According to some reports, the European Commision believes that the companies backing the Blu-ray and HD DVD formats may have some licensing terms that breach European competition rules. An unnoficial antitrust probe was already launched this month.

Toshiba, the leading company behind HD DVD and Sony the leading company behind Blu-ray both received letters from the European Commission earlier this month. According to a European Commission representative: "we sent a letter earlier this month to the makers of HD DVD and Blu-ray to request information about licensing." Toshiba did not respond to inquiries but Sony confirmed that it did receive a letter from the European Commission.

Sony will be shipping its first Blu-ray player will be shipping only slightly ahead of its PlayStation 3 console - currently scheduled for November 17th. On the HD DVD side, Toshiba announced earlier that it would be shipping its HD DVD players at a loss to gain a head start.

This news article was written on July 30, 2006, quoting Yahoo News.