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A lot of you have been wondering when Universal Studios was finally going to start releasing their titles in the Blu-ray disc format, well that question has been answered.  Starting on July 22, Universal will start to release quite a few of their catalog titles, as well as prepare for the release of their five big movies set for box offices this summer.

These include: The Incredible Hulk, Wanted, Momma Mia, Hellboy II, and the new Mummy movie featuring Brendan Fraser and Jet Li.  For those of you curious as to what will be hitting shelves on July 22, you can expect the Mummy Trilogy (which includes the Scorpion King). 

In total, Universal plans to ship well over 40 titles before the end of 2008.  This will definitely help the high-definition crowd expand their collections with an even greater selection of titles.  With Universal being the main supporter of the HD DVD franchise, it’s good to finally know the next generation of movie watching is officially kicking off at 100% [Reuters]

Blu-ray Disc will never win mass appeal - we’ll all be buying out HD movies on Flash cards instead. That, at least, is the verdict of THX Chief Scientist Laurie Fincham. Fincham’s comments come by way of UK magazine Home Cinema Choice, relayed by website DVD Town. Says Fincham: “I think it’s too late for Blu-ray. I think consumers will only become interested in replacing DVD when HD movies becomes available on flash memory.
“By the time Blu-ray really finds a mass market, we will have 128GB cards,” he says. “I would guess that getting studios to supply movies on media cards, or offer downloads, will be a lot easier than getting them to sign up to support a disc format.
View: The full story @ The Reg

Better late than never, right? Sony has just announced that it will be releasing a massive firmware update for the on-board PS3 Blu-ray drives. The biggest change will be the upgrade to  Blur-ray Profile 2.0, which will bring full online support for any Blu-ray titles that offer Profile 2.0 content. The first two titles with such connectivity will be The Sixth Day, and Walk Hard, with many more to follow. Other enhancements will include better DivX and WMV support, more stable PSP interaction, and a more pleasant web browsing experience. All told, this is a worthy update that brings the PS3 in line with many higher-end Blu-ray players currently on the market. Expect to see this hit consoles by the end of March. [BGR]

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Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O: Quote, Profile, Research) is not in talks to include Sony Corp’s (6758.T: Quote, Profile, Research) Blu-ray high-definition DVD technology in its Xbox 360 video game console, an executive said on Wednesday.
The comments by Aaron Greenberg, group product manager for Xbox 360, poured cold water on recent speculation that Microsoft could support Blu-ray after Toshiba Corp (6502.T: Quote, Profile, Research), backer of the rival HD DVD format, gave up when key movie studios and retailers abandoned the technology. [Reuters]

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Pricewatch - Blu-ray Disc players from Samsung, Sony and Sharp are now the most expensive they have been all year, presumably because HD DVD’s exit from the high-def disc arena has removed some of Blu-ray’s pricing pressure.

Although HD DVD was always seen as a distant second in the HD format war, it constantly received attention because of the lower cost of its players. Because of this, standalone Blu-ray players were not moving off store shelves very steadily.

The majority of Blu-ray Disc movie purchases have to date been for consumers who own a Playstation 3, which has BD playback capabilities.

In a move to expedite HD DVD’s downfall, Blu-ray manufacturers and retailers aggressively cut prices earlier this year, to the point where it was possible to buy a standalone BD player for less than $300.

Now, however, according to Pricegrabber.com’s most recent information, the average price for Blu-ray hardware is around $400, which is right around where it was last year. The players from Samsung, Sony, Sharp and Panasonic included here are the least expensive on the market and also the most widely available. LG’s BH200 is a dual format player with support for Blu-ray and HD DVD.

Within just the last two weeks, te average prices for LG’s BH200 player and Sharp’s BD-HP20U have climbed significantly. Every standlone Blu-ray-specific player in the chart above is now more expensive than it was at the beginning of the year.

Sony’s S300 seems to have settled pretty calmly at the $400 point, despite being closer to $300 at the beginning of the year. With Sony’s PS3 at the same price point, it is hard to justify buying the standalone Blu-ray player. That goes for all the devices listed here.

By looking at these prices, it is pretty clear that the PS3 did in fact almost singlehandedly declare the winner of the format war. Another point worth noting is that all of these players will reach a certain level of obsolescence later this year, as soon as the new BD Profile is released.

Later this year, Blu-ray movies will carry a new slate of advanced features, most notable being the ability to connect to the Internet. However, none of the Blu-ray players on the market today (with the exception of the PS3) can connect online. This means that not only will they be unable to access Web-enabled features in the future but they also cannot receive firmware upgrades.

With that reality looming, it surprises me that current players are still price as high as they are, and especially that they continue to rise. Obviously they are rebounding from the HD DVD competition, but if these prices don’t come down soon, they will be forced down significantly more when the new wave of players comes out.

Meanwhile, the HD-A3 HD DVD player set a new low today, with the average Pricegrabber price at $98. It is interesting that this and other HD DVD players continue to plummet in price, because they do after all still function as DVD upconverters.

