Sony to launch blu-ray recorder in Japan in Dec

Sony plans to manufacture a total of 10,000 units of the cutting-edge recorders per month in the initial stage.

In comparison, Matsushita will start selling two Blu-ray DVD recorders in Japan on November 15.

Osaka-based Matsushita has said a recorder able to store 200 gigabytes of data on its hard disk drive would sell for about 240,000 yen and a 500-gigabyte model which can store about 63 hours of terrestrial digital broadcasting for 300,000 yen.

In the United States and Europe, Sony intends to focus on Blu-ray players for the time being, and has no concrete plans to launch Blu-ray recorders, Nishitani said.

It plans to offer its Blu-ray player in the United States this autumn.

SOFTWARE LIBRARY

Nishitani expects 500 or more Blu-ray disc software titles to become available in a year, boosting the appeal of Blu-ray recorders and players to movie watchers.

Movie and music providers in the Blu-ray group said in August they would offer an initial batch of 75 software titles in Japan, including "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl" from Walt Disney and Sony's "The Da Vinci Code."

They said many of the 75 titles will hit stores by the year-end.

In the competing HD DVD camp, Toshiba started rolling out its HD DVD players in Japan in March, becoming the first company to offer next-generation optical disc players.