Most of the time, the release date for a new DVD player wouldn’t make it into gaming news. But when that DVD player is Sony’s BDP-S1 and when the revised release date is now late October, scant weeks before the Playstation 3 releases, people in the gaming world start to take notice. The move appears to signal a tactical shift by Sony to position the PS3 as the device that will put Blu-Ray in consumer’s living rooms, with the BDP-S1 at $999.95 possibly filling the video-phile niche market.

If consumers see a compelling reason to go with Blu-Ray, then the PS3 could put Sony in a very nice position in the upcoming format wars. But if consumers aren’t ready to shell out extra cash for hi-def movies, either Blu-Ray or HD DVD, then the PS3 might just be an expensive next-gen console with the equivalent of a built-in BetaMax drive.