By James Wells in Sydney and Matthew Henry in Las Vegas
LAS VEGAS: The head of Sony’s global consumer electronics division has said it is too early for Blu-ray Disc to claim victory in the war over HD DVD for the high definition high ground at a press conference attended by Current.com.au in Las Vegas earlier today.
Sony executive deputy president and global head of consumer electronics, Katsumi Ihara, said the battle with the Toshiba-backed technology will continue despite a major victory this week with Warner Bros deciding to drop the HD DVD format and create high definition movie software only in the Blu-ray Disc next generation format.
"It is too early to say we win, there is still competition in the marketplace,” Ihara said at the press conference.
“So we have to develop competitive players and we have to give consumers new applications of BD. Strong PS3 sell-through helps penetration and this has been quite positive. But we need to make competitive players and expand BD to other products like Vaio.
"We are very pleased that Warner chose BD and if you look at Warner’s statement they made the decision based on US customers’ choice because BD out-sold HD DVD in Christmas. If you look at sell through it is something like seven-to-one or eight-to-one Blu-ray. US customers chose BD as the next disc format and now Warner has joined BD, its share will increase significantly," Ihara said.
"We are in a better position but we still need to come up with the best products."