Blu-ray disc player by Philips in 2006

Phillips will launch a Blu-ray disc player later this year, it was revealed at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas.

Rudy Provoost, the head of Philips‘ consumer electronics business, said at the CES that Blu-ray offers the best picture quality of all high definition sources. He also said that Blu-ray provides the most storage capacity and that it is consumers the most choices.

The battle between the competing high definition DVD format is heating up. At the CES, Bill Gates revealed that later in 2006, Microsoft will offer an external HD DVD drive for the Xbox 360 console.

In contrast, Sony’s yet to be released Playstation 3 console will ship with a built-in BD (Blu-ray disc) drive when it is released later this year.