Sony, in an effort to bolster its Blu-ray format and make its players more competitive with the HD DVD competition, announced that they will be introducing a US$599 player by mid year according to Digital Trends on Monday.

"...the company plans to ratchet up competition with the rival HD DVD format by bringing down the price on Blu-ray players: by mid-year, the Sony BDP-S300 Blu-ray player should start reaching retailers at a suggested price of $599," according to senior VP of Sony Electronics' home products division Randy Waynick.

Mr. Waynick recently noted that Blu-ray titles are outselling HD DVD titles by three to one so far in 2007. However, HD DVD players got out of the gate early with lower hardware pricing. Sony has sold more than 1.8 million Blu-ray equipped PlayStation 3s, and while those PS3s may have been sold at a loss, the sheer volume may have helped Sony bring the pricing down for stand-alone movie players.

The new BPD-S300 will be smaller than the current BDP-S1, said Mr. Waynick, and will be about the same size as a typical DVD player.

Last month, Sony preemptively declared victory in the format war. Then, Funai announced a cheaper OEM Blu-ray player. This announcement, the story concluded, "is another move in Sony's campaign to declare victory for Blu-ray in the high-definition DVD format war: although we think it's too early to write off HD DVD just yet."