Sony's Ken Kutaragi, whose company is pushing Blu-Ray and will use it in the PlayStation 3, has said that the possibility of a merger between the two next-gen disc formats are "almost none. It's very difficult." As you may recall, talks have been underway for some time now to unify the format to prevent a war that would only hurt everyone involved.

Both sides have highlighted the problems in creating a unified standard for the discs, which use a blue laser to read and record information. Blu-ray's recording layer is located 0.1mm from the surface of the disc, compared with 0.6mm for HD DVD. "With the dialogue focusing on 0.1 and 0.6, there is no way for the two sides to divide things fairly," Kutaragi said.

As for the other side of the fence, Toshiba's president Tadashi Okamura has said a merger could still be possible but won't come until after both formats have hit store shelves. "We may actually have a situation where merchandise from both sides is put on store shelves. But the market would not allow that situation to last very long," he said.