Sony announced today that they started to ship the new BDP-S300 Blu-ray player to retailers. They also lowered the list price to $499.

When Sony announced the BDP-S300 back in Februrary the company named the MSRP of the BDP-S300 with $599.
The BDP-S300 features full HD output and 24p support. It also upscales DVDs to 1080p. Sony also provides support of AVC-HD discs encoded with x.v.Color (xvYCC) technology. $499 is $100 less than you would have to pay for a 60GB Sony PS3, making the BDP-S300 the cheapest Blu-ray player from Sony.

The Sony BDP-S300 is listed on Amazon, but cannot be ordered yet.
In the meantime HD DVD players dropped to under $250. I4U reader Peter D. informed us over the weekend that Sam's Club offers the Toshiba HD-D2 for $243. The HD-D2 is not the latest and greatest, but the price is hot.

Via this Sony press-release.