American retail giant Wal-Mart is to start selling Blu-ray players for under $300, making it even more cheper than the PS3 (which currently sells for$399 in the states). The hardware on offer will be a Funai player rebadged for Wal-Mart under the “Magnavox” brand.

The Magnavox NB500MG9 will be Profile 1.1 with picture-in-picture functionality and should go on sale throughout the chain by 26 May. This same player also will be sold at Best Buy under the chain’s in-house Insignia brand in July, but the for higher price tag of around $350.

The move came to light after consumer figures shown that Blu-ray adoptation is still slow to pickup despite winning the format war, especially due to the recent economic downturn.