$299 Blu-ray drive to arrive in June

PIONEER DECIDED TO attack the mainstream market with the introduction of the of BDC-2202, an internal Blu-ray.

This drive will come to market in early June, and will sport a price of $299.

Physical characteristics of the drive speak of BDC-2202 being an BD/DVD combo drive, with the ability to read BD media at two different speeds (2x and 5x), depending on the type - and write on regular DVD and CD media.

The drive comes bundled with software that enables viewing the Blu-ray content and creation of personal DVD movies and slideshows, so owners of this drive will be able to watch DRM-empowered content, and of course, nor be able to write anything in HD quality.

The $299 price is neat, unless you need only a read-HD media function. But, at $199 Toshiba's HD-DVD drive is a steal, especially given the fact that you can use it on PC.

And with some appropriate drivers, you can even read files.

It seems that the early adopter phase is slowly coming to a close, and more mainstream-pricing products are set to arrive. Only problem we could find here is that both Blu-ray and HD-DVD failed to capture interest from people.

If you're now scratching your head in wonder, answer is pretty simple: James Bond: Casino Royale was touted as best selling BD movie, conveniently "forgetting" the fact that tens of thousands of PS3 buyers received a coupon for free BD featuring the very same "best-selling" movie. µ