Digital Trends

Remember this year's CES when Matsushita scored a minor coup by unveiling a giant plasma set once inch larger than Samsung? Well, they actually plan to sell it.

Today Matsushita proved its a company which isn't afraid to think about the big picture, saying it plans to offer its 103-inch plasma television for sale by early 2007.

Matsushita scored a bit of a PR coup this January at the CES show in Las Vegas, unveiling its 103-inch set just as rival Samsung was crowing about it's enormous 102-inch plasma display. That extra inch let Matsushita claim it had the biggest plasma TV in their world—and guess who went home sore losers?

But where Samsung's display was always a showpiece and never intended for production, Matsushita says it is now taking orders for its 103-inch monster for business uses—such as in-store displays, studio monitors, electronic billboards, and entertainment venues—and plans to offer the panels to consumers who want their 1080p content as big as possible. The company says it thinks it can sell about 5,000 of the displays a year, with about 80 percent of them going to businesses and commercial purposes, and the other 20 percent going to some very, very well-off consumers. Business customers might begin receiving units as soon as this autumn, with consumer availability coming in early 2007.

Matsushita will sell the panels under its Panasonic brand; the units (of course!) offer full 1080p support with a 1920 by 1080 pixel resolution. No word on pricing...but you can bet it's strictly in the "if you have to ask, you can't afford it" category.