Fujitsu Ltd said on Tuesday it would launch desktop personal computers equipped with Blu-ray disc drives in June in Japan, becoming the first company to release PCs compatible with the next-generation optical discs.

The announcement comes one day after Toshiba unveiled its plans to launch in mid-May notebook computers that can handle HD DVD discs.

The new desktop PC from Fujitsu comes with a 37-inch 1,920 x 1,080 LCD screen and is expected to sell for around 600,000 yen ($5,063).

This PC-TV incorporates four TV tuners - two for digital and two for analogue broadcasts - and also twin 300GB hard drives and a dual-layer enabled Blu-ray Disc recorder. The drive will support DVD and CD media and will be able to write to single- and dual-layer BD-R and BD-RE discs.

The top-end model of the Fujitsu FMV Deskpower TX series includes a 2.8GHz Intel Pentium D 820 dual-core processor, 1GB of memory, a 256MB ATI Radeon X1600 graphics chip and ATI's Radeon Xpress 200 chipset.

Each model ships with Windows XP Home Edition and what appears to be Fujitsu's own media centre application and PVR software.

Fujitsu also plans to launch notebook PCs with HD DVD drives in June, catering for both camps.

Fujitsu's NX series of notebooks. The high-ranked model will be equipped with a 17" LCD display (1,440?900), a ground digital TV tuner. The device will be powered by an Intel Core Duo T2300 (1.66GHz) processor, an Intel 945PM Express chipset and will use a 320GB HDD and of course, an HD DVD-ROM drive. Graphics are handled by an ATI Mobility Radeon X1400 GPU.

The notebook PC is likely to retail at about 400,000 yen -- in line with the expected retail price for Toshiba's HD-DVD compatible notebook PCs.

In related news, the upcoming Acer's Aspire 9800 notebook will also boast HD-DVD support. The new Core Duo based notebook will come with an optional HD-DVD drive, and will be priced at approximately $2,600.