Pioneer to enter consumer Blu-ray disc recorder market

Pioneer Corp. plans to launch a Blu-ray disc recorder stand-alone console in Japan by early next year, making the company the seventh Japanese vendor to step into this market.

Under co-development by Pioneer and its partner Sharp, Pioneer's high-end, high-definition disc recorder console for consumers is slated for release in Japan before the 2008 holiday season, according to Japan's Nikkei news service. Meanwhile, a report in the Associated Press gives a later target date of March 2009 for Japanese shipment of Pioneer's first standalone Blu-ray disc recorder for consumers.

In 2006, Pioneer was one of the first vendors to produce a Blu-ray recorder drive for PCs.

As previously reported in BetaNews, last year, Pioneer announced an agreement with Sharp which calls for Pioneer to stop producing plasma displays and purchase them instead from Sharp.

Pioneer and Sharp have also teamed up together on Blu-ray players. Sharp will outsource the production of Pioneer's Blu-ray disc recorder.

Leaders in the Japanese Blu-ray disc recorder market so far include Sony Corp., Sharp, and Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., which announced its Panasonic-branded DMR-BW500 standalone Blu-ray disc recorder last month. Currently shipping only in Japan, the Panasonic model is expected to become the first Blu-ray disc recorder to be available in the United States, anticipated by the end of this summer. Last month, Victor Co. of Japan (JVC) also announced intentions to step into the market within a year.