The president of Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. Ltd. has said that there can be no hope for a unified next generation DVD standard unless it is Blu-ray disc. Speaking yesterday, Kunio Nakamura's comments come at a time where talks to establish a common ground between the rival formats have stalled.
Matsushita president Kunio Nakamura told reporters in Tokyo that while the talks continue, Matsushita and Sony will not budge from their positions supporting Blu-ray.
"The talks continue, they have not collapsed. But Matsushita and Sony have not changed their stance. We are waiting for Toshiba's decision."
Recently, Sony announced that combo drives supporting Blu-ray disk as well as the traditional CD and DVD formats would be available for release next year. Toshiba, meanwhile continue to promote their HD-DVD standard, claiming to be able to deliver a 45GB HD-DVD Disc.
"There is no time. If we can't reach a compromise then (unification) itself will become more and more difficult," Nakamura said.
Nakamura denied media reports that he would meet with the heads of Sony and Toshiba in the near future to try to break the deadlock. A source close to the matter told Reuters the high-level meeting would take place as early as this week.
"I have not and will not meet (with them)," he said.