Microsoft and Sony Getting Cozy on Blu-ray?

Sony and Microsoft give conflicting accounts of whether Blu-ray could be in the Xbox 360's future.

While a comment by a senior Sony executive set blogs alight Thursday afternoon with talk of Microsoft considering Blu-ray for the Xbox 360, Microsoft PR denied such plans later in the afternoon, casting doubt on when, or if, the console will move on the victorious high-def movie format.

An article in the Financial Times [registration required] started the rumor mill spinning with information from Stan Glasgow, president of Sony Electronics in the United States. According to Glasgow, both companies were in talks about Microsoft’s adoption of Blu-ray technology, presumably for the Xbox 360, which had supported only HD-DVD in the past.

That mill came to a grinding halt only hours later when Next Generation contacted Microsoft for confirmation and received an unequivocal denial. “There are no plans to introduce Blu-ray,” a spokesperson told the site. “In response to Stan Glasgow’s statement that Blu-ray is a possibility for Xbox 360, we have made no such announcement,” he said in an e-mail.

Glasgow also told the Financial Times that Sony was in talks with Apple, though that company has yet to comment.