Panasonic To Roll Out Blu-Ray Player In Sept.
Yahoo News writes here: Panasonic said on Tuesday it will start selling a Blu-ray high-definition disc player in September for under $1,500 and sees up to 5 million of these new DVD players sold industry-wide in their first year.
Panasonic’s Blu-ray player will compete against other Blu-ray players from Samsung Corp., Pioneer Corp. and Sony Corp (NYSE:SNE - news). as well as players supporting rival HD DVD, championed by Toshiba Corp. The battle between the two formats has divided Hollywood and the computer industry and is being likened to the Betamax/VHS war of over 25 years ago, which led to customer confusion and widespread company losses. While more Hollywood studios and electronics makers have sided with the Blu-ray camp, led by Sony, last fall Microsoft Corp. revived HD DVD when it said would support Toshiba’s technology.