Blu-ray Association @ CES - EA and Vivendi Universal Games join and Philips prototype
With the Sony Playstation 3 release looking to be within two years at the latest, and since the PS3 will only support Blu-ray and not the competing HD DVD, it comes as no surprise that two of the leading game publishers, Electronic Arts and Vivendi Universal Games have joined the Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA). Blu-ray is the hi-def media format which has 25GB of storage space on single layer discs, and 50GB of capacity on dual layer ones allowing up to 9 hours of high definition video content.
Philips has a prototype Blu-ray PC recorder that pulls triple duty and burns CDs and DVDs as well. The prototype OPU81 has three separate infra-red, red, and blue lasers to write to the different types of media.
When we asked the Blu-ray association directly if they were actively courting Microsoft to use Blu-ray in the next generation Xbox 2 system, they told us to go ask Microsoft (yes, that puzzles us too, so it may provide a hint of the way Microsoft is leaning). We've just got to say, Hero absolutely rocks in HD (we think that's 1080p in the Blu-ray demo pic, sorry it's bit blurry).
Click to see more pictures of prototype Blu-ray recorders
