14 DAY TRIAL // Retailers have already disclosed that consumers aren't purchasing HD DVD and Blu-ray hardware and content. Warner Home Video has adjusted their high-def projections for the year, blaming a lack of hardware availability (via Engadget HD). The studio said consumers spent just $30 million on high-def hardware and software through September, about half what Warner forecast would be spent in the period.
At the High Def 101 conference, Warner senior VP of market management Steve Nickerson said in presenting the studio's revised research that spending slimmed because most manufacturers delayed high-def player launches. When Nickerson presented the studio's forecast earlier in the year, Pioneer, Panasonic, Sony and Philips were among those expected to have launched Blu-ray Disc players by now. All those companies are now anticipating October through December launches. Panasonic players did start shipping to specialty electronics stores at the end of September.
Warner supports both Blu-ray and HD DVD. The lowered launch numbers for Sony's PlayStation 3 shouldn't help hardware availability, but the release of Toshiba's new HD DVD players might. Speaking of the PlayStation 3, Sony, which originally disputed reports of system overheating at the Tokyo Game Show, is now saying that the PS3's operating system wasn't final, according to GameDaily BIZ.
The OS may still be in the process of being finalized currently and it can be "flashed" into the machine at any time, even after all the other hardware components are made. It's likely that it's being refined up to the point that Sony is actually ready to put the consoles in boxes for retail. Cepro said that this should not affect PS3 production whatsoever. Moreover, SCEA does not believe that the state of the OS at TGS had anything to do with the system resets or other glitches that some witnessed. Sony reiterated that it was the confined cases and other unfriendly trade show conditions that caused problems with the consoles.
Finally today, NEC is developing a chipset that can read and write both Blu-ray and HD DVD formats, according to NewLaunches. It is already shipping chipsets which can read both the discs to manufacturers. The chipset when developed will look like a normal optical drive on your PC but will connect using the new SATA II or Parallel ATA interface the drive will support recording HD-DVD and Blu-Ray discs at 5X, DVD?R/?RW/-RAM at 16X and CD-R/-RW at 48X.