Blu-Ray cracks million unit sales mark

Blu-Ray today became the first next-generation movie format to sell over a million copies, a study published by Home Media Research says. Although the 50GB format has been selling slowly compared to regular DVDs, the research claims that 70 percent of all movies sold in the first three months of the year were Blu-Ray versions -- eclpsing HD DVD by more than two to one, the Blu-Ray Disc Association bragged.

While the group touts the advantage of having more studios providing support versus the rival standard, the prevalence of Blu-Ray has in large part been attributed to the PS3 console, which has Blu-Ray built-in and has been sold at a loss to help encourage both game and movie sales. Toshiba has largely countered the release by dropping HD DVD player prices below that of the $599 Sony game system.