Ironically, although Blu-ray has been declared the winner, it is right now about the worst time to invest in a standalone Blu-ray player, because of the high prices and looming obsolescence. Many of the current Blu-ray manufacturers have announced new players that will support BD Profile 2.0, so my advice would be to buy a PS3 or wait for the next-gen players. In the meantime, buy a dirt cheap HD DVD player and some even cheaper HD DVD movies. [Tomshardware]

CEO Steve Ballmer said his company is working on Windows device driver support for the Blu-ray high definition movie format. Microsoft is developing software that will add native support for devices that play Sony’s Blu-ray high definition movie format to the Windows operating system, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said.
“We’ve already been working on, for example, in Windows, device driver support for Blu-ray drives and the like,” said Ballmer, speaking at the Microsoft’s Mix ‘08 conference. Ballmer also said that Microsoft is “going to support Blu-ray in ways that are important,” according to a transcript of his remarks posted on the company’s Web site. The Mix ‘08 conference was held last week in Las Vegas.
Microsoft until recently used Toshiba’s HD DVD format to add HD movie playback to its Xbox 360 gaming console. That practice abruptly ended last month when Toshiba announced its decision to kill HD DVD after virtually all major Hollywood studios threw their weight behind Blu-ray. [Information Week]

Sony is in talks with console rival Microsoft about offering a Blu-ray drive for the Xbox 360, according to a senior executive.
After Sony’s victory last month in the high-definition DVD format war, Stan Glasgow, Sony Electronics US president, said the two sides were now talking about Microsoft adopting Blu-ray.
A Blu-ray drive in a 360 would make Microsoft more competitive with the PS3, but it would also mean extra revenues for Sony’s electronics division. It would also add further cost to the 360, meaning a premium edition of the console could be necessary.
A Blu-ray drive could be incorporated in its top-of-the-range Elite Xbox, or Microsoft could again offer a drive as a plug-in peripheral. [ft]

Everybody clamoring for a cheap Blu-ray player now that the format war is over might wanna bide their time with a sweet DVD upconverter—the $200-player Blu-ray cavalry is at least a year away, according to Sony Electronics CEO Stan Glasgow, who we talked to today in New York. “I don’t think $200 is going to happen this year. Next year $200 could happen. We’ll be at a $300 rate this year. $299 will happen this year.” No cheap Chinese-made players will be flooding the market to push it down either, not until the BDA decides to license the tech to them, and Glasgow implied it’s gonna be a while before that happens. Anyone else wants a license? Sure. But not them, in part it was indicated, because of piracy concerns. Not that the price matters too much right now, since Sony is “struggling to keep up with the demand.” [Gizmodo]

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Most people assumed that Sony’s decision to use Blu-ray as its format on the PlayStation 3 was unnecessary figuring that few, if any, games would take advantage of the 25-50GB a disc could offer. Less than 3 months from its release, Hideo Kojima has now revealed that Blu-ray’s capacity has limited what Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots could have been. 
In an interview with Famitsu, Kojima revealed that Guns of the Patriots did indeed suffer cuts in order to fit the game onto a Blu-ray disc. The disc used for MGS4 is of the 50GB kind, which is roughly six times the capacity of a regular DVD, and the game has been skimped down as to only include local audio tracks and forced Metal Gear Online to be shipped on a seperate disc because of the lack of space. Kojima’s actual quote (translated from Famitsu) was: “There’s not enough space. We always talked about where to cut and what to compress.”
The Metal Gear franchise has always been known for being dialogue-heavy, but MGS4 is set to outdo its predecessors. With the stunning visuals and the possibility of an extensive amount of dialogue outstripping even a Blu-ray disc, this should leave fans excited for the final product. This bit of news should also be enough of a deterrent for Xbox 360 hopefuls that keep hoping that Metal Gear Solid 4 will be defecting to the Xbox 360 because it would be hard to imagine the game being 6 discs long. [IGN]

According to Xbox marketeer John Porcaro’s gamerscore blog, Microsoft is planing to withdraw from HD DVD following recent decisions made by Toshiba, Hollywood studios and retailers. “Xbox will no longer manufacture new HD DVD players for the Xbox 360, but we will continue to  provide standard product and warranty support for all Xbox 360 HD DVD Players in the market.” said Porcaro. Microsoft have stated that they do not believe this decision will have any material impact on the Xbox 360 platform. [maxconsole]

Xbox 360 HD DVD Support Statement Updated
We just issued an updated statement regarding HD DVD support for Xbox 360.
As a result of recent decisions made by Toshiba, Hollywood studios, and retailers, Microsoft plans to withdraw from HD DVD. Xbox will no longer manufacture new HD DVD players for the Xbox 360, but we will continue to provide standard product and warranty support for all Xbox 360 HD DVD Players in the market. As we stated earlier, we do not believe this decision will have any material impact on the Xbox 360 platform or our position in the marketplace. HD DVD is one of the several ways we offer a High Definition experience to consumers and we will continue to give consumers the choice to enjoy digital distribution of high definition movies and TV shows directly to their living room, along with playback of the DVD movies they already own.