Over the weekend, the Japanese newspaper, Nihon Keizai Shimbun, reported that Pioneer was going to stop developing DVD recorders. Instead, the company is looking to form a partnership with Matsushita (Panasonic).
Pioneer Corp will stop developing DVD recorders on its own, as stiff price competition is causing the firm to lose money in this segment and is looking to link up with Matsushita Electric Industrial Co to cut costs, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun reported, company sources said Saturday.
Pioneer plans to continue developing next-generation DVD recorders based on the Blu-ray format, promoted by Sony Corp and Matsushita, by purchasing key microchips and software from Matsushita, the business daily said.
As far as I can tell, this only applies to Pioneer's set top DVD recorders and not their PC based drives. As we find out more, we'll let you know. In the mean time, the entire article can be found here.
