Sony announced that BD-compatible players will start hitting shelves this Spring, though there was surprisingly little mention of PlayStation 3 as being part of that first push. Previously, Sony had been positioning PS3 as the main initial spearhead of the Blu-ray effort, aiming to get Blu-ray into the homes of people who already planned to buy a PS3. With Sony's announcement this week that the company will not be showing PS3 at CES or making significant announcements about the machine, as well as recent scattered rumors that PS3 might be taking longer for Sony to hammer down than the company planned for, it may be looking like the oft-repeated Spring 2006 launch date isn't such a sure thing anymore.

In terms of Blu-ray itself, Sony Pictures of course had the biggest lineup of movies, with 20 movies for the Spring lineup including titles such as Resident Evil: Apocalypse, Robocop, Sense and Sensibility, XXX, Desperado, Bram Stoker's Dracula, and Kung Fu Hustle. Interesting, Sony also plans to add Java-based games to certain discs by summer. Lionsgate and Fox also announced exclusivity to the Blu-ray format. Paramount and Warner Bros. plan to support both Blu-ray and HD-DVD. Universal supports HD-DVD exclusively.

Toshiba, the primary player in the HD-DVD standard, announced that its first HD-DVD players, which are backwards compatible with DVD, will go on sale in March at two price levels: $499 and $799. Sony has not yet announced definite prices for its standalone players, but they are likely to be in the $1,000 range. Sony noted that prices for actual BD-ROM movies will be higher than standard DVDs, but not significantly so.