BDA: 10 Million Blu-ray Players In 2008

The Blu-ray camp says that by this time next year, the format's installed base could be nearly three times its current size.

That was the headline out of last night's Blu-ray Disc Association press conference at CES.

Still riding high on Warner's announcement last Friday that it would exclusively back Blu-ray, format backers told a packed room of tech reporters that roughly 3.5 million Blu-ray players have now been sold through to consumers, including three million PlayStation 3 consoles and 500,000 standalone Blu-ray players.

The group says things are looking even more rosy for 2008, with research showing that by year's end the format's installed base will have swelled to ten million, with software sales topping the one billion dollar mark.

"It should be a year of very strong, explosive growth," said Danny Kaye, executive vice president of research for 20th Century Fox, who stated that the Blu-ray Disc business should start to see dramatic gains sometime in the middle of this year.

Though format backers stopped short of declaring immediate victory over rival format HD DVD, they said their marketing message would now shift away from the format war and instead focus on convincing mainstream consumers to make the leap to high-def disc.

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