Universal’s Ken Graffeo: We have no plans to support Blu-ray

Universal’s Ken Graffeo has revealed that Universal has no plans to support the Blu-ray format and will be sticking to HD-DVD, stating that they want to be able to “market all the great things HD DVD can offer consumers.”

Graffeo also threw in his own two cents about the price cuts for the Sony PlayStation 3 home video console. Said Graffeo, the console “simply hasnÂ’t been the gamer changer Sony had hoped it would be.”

Ken Graffeo, the executive vice president of Universal’s DVD Strategic Marketing has revealed in an interview with Pocket-lint.co.uk that Universal has no plans of supporting Blu-ray. Said Graffeo:

We want to be able to market all the great things HD DVD can offer consumers. We couldnÂ’t do this if we split our resources on two formats, hedged our bets and had to avoid over promoting features on one format so we wouldnÂ’t undercut the other format. HD DVD allows us to provide the type of quality and truly next generation experiences we need to get consumers to migrate from DVD.

Graffeo also gave his two cents on how recent price cuts for the Sony PlayStation 3 home video game console can affect the format wars. According to Graffeo, the PS3 is a gaming machine first, and studies have shown that “70% of gamers donÂ’t even know that their console has a DVD playback option.”

Graffeo also noted that the prices of standalone HD-DVD players will be “as low as US$ 199 this holiday shopping season”. He further added that “the PS3 simply hasnÂ’t been the gamer changer Sony had hoped it would be.”

Via Pocket-lint