Standalone Blu-ray players have eventually began catching up to the Sony PlayStation 3 for Blu-ray playback, but Sony’s game console is still the only Blu-ray player with built-in Wi-Fi.

Fortunately, that seems to be changing in 2009, with both Samsung and LG announcing wireless Blu-ray players at CES 2009. And Monday Sony announced its own wireless Blu-ray player, the Sony BDP-S560. The BDP-S560 consists of 802.11N Wi-Fi, which means you will be able to access BD-Live features without pulling an Ethernet cord into your living room.

The wireless connection can also be used for firmware updates and accessing photos on other DLNA-enabled devices. The press release doesn’t state whether music or movies can be streamed, but we assume it’s limited to just photo streaming, like the company’s DLNA televisions from last year. Photos can also be accessed via a front-panel USB port.

The Sony BDP-S560 will include onboard decoding for Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio, but the press release doesn’t mention whether it will have 7.1 analog outputs like its predecessor, the BDP-S550. 

Sony also present the step-down Sony BDP-S360, which lacks Wi-Fi and the front-panel USB port. Not many details were released on the Sont BDP-S360, except that it will include onboard decoding for Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio and feature a $300 price tag 

However if you are looking for a high-end series, Sony’s recently announced Blu-ray player, the Sony BDP-S5000ES, is headed in exactly the opposite direction, aiming for the high end with a $2,000 list price and a bundle of enthusiast extras.