Sony in Talks with Apple and Microsoft to Offer Blu-ray

 

The Financial Times today confirmed long-standing rumors that Sony has been in discussions with both Microsoft and Apple to bring Blu-ray technology to the XBox 360 and Macintosh computers.

Stan Glasgow, the U.S. President of Sony Electronics, confirmed that Sony has been in talks with the two companies, who, up to now, did not offer Blu-ray enabled products.

Apple, for its part, has been an official supporter of Blu-ray Disc for some time, but has yet to offer any of their computer models with a Blu-ray drive.  Recently, it was reported that Apple had been in talks with Sony (likely Optiarc, Sony's joint ODD venture with NEC) about putting Blu-ray burners in their newly updated MacBook Pro notebooks, but that Sony could only offer them Blu-ray combo drives... which can read Blu-ray discs, but can only write to DVD and CD media.  Apple supposedly passed on the offer, but will likely offer burners once they are more readily available in sufficient quantities.

Microsoft, on the other hand, was one of the biggest supporters of the rival HD DVD format before its demise, and had released an HD DVD peripheral for its XBox 360 videogame system.  Although Blu-ray allows the use of the VC-1 video codec, which was created largely by Microsoft, the BDA opted to use the rival Java language for the interactivity layer on movie discs instead of Microsoft's HDi language.  Given the animosity between Microsoft and Java-creator Sun, some had thought the Microsoft would forever refuse to support the Blu-ray format.  Recent reports, though, have stated that Microsoft engineers have a Blu-ray drive peripheral working on an XBox 360 system.  This latest confirmation certainly indicates that Sony is willing to work with their console competitor to bring the technology to the rival system.  Despite the posturing (and the inherent competition between the two companies) they both stand to gain a lot from offering the drive.  Microsoft doesn't want to be seen as not offering a "must-have" feature that Sony does, and Sony would certainly like to get Blu-ray into as many people's hands as possible.

Interestingly, Apple and Microsoft have the two leading digital download services, which many view to be the biggest threat to the mainstream adoption of Blu-ray.  So far, rentals of downloads have been underwhelming, though, and the quality lags far behind that of Blu-ray.  While downloadable movies will eventually find a place in the market, it looks to still be quite a ways off, and will most likely exist as an alternative delivery method to Blu-ray, rather than a replacement for it.