During Computex 2008 in Taiwan, a SonyNEC Optiarc Exec has told Toms Hardware that the company expects that combo drives (DVD burners with Blu-ray reading capability) will be priced at about $100 or less. A slim-line combo drive for notebooks is expected to cost about $50 more and for $150-$200 you will have a drive that also burns Blu-ray discs.
Still, also SonyNEC Optiarc doesn't believe the real Blu-ray breaktrough will be this year. The article mentions that a reason could be the the slow transition to HD television and video in Europe, which requires the high-capacity Blu-ray media. Asia and North America are both years ahead when it comes to watching HD or even FullHD video content.
However, also in these countries Blu-ray isn't as popular as the multi-billion companies would want it, but given the fact that High Definition is build in almost every TV set you currently buy, the expanded offering of HD content and the drop of prices the breakthrough of Blu-ray is likely a matter of time...
