We knew this was coming, but the company leading the charge of Blu-ray in the high-definition disc war no one cares about has finally come out with its own player. Sony, that renowned screwer-upper of formats, just started shipping its BDP-S1 player on Friday, trailing both Panasonic and Samsung, and way behind the HD DVD camp. Playing all your Blu-ray Disc (BD) flavors — including store-bought, write-once, and rewritable media — the shiny player has an HDMI output for feeding ultra-sharp HD images to your HDTV in 1080p format, the Dom Pérignon of high-def signals. And, yes, it'll play your no-longer-cool DVDs, too.

The kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours… as long as you're willing to drop a thousand bucks. Too much for you? You may want to turn your lonely eyes to the PlayStation 3, which happens to be a Blu-ray player, too. Unfortunately, your chances of finding one selling at the $600 retail price before Christmas (or $500 for the lower-powered, but still Blu-ray-enabled, version) are slim to none. But there are only about 125 actual titles available in the format, according to the Blu-ray Disc Association, so what's your hurry anyway? — Peter Pachal

Via Sony press release