Sony Invades China with Blu-ray

Starting this Friday, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment will make available 30 current and classic Blu-ray titles for sale in China, the first Hollywood studios to release films on the high definition format in that country. The title releases are meant to coincide with the release of the Sony BDP-S350 Blu-ray Disc player in China.

While Sony is the first studio to announce such plans, both Warner Brothers and Disney are in talks with local replicators and distributors in order to release their titles in China as well. You may recall that Warner recently pulled out of piracy-happy South Korea (they will now license film distribution to local companies), so it is unknown when they are releasing the titles themselves, or licensing the films to local companies.

This announcement comes at a time when Toshiba is still trying to push their CH-DVD format in China, which is a modified version of the failed HD DVD format. With no Hollywood studios on board, they face an uphill battle with (at least) three studios preparing Blu-ray releases for that country.