Toshiba pulls plug on HD DVD

Following in the wake of rumors this past weekend that Toshiba was ready to throw in the towel in its almost single-handed campaign to promote HD DVD as the high-definition successor to the DVD, the company this morning confirmed it is pulling the plug on its HD DVD business.

As a result, Blu-ray will become the de facto high-definition DVD format, a move that will now end the high-def stalemate that many believe has delayed mainstream consumer acceptance of a DVD successor.

In a statement released early this morning, Toshiba says it expects to be completely out of the standalone HD DVD player business by the end of March 2008, and will stop volume production of PC drives and recorders while it assesses the market for computer-based products, such as notebook PCs with integrated HD DVD drives.

It's not yet clear what options early adopters of the HD DVD format will have. As of this morning, there were no announcements from the two major studios exclusively supporting the HD DVD format, Paramount and Universal, about their plans, but it's unlikely they will continue supporting a dying format for much longer. It's possible that one or more of the Blu-ray player manufacturers could offer HD DVD player owners an exchange program or some other kind of promotional offer to bring them into the Blu-ray camp.

In the statement, Toshiba said that after undertaking a thorough review of its overall strategy for HD DVD, it "decided it will no longer develop, manufacture and market HD DVD players and recorders." The move, the company says, is the result of "recent major changes in the market," most likely the decisions by Warner Bros., to stop issuing movies in the HD DVD format and Wal-Mart to stop carrying HD DVD products.

Toshiba says it will continue to provide "full product support and after-sales service for all owners of Toshiba HD DVD products." The company also reaffirmed its commitment to standard-definition DVD, and said it would continue to "maintain collaborative relations with the companies who joined with Toshiba in working to build up the HD DVD market, including Universal Studios, Paramount Pictures, and DreamWorks Animation...  as well as leaders in the IT industry, including Microsoft, Intel, and HP."

—James K. Willcox

Comments

[Alex]

The odd thing about this, is that Blu-ray seems to have won out because of the sales of the Playstation 3 (PS3). The PS3, while outselling Toshiba's HD-DVD players, is not actually selling well versus the Xbox360 and Wii systems. Among Sony's problems are the fact that new games are being written for those platforms as the standard, which was the PS2 previously. Sony is losing money on each box sold, and is expected to drive the price lower, although the internal technology has not actually dropped in price. With factors like these, it is a possibility that this may be Sony's last games player, so the High-def DVD war may have been won by the loser in the video games console war.

[Michael Martin]

Sony Betamax lost out to VHS in the eighties, even though they had the superior product. Let's see--VHS tapes, Betamax tapes, Laser Discs, CED Discs, DVDs, HD DVDs, Bluray. Are we done for a while?

[Dave]

Well isn't that sweet, about 3 months ago I bought a Toshiba HD DVD player, yea! The sales rep. at Circuit City assured me that HD DVD was the format that would prevail; it's a good thing I kept the box so I can stack it on top of my $600.00 Sony Beta Max.
Dave