First Blu-Ray movies announced

What you'll be watching on PS3.

News by Ellie Gibson Contributor

Updated on 4 Jan 2006

There's still no word on how long we'll have to wait for the PS3 to arrive, but at least we'll have something to watch when it does - Sony has announced that the first batch of Blu-Ray movie titles will be out this spring.

As you can see from the list below, the line-up will include high-octane adventure titles such as xXx, SWAT and Robocop, along with tired old nancy like Sense and Sensibility and Legends of the Fall. Later in the year you can look forward to Black Hawk Down and Bridge on the River Kwai, which will come on 50GB dual-layer discs.

Sony is aiming to release four Blu-Ray titles per month to start off with - a figure that will rise to 10 per month by the start of 2007. And it don't just expect movies, either, since hit TV series will be making the transition too (please Uncle Sony oh please we've nearly worn out our Babylon 5 DVDs).

If you can't wait for the PS3 to turn up, you can always buy a Blu-Ray disc drive separately - loads of 'em are going on show at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week, and they're set to go on sale in Japan shortly.

But if you're not ready to invest in The Future yet, don't panic - Sony will continue to release movies on DVD as well as Blu-Ray, for a good while at least. In fact, blockbusters such as Underworld Evolution, which is out later this year, will get a simultaneous release on both formats.

Like DVDs, Blu-Ray discs will be region-encoded - but there's a twist. There will only be three regions this time round: Region 1 (the Americas and East Asia, excluding China but including Japan), Region 2 (Europe and Africa) and Region 3 (Russia, China and Others). Which means Japanese and American PS3 owners will be able to import movies from each others' countries with wild abandon, while we're a bit stuck.

Anyway, here's the list of Blu-Ray movies announced so far: