Blu-ray Disc technology may be slowly and steadily widening its piece of the video-disc pie as virtually all new titles are now routinely issued by the studios both in Blu-ray and standard DVD. But a related move to grow Blu-ray in the computer market appears to be a ripple that will not become the next wave for consumers.
According to industry analyst iSuppli, even as much as four years from now Blu-ray drives will be found in barely more than 16 percent of PCs shipped (albeit compared to 3.6 percent today).
"[Blu-ray] won't be replacing [standard] DVDs as the primary optical drive in PC systems through at least the year 2013," said iSuppli, which predicts that Blu-ray in smaller PC monitors "eventually will find success," but that during the next five years the success will be limited in the computer market.
The biggest hurdle right now for Blu-ray in PCs, says the researcher, is price. Since most desktops and laptops are not inexpensive to begin with, a lot of consumers are unwilling to pay even more for a Blu-ray drive instead of a DVD player, especially given the smaller screens, said iSuppli.
