Let's talk a bit about Blu-ray again... it's been a while

by Nick Doerr { Aug 21st 2006 at 10:30AM }

More specifically, let's see how the production of these tricky little discs is going. Right now, Sony has three lines functioning with the capacity of 25,000 of the single-layer 25GB discs per day (750,000 per month). By October, Sony wants to push around 5 million discs per month by increasing the number of lines of production. Also, six of these lines are intended to manufacture the 50GB dual-layered Blu-ray discs.

That's... a lot of disc-making. Maybe that's a common number among new, still fairly unproven media formats, but tossing out 5 million by October? Sony seems fairly confident about this item. But would we rather them not be confident and produce very few? That would be worse, wouldn't it? Just think -- maybe one of those dual-layer discs created this October will be used to house your very first PS3 game! That's... marginally exciting.

Tags: Blu-ray, Playstation 3, Playstation3, PS3

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Silver R. Wolfe @ Aug 21st 2006 1:23PM

But if you produce more and people pick them up, it will drive manufacturing costs down, which is great for consumers.

Cage @ Aug 21st 2006 2:15PM

"But", "If", "Could", "Guess". PS3 fanboys...these are not words that should be coming out when the console is 3 and a half months from release.

SuicideNinja @ Aug 21st 2006 3:11PM

I was trying to find a Bluray Player to check out in Sears yesterday, but they didn't have one. They did have an HD-DVD player, but it was playing a regular DVD through a Sony television. A little ironic, but I doubt anyone knows/cares in the store.

thedvdwars.com is still showing that Amazon customers are more supportive of the competition, where manufacturers seem to be more supportive of Bluray. I've been watching this site for a few weeks now; looks like it was slightly redesigned this week.

Interesting how Bluray discs, although "more expensive to produce" seem to have a slightly lower average price.

sputnik @ Aug 21st 2006 4:28PM

Of course they are selling the Blu-Ray movie disc cheaper as you have to shell out an arm and a leg to buy the player. Not to mention the competition (HD-DVD) has better quality visuals due to the use of VC-1 and twice as many titles on the market with a HD-DVD player costing half of what the most inexpensive Blu-Ray player is going for.

Those seem like a few good reasons to lower prices to me.

SuicideNinja @ Aug 21st 2006 7:41PM

I figured that, but skin-deep it is curious.

It will be interesting to see if Bluray's popularity changes once they start using a current codec, have lower priced players, and put out some better films.

Personally, I think the name is hurting them more than the technology. It's not as self-explanatory as HD-DVD.