Sony DADC has announced that they now have six 50 GB Blu-ray Disc production lines up and running. Sony announced its 50 GB Blu-ray production plans in May of this year and is now ramping up production to 60K discs per day. In addition to the six dual layer lines currently running, the company has nine 25 GB Blu-ray Disc production machines in operation and has shipped over three million Blu-ray Discs for a client base of over 35 customers since beginning production in May of this year.

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Sean Cooper has written an interesting article about the budding new High Definition optical disc formats. He points out very valid arguments why both, HD-DVD and Blu-ray, are doomed to fail. Could it be that we are about to get rid of physical formats all together, and replace them with electronically delivered solutions. The new Xbox Live Movie Rental offers HD material delivered via the Internet and Comcast has already introduced a cable on-demand solution that offers HD video. While Cooper has some valid points, he forgets one thing - the disc is portable and archivable.

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Playfuls.com has a quite critical article about the Zune the “iPod killer”. “I first started writing this article with a positive attitude concerning Microsoft’s MP3 player. I ended up thinking Zune is a crap. So I changed the title.” There seems to be some annoying things about Zune like the size of the player (2 times bigger than regular iPod’s) and it won’t work with Windows Media Player 11. If you want to buy songs from the Zune Marketplace you cannot pay with your credit card, you have to buy Microsoft points. WTF is Microsoft points? By the way - Europe, Australia and Japan won’t see Zune players before 2008. Is this really a iPod killer?

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Sony’s new PS3 (PlayStation 3) cannot play some of the games designed for previous generations of the popular console - even though the PS3 was hyped as being fully compatible with older-generation games. The compatibility problem is the latest in a series of setbacks for the PS3. Online software upgrades of the PS3 will be offered, but it is unlikely that all the problems will ever get fixed.

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According to DigiTimes, Ritek has signed an ODM contract with Japan-based Hitachi Maxell for the exclusive production of DVD and CD-R discs, with an annual order value estimated at NT$8.0 billion (US$244 million) and shipments to begin next quarter. Ritek has however declined to comment anything about this agreement. Ritek does not need to pay royalty fees to Phillips because Hitachi Maxell has signed with Royal Philips Electronics for cross licensing of patents.

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It was a busy weekend for Japanese game retailers and consumers, as the rush to get one of the very first PlayStation 3’s started. As the demand greatly exceeds the currently supply, problems like black market sales cannot be avoided. Also first hands on reports and reviews are availble on the Web - it would seem that Microsoft will have hard time defending the battle ground it has gained, if only Sony can supply the hardware

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Microsoft loss may be a disc makers gain? According to DigiTimes, Taiwan optical disc makers indicated bigger demand for DVD+R/-R DL discs recently, following the increased availability of a modding hack that allows for the playing of pirated games on Xbox 360 consoles. Before the hack became widely available, sales for DVD+R/-R discs had been sluggish due to its relative high retail price and limited applications.

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Walt Disney Company is pushing it’s way to the video game industry, but now they have made a rather surprising strategic decision to create a dedicated division in order to produce games for Nintendo Wii. Certainly the childish image of Nintendo fits nicely with Disney, but this budged console that doesn’t really have the next-gen qualities is a certain underdog in the console war - it only has the benefit of being cheap and a solid fan base in Japan. Interesting decision by Disney as one would have expected that the movie and animation studio would have had plenty of ideas how to utilize High Definition video or the capacity of Blu-ray in their video games.

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According to CNET, Chipmakers such as Broadcom, NEC and STMicroelectronics are preparing components that will allow consumer electronics manufacturers to release players and PCs that will play both Blu-ray and HD DVD discs. These combo players may come out sometime in 2007 or 2008. Technically, a combo player isn’t that difficult, the problem has been the politics. It’s all about the money. The creators of the separate formats could earn millions in royalties if their format wins out.

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There is something wrong with Blu-ray? Sony is struggling to release PS3 for the Holidays, and has delayed their Blu-ray player release as well. Now Pioneer’s BDP-HD1 Blu-ray player is delayed for December. Pioneer’s reason for delaying is not too clarifying, as they refer to quality control improvements as the source of the delay.

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