Thursday, March 6,2008 @ 7:05pm
Sony in talks for Blu-ray for Mac, Xbox
Sony is discussing the possibility of offering a Blu-ray drive for Macs and the Xbox 360, claims Sony Electronics chief Stan Glasgow. The senior official partly confirms past leaks and says that Sony hopes to see the HD disc format as an option for Apple's computers as well as Microsoft's game console. Glasgow does not describe the extent or progress of the talks but says that the likelihood of Blu-ray being eclipsed by downloads was slim in the near future due to the sheer size of HD movies, many of which take up as much as 50GB on a dual-layer Blu-ray disc.
"Downloading will build over time, but this will be over a period of years," he says.
The remarks come as part of the same speech in which Glasgow noted the development of an Apple TV rival and the decreasing costs of dedicated Blu-ray players, which could drop to as low as $300 this year. In turn, a Blu-ray drive for the Xbox would most likely appear as a USB attachment to replace the now-canceled HD DVD add-on. Microsoft has historically said it wants to separate the Xbox 360 from the success of any one disc format and has responded to the Sony official's claims by noting that it wants to build the Xbox's success on games rather than movies.
Microsoft adds that it has made no announcements, but does not deny the Sony executive's claims. Apple has not commented on the statements.