Wal-Mart is responding to recent news that Blu-ray is too expensive by offering a $100 gift card with the purchase of any Blu-ray player, including the PlayStation 3.

The deal starts Sunday and runs through June 14, according to reports, although the deal on the PlayStation 3 is active online now. All players reportedly qualify for the deal starting Sunday, including the $298 Magnavox model. 

There is one important caveat: The PlayStation 3 appears to be the only Blu-ray player at Wal-Mart that plays Web-enabled Blu-ray features, the so-called BDLive or Profile 2.0 compliancy. Other players, the ones shown online at least, are more basic models that will play the movie but not all of the latest disc-based extras. But also note that the PS3 that Wal-Mart lists online, the 40GB model, doesn’t play older PlayStation 2 games, as some other PS3 models do.

Wal-Mart also plans to put Blu-ray titles on sale. The most intriguing among the ones being touted are 300, The Fifth Element and 3:10 to Yuma for $15 each. Key phrase: “While supplies last.” So plan your weekend shopping accordingly.

There’s no word yet on whether other retailers, such as Best Buy and Target, will match. But Wal-Mart is the retailer that started the HD DVD free-for-all during the holiday season. Let’s see if it happens again.

Thanks to reader Frink for the tip.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 4th, 2008 at 10:43 am and is filed under DVDs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.