Toshiba Halts Production of HD DVD Hardware
Rumors began circulating last week that Toshiba, one of the largest backers of the HD DVD format, would discontinue support after retail giant Wal-Mart announced its decision to only sell Blu-ray discs in its stores.
"We carefully assessed the long-term impact of continuing the so-called 'next-generation format war'," said Toshiba CEO Atsutoshi Nishida. "[We] concluded that a swift decision will best help the market develop."
Sony's PlayStation 3 is currently the only gaming console equipped to play Blu-ray movies out of the box. Microsoft recently cut the price of its Xbox 360 HD DVD player, but would not comment directly on rumors that it would release a Blu-ray player add-on as early as May.
"It is premature to speculate about Blu-ray," a Microsoft representative told Shacknews. "But we do know from market data that HD movie playback is not a primary purchase driver for consumers buying video game consoles."
-
snackula
replythis whole thing was ridiculous to begin with. there never should have been a format war in the first place. how many millions of dollars did toshiba lose by dragging this out?
-
-
You would prefer it if all the companies in the Blu-ray alliance scrapped all their hard work in the lab since 2000 developing technologies for the future and not just a bandaid solution for today as Toshiba made? Try to think a little ahead. We need as much storage we can get - in the future the need will be greater, of this there can be no dispute.
-
-
-
It was ridiculous but nobody knew who would win it so they both stuck to their guns. If things played out differently we'd be asking why Sony & friends wasted millions instead of Toshiba.
At least it's over now, which is good. Let's hope the industry learned a lesson and won't do this with the next format.
-
Seriously though, how many people really got to use both formats to really tell which was the better. In my personal option, the better movie format lost. Maybe Toshiba thought that space alone would not decide the better format. The thing is, I've invested some money in both formats, I'm not just some fanboy talking shit out his ass who just took a quick glance at some random store. Too bad really.
-
