Sony to Release Blu-ray DVD Player

While Sony will most likely miss its launch date of the PS3 for this coming May, Sony has announced that they will be able to meet another deadline. Not for their next-gen game console, but for their new Blu-ray DVD player. The scheduled release date for the machine is May 23rd and will cost from $1000-$1800. The rival camp, HD-DVD will be releasing their first units sometime in March and will cost approximately $499. The competition for next-gen DVD supremacy is hot, and both camps stand to lose or gain millions of dollars, depending on the success or failure of the public to adopt their specific technology as the de facto standard. Just who is winning the battle? According to a report by CIO-Today, it is too close to call. Ted Schadler of Forrester Research, an electronics industry tracking company, said “It’s now a footrace. All of the deals have been made with manufacturers and the studios, and the content-protection licensing arrangements are in place.” While the buzz is currently about which format will be the winner, the flip side of all of the hype is that the majority of the public can™t even view the hi-def signal on their television sets. This same problem surrounds Microsoft™s Xbox 360. While the next-gen console offers stupendous hi-def graphics, many 360 owners were disappointed to find that the graphics weren™t as sharp, clear or defined on their regular definition TVs. Michael Goodman of Yankee Group said, “It’s way too early to declare a winner. There most likely won’t be any products making an impact on the market for two or three years. It will be a while before the high-definition video hardware is out there, and if Microsoft does well with the Xbox 360, there could be a lot of HD DVD players being sold.” Sony was hoping to make an impact with a one-two punch in releasing its new PS3 to the world with the included Blu-ray DVD drive. But those plans have gone awry and it seems that the pundits, who once placed their bets on Blu-ray to win the next-gen DVD race, will now have to hedge their bets and reconsider HD-DVD as a viable contender for the crown.