It seems Funai NB500 Blu-ray players have hit WalMart chains for the low price of $298. Reports began surfacing earlier today claiming the players had cropped up in several WalMart stores.

While it’s still a little expensive considering it’s a fairly low-end player it’s probably a decent enough substitute for those of you who don’t want a PlayStation sitting in your living room.

We’re looking at a Profile 1.1 Blu-ray player with HDMI v1.3, HD audio codec’s, 1080p/24 and 1080p/60 video output resolutions and DVD upscaling for under $300; not bad nowadays.

Funai sent out a press release at the beginning of January announcing the introduction of its first Blu-ray Disc player (NB500 series) for the North American market. The release said the company would begin production in the first quarter of 2008, and planned to being selling the units for under $300 by the time Q2 rolled around.

As promised, here they are. If anyone happens to pick up one of the players at WalMart drop us a line in the comment section and let us know how it’s working out.