A jubilant Sony appears to be winning the first battles in the HD DVD/Blu-Ray technology war. The company has announced that shipments of its Blu-Ray DVDplayers to the U.S. could massively increase this year – from 100,000 to 600,000. However, it gives credit not to the players themselves, but the movies coming out on the Blu-Ray format.Of the top 20 new films released on DVD, some 14 or 15 have been exclusive to Blu-Ray, driving sales of the players, according to a Sony spokesman. Sony sold less than 100,000 of its newplayers during 2006, but other factors have helped spur figures. The Sony Playstation 3 console comes equipped with a Blu-Ray player. However, as Sony has greatly upped its sales estimates,its main competitor in the market, Toshiba, has lowered theirs. Toshiba has lowered expectations of U.S. sales for its HD DVD player from 1.8 million to onemillion units, while also doubtful about global figures. “Obviously we are going to have to lower our previous global estimate,” said Toshiba’s Yoshihide Fujii. The battlebetween the incompatible HD DVD/Blu-Ray formats has carried echoes of the VHS v. Betamax duel of the 1980s, and as that proved, there can only be one winner.
Tag Archive: Ray DVD
Sony Wins Early Rounds In DVD Battle
No Playstation 3 Until November
[Editor's note: Come here from Digg looking for "Samsung Delays Blu-ray Disc Player"? Click here for that story - we incorrectlysubmitted the URL and apologize for the inconvenience.] At a hastily convened news conference, Sony games chief Ken Kutaragi announced the launch of its anticipated Playstation 3 gaming console would be delayed until November 2006, more than a year and a half after it’s official unveiling. At issue: technical agreementssurrounding copy protection technology for the unit’s included Blu-Ray disc drive, the next-generation DVD player to be included in the PS3.
Sony had previously been aiming to launch the Playstation 3 in May. Although Sony currently dominates the game console market with an estimated 70 percent market share worldwide, the six-month delay means the system will get to market a full year after Microsoft’s Xbox 360 gaming platform, and launch nearly simultaneously with Nintendo’s forthcoming Revolution console. Although analysts view the delay as a negative
Netflix to Carry HD DVD Titles in March
Video-rental firm Netflix announced today that it plans to begin carrying titles in the HD DVD next-generation DVD format as soon as they become available in March, 2006. “For those subscribers who have an immediate interest in renting movies in high-def, we’re committed to making the full range of titles available at Netflix the moment they’re introduced,” said Netflix CEO Reed Hastings.
Toshiba is expected to have consumers HD DVD players to market beginning in March, and Warner Home Video, Universal, and Paramount have all committed to introducing titles in HD DVD format in the March timeframe.
Sony: Blu-Ray DVD Player Due By Mid-2006
Sony’s big CES keynote doesn’t happen until Thursday, but the company let slip its North American product line plans for 2006 on Wednesday, including a Blu-Ray DVD player due by mid-year, a 46-inch version of its Bravia LCD television, and a hard disk-based camcorder and a 46-inch Bravia LCD television.
Sony plans to begin offering a Blu-Ray DVD player in the American market by mid-year; the players will debut in the Japanese market, and Sony is likely holding off an American release both to ramp up its production capacity but also to enable Hollywood movie studios to prepare Blu-Ray content to be available at the products’ launch. The delay will let some of Sony’s Blu-Ray consortium partners beat them to the punch: Pioneer says it plans to get its own $1,800 BDP-HD1 Blu-Ray player to market in June, 2006.
MGM: Yeah! Us Too! With the Blu-Ray Thing!
Film studio MGM announced today it will support Sony’s Blu-Ray DVD disk format. MGM plans to begin releasing material when the new Blu-Ray hardware is available in North America, Japan. and Europe; the studio’s large library includes television programming and more than 4,000 films, including the lucrative James Bond franchise.
The announcement was not considered a surprise by industry watchers, since MGM was acquired in April 2005 by a group of investors, including equity firms, Comcast, and Sony itself. The announcement is the third in a recent string of major studios announcing they will release content in Blu-Ray format; Warner Home Video and Paramount previously announced they plan to support both Blu-Ray and Toshiba’s competing HD-DVD format, after having solely voiced support for HD-DVD.
Thomson To Support Blu-Ray/HD-DVD
Thomson announced that it will support next-generation DVD formats by manufacturing HD DVD and Blu-ray discs through its Technicolor business and providing consumer HD DVD players through its Thomsonand RCA brands.
Thomson, which is also a founding member of the Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA), will continue to participate and support the development and production of the Blu-ray Disc format. The BDA regroups over 70 companies, including Sony, Dell, HP, Hitachi, LG Electronics, Mitsubishi, Panasonic (Matsushita Electric Industrial Co.), Pioneer Corporation, Philips, Samsung, Sharp, TDK, 20th Century Fox and The Walt Disney Company.
