EA, Vivendi Lend Support to Blu-Ray

Two of the largest entertainment and gaming firms, Electronic Arts and Vivendi Universal, have publically favored a particular competitor in the upcoming format wars to determine a successor to DVDs, according to press releases issued at this week's CES show in Las Vegas. Both EA and Vivendi have joined the Blu-Ray Disc Association, the consortium pitted against the existing DVD Forum when it comes to supporting rival formats. There are large companies on both sides of the divide; the DVD Forum, currently pushing the HD-DVD standard, enjoys the support of everyone currently involved in the DVD standard, but the BDA counts among its members Sony, who plans to use Blu-Ray in its PlayStation 3 console. However, though Blu-Ray will be used in console games, it's important to note that the support by EA and Vivendi only applies to their PC titles at the moment -- they won't refuse to make Xbox 2 games should Microsoft's new console support a different format. Nonetheless, given the slow pace at which game companies have adopted the regular DVD format over CD releases of their games, even this announcement may be largely meaningless until well after a dominant next-generation format has been established -- by which point both companies may or may not have switched sides.