Offically Official deal done: Pioneer/Sharp Blu-Ray venture

We actually reported on this happening soon a few months ago, but now we’re receiving word that this joint venture has completed setup, and is official. Officially.

Pioneer and Sharp have finalized their long-talked about deal to combine both of their Blu-ray operations together, completing the joint agreement planned since Pioneer started slowly exiting out of the Plasma business.

The PDF here has all the details and geeky info, but the important points are as follows: Pioneer will hold 66% ownership and 3 of 5 seats on the big wig board of the 450-employee venture, which is planned to start up October 1st. Its goal will be to develop new disc technologies and players, mostly Blu-Ray.

All of this means lower priced players and better technology for HDTVs in the long term, two things we’re quite fond of at Screen Sleuth.