD owners are required to turn in their used players to the retailer, according to Blu-ray.com. The Sony BDP-S300 is a bit more expensive in Germany ($737) than in North America, so the rebate would result in a German consumer paying closer to $500 for the Blu-ray player (which is still $150 to $200 higher than current U.S. price points).
