Sony has good news PS3 and Blu-ray day

Stan Beer
Thursday, 17 August 2006 17:46

Your IT - Home IT

Two good news items have sprung out of the Sony camp in the past day. A leading research group has predicted the games leader will win the consoles war and Sony has officially launched the long awaited 50GB Blu-ray dual-layer media, giving it a clear capacity advantage over the rival HD DVD format.

Research firm Yankee Group has predicted that sales of the Sony PlayStation 3 console will overtake the 10 million unit headstart that Microsoft Xbox 360 currently has and reach 30 million units sold by 2011. Meanwhile, Xbox 360 will only sell an additional 17 million units over the next five years for a total of 27 million units sold. Nintendo will come a distant third with just 11 million units sold.

One of the key selling points of the premium priced PS3, is its integrated Blu-ray player and Sony had some good news on that front also. Sony has launched its first dual-layer 50GB write once Blu-ray media and, true to its premium price reputation, the new high density media will retail for US$48.

The appearance of 50GB media has finally given Sony Blu-ray a clear edge over HD DVD which can only store 30GB and Sony has indicated that 50GB rewritable media will ship before the end of the year.

While Sony can claim a technological edge with Blu-ray, its big drawback is price. Both Blu-ray players and the PS3 are priced well above their main competitors HD DVD players and Xbox 360. How much this will affect Sony's attempt to dominate both markets remains to be seen.