Sony"s first Blu-ray player is now expected to launch mid-August, two months later than originally suggested. According to the Sony Style website, the BDP-S1 will now ship "on or about August 15, 2006." Priced at 1000 USD, the player was originally given a June 30th launch date.
Pioneer has also delayed the date for their player, the catchy titled BDP-HD1. It was expected to launch this month, but will now be released in September, at 1500 USD, 300 USD less than originally announced. The company cited "interoperability issues" as the reason for the delay.
"We decided to hold off for bit just to make sure everything works well relative to all the various studios that are planning to ship BD titles," commented Pioneer"s Andy Parsons. "Launching a new format is fairly big effort, and you have such a broad spectrum of capabilities with the media itself, including BD-Java, content protection layers and various authoring tools that are being brought up to speed."