Buy now, or wait until December?

[justintime]

I'm a lifetime S1 owner since 2001. Unfortunately, I'm a $20/month Moxi renter for my HD content. Approximately 2 weeks before the S3 release was announced, my S1 started locking up once every couple of days (insert conspiracy theory here :p)

It's probably just the HDD going bad in my S1, but it might not be. I hate my Moxi, and hate more that I spend $20/month on it. I really want to take TiVo up on their lifetime service transfer, but I don't *have* to have the S3 now.

If I knew that the price wouldn't go down before the transfer offer expired, fine, I'll suck it up and buy the thing now as I dropkick my Moxi back down to Charter's office. But, if TiVo drops the price by $200 for Christmas, I've lived with the Moxi for a year, what's a few more months?

Obviously, the only people that know the answer to my question can't answer, but what's everyone's speculation?

Justin

[jfh3]

I doubt we'll see tivo.com/vip price of $799 drop before the transfer offer expires.

It would be a nightmare for Tivo.

Maybe there will be a promo on box+service before then, but that's different.

[doormat]

January/February would be the earliest I'd expect a price drop. I'm even tempted to say until after the Superbowl (and the big screen buying frenzy that goes with it).

[lorelevitt]

I'll bet we see a price drop around Thanksgiving for the holidays by online resellers.

[lorelevitt]

They have about $ 300 or so to play with in the margin accoding to the Best Buy posts.

[bilbo]

i wouldn't be surprised at all if the price for an s3 drops to the $599-$699 range by march 2007. and since if you get the right best buy or circuit city coupon you can probably get anywhere from 10-15% off the $799 price tag right now (which would drop the price to $679-$719).

i bought an ipod photo 60gb for $599 in december 2004 right after it came out (i was supposed to get a $120 rebate from circuit city, but it fell through despite the fact that i got the forms in on time). the ipod photo 60gb was $449 by february 2005, and the ipod photo was discontinued when the ipod (video) came out by june 2005. i am pretty sure the s3 won't be outdated in 6 months.

[rainwater]

They have about $ 300 or so to play with in the margin accoding to the Best Buy posts.

Not true. Best Buy isn't going to be dramatically lowering how much they make on this device. The markup is pretty average for BB. TiVo over time will be lowering the costs it takes to manufacture these boxes. Add that to the fact that they will probably will eventually figure out how much they need to sell these for so that they can turn a profit, and you will see the price go down over time.

[tazzftw]

Just remember that you can wait until the end of December to buy it.

[HDTiVo]

I would defintitely gamble the $70 over 3.5 months on MOXI for a greater price reduction on the S3.

[n0pa]

As I would say, don't gamble. The S3 is a premium product targeted at a specific audience. The price will stay where it is for a while. This is similar to the HD-DVD/BlueRay except they have to compete with others. My guess is you won't see a large price drop for a while. I am pretty sure that the lifetime offer will never happen again for the S3 as it never was offered again for the S2's.

Remember Tivo has very little competition. Media center PC's still cost more and are really PC's. The stuff from the cable provider is a whole different game as the price structure is different. There is no other DT standalone HD recorder on the market, nor does there appear to be any coming out any time soon.

I say if you like what Tivo has, buy it. I looked long and hard and there was nothing even close to Tivo. I considered building a Media Center PC, but it just got too expensive, and the last thing I want to worry about is having another computer in the house to support have OS issues, etc… The Tivo has been nice and reliable and the wife loves it 

[Cue-Ball]

I also think you're very unlikely to see a price drop before the end of Q1 next year. Even if the price were to drop by $100 between now and xmas you wouldn't be coming out much ahead since you'll have to pay $60 ($20/mo x 3mo) for the Moxi. So, even IF it dropped by a fairly significant $100, you'd really only be saving $40 by not getting the S3 now.

[bubba1972]

I am going to hang on to my Moxi until December and decide then. I am only paying $12 a month for it. It sounds like you aren't the biggest fan of the Moxi, but it really is one of the best alternatives to Tivo for HD recording.

Besides the possibility of a price break, we still don't know if new rebates will come into play. I am also a little hesitant to jump because of the lack of Tivo to go and MRV. Maybe in a month or two we'll know more about them being activated or not. Don't forget that you will have to include the new cost of two cablecard rentals with the S3.