The Company has also held discussions with several OEM manufacturers of media centres with nearly all of them telling the software Company that they are set to move to Blu-ray configured Media Centres within the next month.
Late last week US Media Centre maker Niveus dumped HD DVD in favour of Blu-ray.
The Company VP of marketing Brian Paper said that Niveus had received support from Microsoft and Intel when implementing HD DVD. The format wasn't pushed on Niveus, he said, adding that the commitment in both Intel and Microsoft "isn't religious for HD DVD".
Michael Ephraim the Managing Director of Sony Computer Entertainment said: "We would welcome Microsoft to the Blu-ray stable. In fact it is quite logical for them as the PS3 has been very succesful in driving consumers to Blu-ray. In fact we believe that it has done more to win the format war than traditional Blu-ray player".
When asked whether Sony would grant Microsoft a Blu-ray licence he said: "That is up to Sony Corporate but I see no reason why they would not do it".
During CES 2006 the then Microsoft's Xbox corporate VP of worldwide marketing and publishing Peter Moore told Japanese site ITmedia that a Blu-ray Xbox 360 peripheral could appear for the system if the need arises. Moore admitted that Microsoft isn't sure of the next-generation format war's outcome, with the worst-case scenario being a repeat of the Beta vs. VHS war of the '80s.
However, he suggested that whatever the outcome of the HD-DVD/Blu-ray war, the Xbox 360 can adopt the dominant format since its uses an external drive.
