Ps3's Blu-ray Bargain?

January 9th, 2006, 18:51 Posted By: wraggster

You've got to love CES. Just when you think the games industry will emerge blinking and somnambulant into the New Year with nothing to report, the annual Consumer Electronics Show throws up a raft of new and intriguing tech developments, products and stories to kick off the year in fine style.
So it transpires this morning, with Sony adding further fuel to the Blu-ray versus HD-DVD fire by touting the PS3 as a cut-price solution to your future high-definition movie viewing.

Why? Well, with the announcement of some of the first Blu-ray movie players from Samsung and Pioneer (the BD-1000 and BDP-HD1 respectively) due to come to market this spring and expected to cost around 1000 USD and 1800 USD, the PS3 - which ships with a Blu-ray drive - starts to look more of a bargain.

Okay, we still don't know the price of the PS3 itself yet, but with expectations around the 400-500 USD mark, Blu-ray movie playback could be an important factor in driving initial sales, just like DVD playback was for the PS2. By contrast, the first HD-DVD players from Toshiba will also debut in March with the HD-XA1 priced at 799.99 USD and the HD-A1 costing 499.99 USD.
In the current gen, PS2 did extremely well out East during its initial launch phase simply because it was one of the cheapest DVD players on the market and you also got a games console to boot. It's a strategy Sony seems to be repeating this time around and if it works, why the hell not? The only slight problem might be the PS3's launch date, which although originally touted for spring this year seems almost certain to slip back further, especially in the West.

But what do you think? Will the PS3's Blu-ray drive be more of an incentive for you to buy the console, or is it all about the games? Will it arrive too late to make a difference or perhaps you'll be checking out the Xbox 360's new HD-DVD drive which we reported on last week? Let us know in the forums below.

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