We weren’t expecting the announcement from Toshiba for another week, but it’s official, HD DVD is now discontinued. In the press release from Toshiba, they stated that after reviewing their strategy for HD DVD, they decided to stop development, manufacturing, and marketing of HD DVD players and recorders. President and CEO of Toshiba was quoted in the announcement saying, “While we are disappointed for the company and more importantly, for the consumer, the real mass market opportunity for high definition content remains untapped and Toshiba is both able and determined to use our talent, technology and intellectual property to make digital convergence a reality.” Next up? Not Blu-ray. For now they’ll be focusing on standard DVD players and recorders and have no intention of backing their former competitor.
Now here’s where things get a little tricky. Toshiba says that their intention is to reduce shipments of the players and recorders to their retail channels and completely end shipment by the end of March 2008. This means that unknowing consumers who don’t keep up with the latest in the tech world could easily end up buying a HD DVD player, especially if stores put the players on clearance in the coming weeks. All of the major retailers are still selling them, of course, and unless Toshiba volunteers to reimburse the retailers for their inventory, they’ll probably do everything they can to sell as many as possible. On the bright side, those consumers would still be able to use the machine as a DVD player, and they’ll probably be able to get their hands on significantly reduced HD DVD movies.
Thanks for the tip CoryC
Source: Gizmodo
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Tags: Gadgets, Blu Ray, HD DVD
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Firstly, there have been rumors that Toshiba is already in negotiations to sign a contract for licensing from Sony to produce Blu-ray players. Just because they’re saying Blu-ray isn’t on their to-do list now could mean they haven’t finalized the deal yet. Also there have been rumors that Toshiba is already producing a Blu-ray player that will be on the market by May 2008. Lastly, it wouldn’t make sense for them not to make Blu-ray players. They know since Blu-ray won, that’s what consumers will be buying. Lastly, Toshiba has been denying constant cancellation rumors as late as Monday so trusting them is kinda hard for me now.
Secondly, why does Toshiba keep saying that HD DVD is the better choice for the consumer? Even before Warner went Blu, Blu-ray has a solid 65-35 lead over HD DVD (worldwide- I think it was like 90-10 in Europe). So if HD DVD is better, wouldn’t consumers choose it? It looks to me like Toshiba is trying to be the parent figure who feeds us, the little kids, broccoli, because they know it’s good for us even if we hate it. The market has spoken. Blu-ray > HD DVD. And one of the reasons Warner went Blu by the way was because Blu-ray already had a commanding lead.
I think I’ll get one just for the heck of it, maybe some day it’ll be a good antique, or rather a memory of the format wars.
Direct Link to Toshiba’s announcement:
http://www.toshiba.co.jp/about.....pr1903.htm
HD DVD was better because they had their standards set before they released their product to the market. Blu-Ray still does not even have their standard set. What probably helped Blu-Ray was that the PS3 could also play Blu-Ray movies. If the Xbox would have been released with an HD DVD drive in it then we would probably be reading this article but it would be Sony ditching Blu-Ray…
If Warner would not have switched then I think that the tide would have started to swing the HD DVD way because they were starting to lower the prices of the players well below the $200 mark and would have started selling alot more players. I still think Sony had something to do with Warner dropping HD DVD. They realized that if they did not get Warner to drop then with the cheaper HD DVD players hitting the market that it was going to start hurting Blu-Ray sales.
It’s official: Universal is Blu: (this was just issued)
“The path for widespread adoption of the next-generation platform has finally become clear. Universal will continue its aggressive efforts to broaden awareness for hi-def’s unparalleled offerings in interactivity and connectivity, at an increasingly affordable price. The emergence of a single, high-definition format is cause for consumers, as well as the entire entertainment industry, to celebrate. While Universal values the close partnership we have shared with Toshiba, it is time to turn our focus to releasing new and catalog titles on Blu-ray.”
Still waiting for Paramount/Dreamworks to make their announcement.
@dtanderson: I agree that Sony probably paid Warner to go Blu, but that’s the nature of the business. Toshiba and Microsoft paid Paramount/Dreamworks to go HD DVD exclusive a few months ago and that’s just the way it is. And Sony did in fact take a huge gamble on putting Blu-ray in the PS3 and thus making it a Blu trojan horse (if Blu-ray lost the PS3 would be dead as a media player). But why didn’t Microsoft do the same with HD DVD and perhaps the Xbox Elite? That would have evened out the playing field. I guess they didn’t have the cojones to take a risk like Sony did.
We have 7 standards for DVD. Atleast High definituion content will have fewer standards.
I believe one reason Microsoft didn’t dive in head first with HD DVD like Sony did with Blu-ray is that they didn’t have nearly as much invested in it as Sony did. Additionally, the Xbox 360 was released before HD DVD was ever released so that wouldn’t have worked. Certainly they could have put it in the Xbox Elite, but there doesn’t seem to be a good reason to put it in only one version of the system instead of all of them - especially for the sake of game developers.
I think Sony have ultimately just bought the victory, but I guess that’s how these things are resolved in the end, regardless of whether it’s the best format overall.
I was so tempted to buy an Xbox 360 HD-DVD player a few months back too - in terms of saving money I’m pleased I managed to stop myself from buying despite the good offers that were around.
What do you mean? If they put an HD DVD drive in the Elite, then developers would still be able to make their games fit DVDs (which is what the Xbox 360 games are on if I’m not mistaken) because HD DVD drives read DVDs as well. So games could be on DVDs and movies on HD DVDs.
By the way, Paramount official went Blu today: http://www.engadget.com/2008/0.....ray-again/
And this was funny I thought
: http://www.engadget.com/2008/0.....r-fallout/
That’s true, but Microsoft’s main purpose of the Xbox was not to make it play movies. I know several people who bought the Elite version that definitely didn’t want the HD DVD capabilities because it would have added to the price tag.