BD-ROM drives should be available next year, as the Blu-ray Disc Founders have approved Version 1.0 of the BD-ROM physical-format specification (http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,1634791,00.asp) as from yesterday.

The read-only players will ship in 2005 and will be on their way to a PC near you. Sony have also confirmed that the next generation playstation will also use the drives.

Blu-Ray supporters include Dell Inc.; Hewlett Packard Company; Hitachi, Ltd.; LG Electronics Inc.; Mitsubishi Electric Corporation; Panasonic (Matsushita Electric); Pioneer Corporation; Royal Philips Electronics; Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.; Sharp Corporation; Sony Corporation; TDK Corporation; and Thomson. The format offers much greater storage capacities than DVD does.