The Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA) today revealed its plan to install Blu-ray as the successor to DVD within three years. BDA European chairman Frank Simonis laid down the Association's grand three-year plan at a CeBIT press conference in Hannover.
During the press conference - which was at one point rudely interrupted by a Windows XP error message producing roars of laughter from the audience - Simonis said that he fully expected the launch of the Playstation 3 next week to instigate a surge in interest for the Blu-ray format.
"Content and ease of access will be prime factors in consumer's choice of format," said Simonis. "The pace of feature film release from the industry's leading studios, coupled with hardware developments from the mass impact of the Blu-ray disc (BD) equipped PS3, are already handing Blu-ray disc a massive advantage - a 700 per cent increase in software sales since mid-November."
"Seven out of eight major Hollywood studios already release titles on Blu-ray Disc, and five of these are exclusive to this format (Buena Vista, Lionsgate, MGM, Sony, Twentieth Century Fox). Weekly software sales are already surpassing HD DVD by three to one."
Collective confidence
Simonis and other members of the BDA who spoke were supremely confident that Blu-ray would be the triumphant high definition disc format, and as a collective they revealed their aim to make Blu-ray the standard format within three years, replacing current DVDs.
Simonis ended the press conference by highlighting the fact that by the end of last year BD had captured 96 per cent of the high definition player market in Japan, and that over 1.8m PS3 consoles had been shipped. "Asia and the US may be the early adopters, but we expect the European markets to follow suit. The truism is that content is king, and BD has that content," he said.
Frank Simonis spoke to Tech.co.uk earlier on today in an interview where he echoed these sentiments, as well as commenting on the high definition battle between HD DVD and Blu-ray and the impact of the Playstation 3. The interview will be published tomorrow.
