Although Blu-ray is expected to receive a strong sales boost due to a cheaper Sony PlayStation 3 and the PS3 Slim launch, research group iSuppli says Blu-ray is still far from popular in PCs and notebooks.
iSuppli numbers indicate just 3.6% of PCs and notebooks sold in 2009 included Blu-ray — and the sales numbers are expected to be slow in the future.
By 2013, Blu-ray drives are expected to be included within 16.3% of all PCs, and it’s not clear if that number will increase any further, as Internet-based storage and external hard drive alternatives could hurt Blu-ray adoption.
“They eventually will find success, but during the next five years, that success will be limited in the PC segment,” BetaNews was told by iSuppli Senior Analyst Michael Yang. “The cost issue is amplified by the fact that the library of content is so small that there really isn’t a reason for users to switch at the moment, and while this is changing, and studios are rolling out more Blu-ray content every week, there remains a long way to go.”
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On the computing platform, floppy disks were replaced by CDs and CDs are being phased out by DVDs, due to increased storage capacity. Even though Blu-ray offers even more storage capacity, there is no rush by manufacturers or consumers to replace DVD drives with Blu-ray drives.
I’ve seen a growing number of consumers purchase standalone Blu-ray players for the living room, but haven’t seen many people interested in drives for their PCs. CDFreaks sometimes covers PCs and laptops that ship with pre-installed Blu-ray drives, but there aren’t very many of them being introduced due to the premium cost.
