Sony Corp has recently announced that it is set to make available a cheaper Blu-ray player early this summer. The BDP-S300 is set to cost around US$ 599, and will have the same capabilities as the more expensive US$ 999 BDP-S1.

Senior VP of the home products division of Sony Electronics, Randy Waynick has said to reporters: "Eighty percent of people who buy a PS3 also buy Blu-ray movies to go with it. ...The consumers have determined that that's the format they're choosing to go with." He goes on to cite retail data from the Nielsen VideoScan that showed Blu-ray discs outselling HD DVDs by three to one.

Stan Glasgow, president of Sony Electronics, told reporters that by Christmas, prices for Blu-ray players should be down below $500. He further predicts that Blu-ray players will soon follow the steps of DVD players in becoming a commodity product. He says: "Over time, I think it will be just like DVD ."

Amusing that Sony has previously complained that DVD players became a commodity product too soon, and that turning a profit in a market dominated by US$ 50 units was hard.

Finally, some figures for online smartypants to work with while they attempt to prognosticate which HD format will win over the other. High-Def Digest reports that the Nielsen VideoScan - the entertainment industry's leading source of competitive sales info - has made its first public release of sales numbers for Blu-ray and HD-DVD discs.

While the numbers might not be as crisp as some pundits would like, the figures do suggest some trending. There aren't any hard sales figures, just an index of how each format is fairing against the other.

So how does the battlefield look? To be blunt, things look good for Blu-ray. Between January 7 and 14, Blu-ray managed to close the gap of total discs sold since inception, with HD-DVD by over seven percentage points. High-Def Digest thinks that the data suggests that if the current trend continues, the two formats could be at disc sales parity within weeks.

The charts first appeared in Home Media Magazine. Here's High-Def Digest's reproduction of the charts:

 
 

Does this mean eventual Blu-ray dominance? Well, it is still too early to say anything definitive, and the HD DVD camp isn't exactly rolling over and giving up. The good news for Blu-ray here is that its catching up, and studios are feeling confident about the format. High-Def Digest has reported that Fox has even gone as far as to say that a growing sales gap that would see Blu-ray outselling HD DVD by a 3.5-to-1 ratio by the end of March this year.