Many had seen a battle of the disc formats brewing between the conflicting standards to be offered by Sony and Toshiba, and both companies had hoped to prevent such a scuffle by entering talks to settle on a unified disc format for the next generation.?Sadly, it appears both sides are losing faith in the other, with Sony unwilling to push Toshiba's HD-DVD disc format as the standard and Toshiba equally un-impressed with Sony's Blu-ray BD-ROM format.?While the "company line" has its place behind the disagreement, the differing amount of storage between the two standards has also proved to be a legitimate point of discontent:

"Blu-ray discs can hold 50GB of data, while HD-TV discs only store 30GB. But the HD-TV camp argues that this is more than adequate, and that manufacturing costs are lower as the discs can be produced with current-gen machinery - making the format cheaper and therefore more appealing to consumers.

Blu-ray supporters say capacity should take priority over cost of production - adding that although such a large amount of storage might not be essential now, it will be required in the future as high-definition entertainment becomes increasingly popular."

The battle lines appear to be drawn after all between Blu-ray?the format of choice for Sony's PlayStation 3) and HD-DVD, with discs and burners to be releases for both formats in the coming months.?Both sides have their supporters in the entertainment industry, so it will be a strange ride for consumers.

Article Link: EuroGamer

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