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Sony NEC Optiarc to be all Sony

by on12 September 2008

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Will buy 45 percent share from NEC

Not that Sony is not making enough money from Blu-ray licensing already, they have elected to buy the 45 percent of Sony NEC Optiarc joint venture that they don’t own.

Sony cites the increasing demand for Blu-ray as the main reason that they have moved to buy out NEC in the joint venture. Hitachi-LG Data Storage and Toshiba Samsung Storage Technology are the main competitors to Sony NEC Optiarc in this market space.

Sony seems to continue to fill every niche possible in an effort to maximize their profit potential on Blu-ray, since defeating HD DVD in the format war earlier this year. Still, Sony has not been able to match some of the out-of-the-box performance and functionality that HD DVD was able to offer, and continued expensive parts and replication of Blu-ray discs continue to make prices high and the adoption rate lower than expected.

Sony is expecting a big holiday season for the sale of consumer Blu-ray players, but continued problems with getting the players to a $299 price point or lower seems to be one of the major stumbling blocks in Blu-ray sales. Continued announcements of low-cost Blu-ray players continue, but so far they have yet to ship. Confusion over the profile functionality of the players has also led to a lot of unhappiness with early adopters of standalone units feeling cheated because their players can’t support the latest Blu-ray specs.
Last modified on 13 September 2008
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