by Al Sacco

75 Blu-ray DVD Titles to Hit Japan Before Holidays

News
Aug 29, 20062 mins
Consumer Electronics

Film and music firms that support the Blu-ray digital disc format, including Walt Disney and Sony, on Tuesday announced they will release 75 Blu-ray titles in Japan before the upcoming holiday season, Reuters reports.

The news comes amid an ongoing battle between the Toshiba-developed HD DVD and the Sony-backed Blu-ray digital disc over which will become the next industry-accepted DVD format.

Among the titles to be released are Walt Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl and Sony’s The Da Vinci Code, according to Reuters.

While Blu-ray has garnered the support of more Hollywood studios than its rival, such Web heavies as Microsoft have said they’ll back HD DVD.

The first HD DVD player was made available by Toshiba in March in Japan, and Samsung debuted the first Blu-ray player in June, Reuters reports. Sony said it will launch a Blu-ray player this fall in the United States—and it has already released a Vaio laptop with a Blu-ray drive—but it does not yet have a slated date for the Japanese launch, according to Reuters.

Both Sony and Microsoft are building support for the rival DVD formats into their gaming consoles, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, respectively, and both are looking to the video game systems to help build consumer support for each format.

Related Links:

  • Report: DVD Format Wars to End in Draw

  • U.S., Japan to Share Blu-ray Region Code

  • Toshiba Launches 1st HD-DVD Player in Japan

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