Format War ’06: Samsung to go both ways?

Not satisfied with being the only Blu-Ray player to market on time, electronics giant Samsung has let drop that they’re still considering selling a unit that will play both Blu-Ray and warring standard HD DVD.

Sister site Digital World Tokyo has the full story:

Samsung is already working on a drive that handles both Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD, said Kim Du-Hyon, an assistant manager in Samsung’s home-platform product planning division, in a briefing with reporters at the company’s headquarters in Suwon, South Korea.

“We don’t have a plan to make an HD DVD-only player but are considering a universal player,” he said. “We are preparing HD DVD [support] now and if we launch a universal player it will be the end of this year or early next year.”

Kim underlined Samsung’s belief that Blu-ray Disc will beat HD DVD in the commercial marketplace but said Samsung will consider a universal player should HD DVD prove as successful as Blu-ray Disc.

But will the big Sam be the first to market? Rival company LG has also announced its plans to make a universal drive.

The only question is whether universal drives will be allow the two next-generational optical formats (NGOFs, if you will) to co-exist peacefully, or only hasten one of them to an early grave.