Samsung player got delayed until June 25th.

Amazon has the Sony player shipping on June 25th.

Pioneer has said that their player will be out in June. Possibly the 25th?

It has be fairly quite, could something big be in plan?

Not really a sneak attack if three big players are being released on the same day, is it?

a real sneak attack would be if they hit stores in the next week or 2 even though the release dates are stated as June.

and the surprise release of some big A-Title films

Yes. Considering it's been pushed back how many times now, having a couple of players ship on the same day hardly seems a "sneak attack".

Pioneer player is set for July. It seems one player per month. One in June, one in July, and one in August.

According to Blu-Ray.com, the Sony player is still shipping in August. And at least on my account, Amazon still has no shipping date for this player.

Yep, according to the same source, the Pioneer will be released on the 25th.

Hmmm. My spider sense tells me they're finally launching on June 25th?

This was slated to be a single player launch, with just the Samsung showing up with the Sony following in August. Now, there will potentially be 3 players on the market (meaning more choices and quantity out there for consumers). Also, Sony will be issuing their second wave of titles, Lionsgate their first, and Fox may finally announce some titles with this more "solid" date.

This could be big...

So, instead of being able to only buy 1 $1,000 player, you may have the option of choosing between 2 $1,000 players and an $1800 player, correct?

Where did you see the info about Sony's player being pushed up? This is one I am looking forward to (along with the Panasonic, but that doesn't ship until at least September), but I haven't seen any new info on the date. Amazon doesn't show ANY date in my account, and as mbs pointed out, blu-ray.com still shows it as August.

At least for my acct, if you choose to pre-order the Sony BD player, it shows an estimated ship date of June 25th, which is also the same date they show getting the Toshiba HD.

IF I did decide to adopt BD early, I too would choose the Sony.

What Mr. Cinema said. Also, someone at AVS got confirmation from their local dealer. They only had the month: June.

Doesn't seem real sneaking, but I am looking forward to it. I want to get lots of players on the market and let them duke it out so we can look at the actual sales volumes for each camp, and hopefully get this stupid format war over.

It's great to have the choice on who gets to rip you off.
Overpriced player #1, overpriced player #2 or way overpriced player #3... which do I choose?

If any of you receive a player in June I'll be amazed.

What added features will the Pioneer model have to justify the extra $800. I am guessing higher audio capabilities. Pioneer is a rich mans Blu-Ray player while the Playstation 3 is a poor mans Blu-Ray player.

Well, I am sure it will have some beneficial features.

But, it basically is to just rape early adaptors. At least that's my genuine belief. All the first players are. They are high to begin with to help benefit the loss on PS3 according to another thread.

I wouldn't even call the PS3 a poor man's version. 80% of the world can't even afford that.

you know what would be really sneaky is if Sony included a copy of Spiderman (Blu-Ray of course) inside with the Sony Blu-ray player... kind of like a Cracker Jack's surprise....

Wouldn't be surprised at all. People would get it in the box try it out be amazed by the quality (if they own an HDTV) and become hooked to Blu-Ray. In fact I would be surprised if they didn't include some kind of Blu-Ray disc in the Playstation 3 package.

Didn't they include Spiderman with the initial PSP systems?

[Mark the Bagger]Yes![/Mark the Bagger]

Talk about obscure! There are probably only 3 people here on the forum who know who Mark is.

There are some benefits. Most videofiles are familiar with the Pioneer Elite DV-79AVi. This $1000 DVD player is widely regarded as one of the top DVD player on the market (along with the $1500 Denon). I imagine, that the Pioneer Elite BDP-H1 will contain many of the same components, meaning not only outstanding Blu-Ray playback, but the best DVD playback available.

Now, there is a huge profit margin for these things. These companies have spend millions of dollars developing these products, and they need to make that money back to be sucessful.

Toshiba is banking on moving large quantities with rapid adoption of the new format to get their return on investment. That may be a bit unrealistic (at least I think so). Blu-Ray companies are banking on a slower adoption (hense the larger profit margin on each player sold). The PS3 will be the rapid adoption solution for Blu-Ray, but that won't even be used as a Blu-Ray player by all.

Its an interesting business plan, I just don't see it working out for Toshiba.

damn... I wonder when Blu ray tech will go down....