Sony has rolled out its new Blu-ray products, to be available in time for the holidays. Sony will release two Blu-ray players worldwide (one is currently available in the US) and seven Blu-ray recorders in Japan.
Sony expects industry wide Blu-ray player and record sales to more than triple to about seven million units by March 2009, up from 2.1 million in March of 2008. Sony claims its share will be 3.1 million units, around 44% of the market. Sony also expects to sell 10 million PlayStation 3 units.
The latest models will include a new chip to show high-definition movies in better quality. Prices for both players and movies have also come down. Sony’s big boost will be making these players and records BD Live enabled, which adds Web-enabled features, from downloadable trailers to chat and instant-messaging functions.
The NPD Group found that awareness of Blu-ray Disc had reached 60% of U.S. households, with most experts predicting the business will take off in a significant fashion in the fourth quarter of 2008, when BD Live software and players start hitting the market.
Sony’s biggest competitor will come out of tru2way technologies. LG Electronics and Funai Electric have recently signed a tru2way MOU, while LG is also making a variety of its products Bluetooth-enabled. Tru2way eliminates wires and remotes, puts devices closer to being truly plug-and-play and allows interactivity on a multitude of online and downloadable levels through content delivered to devices.
The biggest quandary is that Sony has a tru2way license. Perhaps there is something more to BD Live besides its interactivity with other devices and its added content. Sony might be banking on its projections for Blu-ray sales to come in below the actual numbers, then BD Live would be worth more to Sony and a lot more for other companies looking to make BD Live-capable devices.