O Blu-Ray, Blu-ray! Wherefore art thou, Blu-Ray?

Today must be delay day. Not only has it seen the rejection of the 802.11n draft standard, but now the second superpower in the brewing next-generation optical format war, Sony’s Blu-Ray (seen here looking all shiny and blue), has been pushed back until late June.

Does this mean an advantage for Blu-Ray competitor HD-DVD, who launched a few weeks ago, with a grand total of 4 titles and a single player (which was almost as hard to find as a Xbox 360)? It’s still early in this generation’s equivalent of Betamax vs. VHS. The Toshiba HD-DVD player is going for $500, which looks cheap compared to the ~$1000 Samsung Blu-Ray player we’ll be seeing.

Since Samsung had delayed the release date of their player, Sony opted to wait on shoving their Blu-Ray movies to sit, lonely, on the shelves of the major retailers. You can expect to see them drop on June 20th; Samsung’s Blu-Ray player will show up five days later.

[via Ars Technica ]