Wal-Mart managed to obtain outrageous pricing once more: $99 for a Toshiba HD-A2 HD DVD player and $348 for a 1GB Acer Laptop, starting this Friday at select Wal-Mart stores across the country. The announcement was placed on its "Secret In-Store Specials" web site, which is 100 percent legit and registered to Wal-Mart Stores Inc. This is somewhat strange, as last week the company announced plans to begin selling Toshiba HD-A2 players at $198.

As quite a few have already noticed, this may well be a means to clear the Toshiba HD-A2 stocks for the new Toshiba HD-A3 which is to replace the first as the entry-level HD DVD player. Sears already announced it will begin selling Toshiba's HD-A3 for $169 on Black Friday. Amazon has the same HD-A2 player in stock for $197.99 and just a week ago, the HD-A2 was priced near $299 almost everywhere.

The other discounted items are a Sanyo 50-inch plasma HDTV for $998; an Acer laptop with 1 GB of RAM for $348; selected HD DVDs for $14.96; and a Fisher-Price NASCAR ride-on toy for $144.72.

"Basically what it is that we don't think that shoppers need to wait until after Thanksgiving to receive low prices," said a Wal-Mart spokesman to PCMag.com. "We're Wal-Mart, and we're about saving shoppers money."

The Toshiba HD-A2 HD DVD player is a second-generation HD DVD player from the manufacturer, and features HD Output in 720p/1080i formats and SD upconversion to 480p/720p/1080i. Its audio output is managed by a high-performance SHARC DSP and the player also features an Ethernet Port, aside from the AV connections.

Check Wal-Mart's site here:

holiday.ri-walmart.com/?section=secret