According to court papers filed late last week, the electronics manufacturing giant Samsung has had a class action lawsuit filed against it by early adopters of the BDP-1200 Blu-ray player which has had compatibility issues with a few Blu-ray discs.
The man behind the suit, a Connecticut man by the name of Bob McGovern, said he filed the suit “on behalf of thousands, and perhaps tens of thousands” of BDP-1200 buyers who only later found out that the player was “incompatible with numerous Blu-ray disc titles.”
Although the suit does not mention which titles the player is incompatible with or what makes them incompatible, McGovern alleges that “Samsung was fully aware” of the problem at the time of manufacturing yet it has still not updated or repaired the player.
The Fantastic Four sequel, one of the problem discs was previously reported but Samsung said that the problems were fixed by a firmware update. This is clearly not the case for McGovern and many other early adopters.
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Apple CEO Steve Jobs has confirmed that the company will not be bringing Blu-ray drives to its Mac laptops any time soon, or at least until “things settle down.”
“Blu-ray is just a bag of hurt,” stated Jobs. “It’s great to watch the movies, but the licensing of the tech is so complex, we’re waiting till things settle down and Blu-ray takes off in the marketplace.”
Because the licenses are so complex, and the drives would push up the price of their laptops, Jobs does not want to add the drives to his companies notebooks any time soon. If demand grows however, the company will consider adding them later to new models.
As an alternative, Apple has been pushing its own HD downloads, sold through their iTunes platform.
In an effort to promote Blu-ray, Sony last month took out an ad in Wired magazine which included a free Blu-ray disc of Coma, a new crime series.
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Now that GTA IV has launched, undoubtedly the most anticipated new game for the PlayStation 3 is Metal Gear Solid 4 . As a way to tie in the hype to sales, Sony had previously announced that they would be bringing a limited edition Gunmetal PlayStation 3 bundle that will include the game as well as the new colorway.
As the games June release date approaches both Sony and Konami have released some specifications about the limited edition bundle and its standard 80GB model bundle.
The gunmetal grey 40GB model will feature the exclusive colorway, and will come with “a soundtrack and a Blu-ray disc with a behind-the-scenes documentary.”
The standard black-finish 80GB model will only include a free download of the Pain minigame from the online store as an added feature. Of course the 80GB model has backwards compatibility for PS2 titles, which is not available on the 40GB model.
The limited edition bundle will retail for $600 USD while the standard edition bundle will be available for $500 USD.
