Circuit City Offers to Trade-in HD DVD Players

 

Well if you recently purchased an HD DVD player, you probably feel that you got screwed -- both by Toshiba, and by the store that sold it to you.  You would be right, unless, that is, you got it at Circuit City.

Circuit City has sent notice to their stores to accept returns on HD DVD players sold over 30 days ago for an upgrade to a Blu-ray player on in-store credit.  You need your receipt, the original packaging, accessories, etc.  The stores will give you the full value you paid for your player toward either a Blu-ray disc player purchase or on a store gift card.  This promotion is not being advertised by the store chain, and is reportedly limited to those whose players were purchased within the last 90 days.  All returned players are being "returned to vendor," ie. sent back to Toshiba.  There is no similar offers for Blu-ray discs sold by the store.  Circuit City is trying to be out of the HD DVD market by the end of March. 

Best Buy, meanwhile, hasn't announced any plans to take back already sold players, but they are marking all discs down by 30%.  This is to be the only discount taken on the discs before their removal from stores by 4/6/08.  The move to an all-Blu-ray future is certainly happening far quicker than most expected.