Pioneer yesterday released its BDC-S02 combo Blu-ray player in Beijing. It will initially be available to the Chines market, and roll out internationally for a recommended price of $299 (about £160) which sounds reasonable to me.
I'll be honest - when I saw the news report the word 'combo' leapt out at me and I wondered for a moment if Pioneer might be launching a hybrid drive. Alas, no, this combo drive will read Blu-ray discs, standard DVDs, and CDs.
Pioneer's Optical Disc Drive Sales general manager Shannon Yu said that from 2006-2008, mainstream users of BD and HD DVD drives will primarily be IT professionals.
This leads me to wonder if these 'IT professionals' will be satisfied with a Blu-ray player in their machines. Surely utilising Blu-ray for data storage will be a growing requirement.
Even so, if you just want the playback ability, Pioneer's latest offering may be the way to go.
(Via DigiTimes)
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