Our take...
Early indications are that BD-Live is proving popular with consumers: the levels of traffic experienced on BD-Live networks following the release of Paramount's Iron Man on BD last month forced server upgrades to manage demand. It is likely that the BD release of blockbusters Warner's The Dark Knight and Universal's Mamma Mia, both expected to contain BD-live functionality, will further prove the popularity of BD-Live. Yet, as was the case with the 1999 DVD release of The Matrix, with the ground-breaking 'white rabbit' DVD interactivity features, BD-Live may also highlight player incompatibility issues when older, lower specification BD-players are unable to access BD-Live functions. In the countdown to the Christmas shopping season Profile 1.0 and Profile 1.1 BD-players are increasingly being promoted on price, many at less than $300 in the US with the first sub-$200 BD-players in the US sighted in October 2008. In order to access the BD-Live functions the minimum requirement is a Profile 2.0 BD-player (mandatory internet connection capability and sufficient persistent memory capacity), or a Sony PlayStation 3 games console.