Wal-Mart Stores Inc. extended its holiday price war into new territory Thursday by slashing online prices on 10 hotly anticipated DVDs, including the new Star Trek and Harry Potter releases, to $10.

Within hours, Amazon.com Inc. and Target Corp. matched some of Wal-Mart's online prices on pre-orders of the DVDs, and Wal-Mart lowered its price by a penny to $9.99, reprising the scuffle that broke out last month when Wal-Mart launched an aggressive $10 book promotion.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has limited its online customers to two copies each of certain bargain books. Amazon.com Inc. has a three-copy maximum on certain discounted titles and Target Corp. has a five-copy limit online.

The price war involves the top 10 hottest book pre-orders. Under the promotion, the three retailers are selling the yet-to-be-released titles, including books by Stephen King, John Grisham, Dean Koontz and James Patterson, at around $9 online, a substantial discount from their list prices of $22 to $35. Walmart.com, for example, is offering Mr. Koontz's thriller "Breathless" for $8.98, 68% off the cover price, while Target.com has it at $8.99 and Amazon charges $9.

"As you know, we were excited to work with you to build the AmazonWine business, Rao said in an email that went to winery partners. "For that reason, this was a very tough choice for us. "Many of you took the time and leap of faith to really support us."

Amazon had been working on a wine launch and had at one point inked a deal to use New Vine Logistics of American Canyon, California to fulfill orders. The plan was to create a consignment system, where wineries earned 47 percent of the retail price for wine when sold.

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Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos has attracted customers by expanding overseas, offering shipping promotions and introducing new versions of the Kindle electronic reader. Amazon.com also announced four acquisitions this year, including the online shoe seller Zappos.com Inc., to broaden its reach.

"This level of outperformance was unexpected," said Sandeep Aggarwal, an analyst at Collins Stewart LLC in San Francisco. He rates the shares hold and doesn't own any. "They are doing everything right."

Wal-Mart triggered the online skirmish Thursday when it began selling its 10 most anticipated hardcovers for $10 apiece when pre-ordered on its Web site. Amazon matched the offer hours later and Wal-Mart then chopped its price to $9. Friday morning Amazon had matched the price.

"I'm worried about the major book-selling chains, and I'm concerned about the implications for publishers and the public alike," saidDavid Young, chief executive of Lagardere SCA's Hachette Book Group, one of the country's largest book publishers. He and other publishers said they feared the online pricing could hurt small independent book sellers and big retail chains.

A Walmart.com spokesman said Friday that the discount giant was prepared to make further cuts. The retailer's Web site will continue to adjust its prices, spokesman Ravi Jariwala said in an email, "so that Walmart.com offers the lowest online prices." Late Friday afternoon, it dropped its price a penny, to $8.99.

Walmart.com CEO Raul Vazquez said in an interview Thursday that the retailer "will go as low as we need to" to underscore Walmart.com's intent to be a low-price leader online. The retailer this month has sought to expand its Web presence, creating an Amazon-like online marketplace for other retailers and offering home delivery for purchases such as shampoo and diapers.

Amazon.com, which introduced the Kindle in 2007, is trying to extend its dominance in the electronic-reader market to the rest of the world. The company controls about 45 percent of e-reader sales in the U.S., followed by Sony Corp., which has a 30 percent share, according to ISuppli Corp., an El Segundo, California-based research company.

"We have always had customers in countries all over the world buying English-language books from us," Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos said in an interview. "Now those customers can get English-language books in 60 seconds wirelessly, instead of waiting two or three weeks."

The international Kindle has a 6-inch (15-centimeter) screen and looks identical to the entry-level U.S. version. It will download books via third-generation mobile-phone service from AT&T Inc. and its partners. Users can access more than 200,000 English-language books and more than 85 newspapers and magazines.

Amazon UK managing director Brian McBride told the Times that there are no plans to introduce the Zappos brand in the UK.

"We want to build the Javari brand and see if it works," he said. "I'm hoping that [Javari] will be enough in the medium term."

The Scottish star's debut album, I Dreamed A Dream, has sensationally topped the online-retail charts, quite a feat considering her record is not even being released until Nov. 24.

Thousands of eager fans have already pre-ordered the record on Amazon.com, just days after the release was announced. That's resulted in Boyle's climbing to the top of the charts, beating heavy hitters Whitney Houston and the Beatles to the top spot.