R.I.P. HD DVD: Toshiba reportedly ends the war

We have a winner.

Well, that's it. Toshiba appears to be pulling the plug on HD DVD. Toshiba has not commented publicly, but a report on Japan's NHK says Toshiba has made the decision to withdraw from next generation high-definition DVD production.

This news certainly doesn't come as surprise to anyone remotely following HD DVD's format war with rival Blu-ray. HD DVD had suffered a string of defections, with Warner, Netflix, Best Buy, and Wal-Mart all recently pledging their alliance to Blu-ray.

The NHK report says existing HD DVD products will remain on the market for a while, but Toshiba will stop further development of HD DVD. The report also estimates that Toshiba will take a hit to the tune of "hundreds of millions of U.S. dollars" and will close factories in northern Japan.

Elsewhere this weekend, Sony and its Blu-ray buddies are going to make like VHS and party like it's 1989.

Source | Via

UPDATE: Reuters now points to an unnamed company source who says, yep, we're done. An official announcement from Toshiba could come next week.

[clarkru2827]

Tail wagging the dog

As an owner of both Blu-Ray and HD DVD high def disc players and discs, I am amazed at how retailers and the media have just fallen in line behind Blu-Ray, when this is clearly a situation of the tail wagging the dog, in stark contrast to what the consumer is actually saying, aand goes against the best interests of consumers, independent producers, and the industry as a whole. The headlines that you are not seeing are that the consumer is clearly choosing HD DVD over Blu-Ray as a platform, despite the fact that more Blu-Ray discs have been sold to date. According to NPD, http://www.videobusiness.com/index.asp?layout=article&articleid=CA6413168, 8% more HD DVD players were sold than Blu-Ray players over the course of April through December last year. Ah, but that was before Warner Brothers dropped support. Well, let?s look at live data on Amazon to see which players are selling the most: http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/electronics/172514/ref=pd_zg_hrsr_e_1_2. Low and behold, the top 3 HD players are each outselling the top 3 Blu-Ray players. And that is as of today, after everyone has proclaimed that HD DVD is dead. How can this be? The reason is simple, and is the reason HD is clear choice for consumers, producers, and retailers since the beginning: price. HD DVD is based on the existing DVD technology, so manufacturing the drives and discs is cheaper. So, while Blu-Ray was able to gain a majority share of the disc sales by focusing on niche titles that catered to early adopters, HD DVD is catering to your average Joe, who has consistently chosen HD over Blu-Ray at the store, and with the latest drop in HD DVD player and disc prices is continuing to do so. So, why all the noise then from Blu-Ray supporters and headlines decrying that the end is near for HD DVD? Well, the Blu-Ray camp can extrapolate the trends into the future as well as anyone else, and see that once HD DVD reaches main stream adoption it will clearly have an advantage over Blu-Ray, so they are taking their lead in disc sales to claim the game is over despite the fact that consumer has been and continues to choose the HD DVD platform over the Blu-Ray platform when deciding which player to buy. So, it?s great that Blu-Ray early adopters have more money than HD DVD early adopters and have bought more discs as a result, but how is this good for your average consumer, independent producers, or even the market as a whole once high def discs become mainstream. Common sense tells you that if the lower cost alternative for discs and players becomes the standard, then that standard will be adopted more quickly, since people will be able to afford more players and discs. If that is the case, then even if HD DVD drops out of the picture completely, Blu-Ray will not be adopted as rapidly as HD DVD would have due to its price, which is not good for the industry as a whole or consumers. It also isn't good for independent movie producers who also prefer the lowest cost platform, because they are much more sensitive to margin due to their low volumes. So, given that HD DVD is the lower cost platform in terms of costs of discs and players, and given that consumers have been and are continuing to choose HD DVD over Blu-Ray as a platform choice, then why is everyone standing behind Blu-Ray? Those are good questions to ask Wal-Mart, Best Buy, and NetFlix, who surely wouldn't be putting alliances with Blu-Ray ahead of the consumer, would they?

[learnedhand41]

clark, you are wrong

...in so many ways.

[jbart610]

A sad day....

I own both the XBox360 HD-DVD add-on and the Blu-Ray BDP-S300. In my own experience, the usability of HD-DVD is far better than Blu-Ray. Picture quality is pretty much the same, but with discs that actually make use of the BD-Java capabilities it is totally atrocious that it takes 2-4 minutes of staring at a blank screen before the main menu pops up. At least HD-DVDs that make use of iHD have about the same responsiveness as standard DVD. Oh, and it doesn't crash. My S300 crashes on a regular basis with both Bluray and standard DVDs.

[macd9438]

This was inevitable...

...so why prolong it? Clark in the below post was just plain wrong. You can't just conveniently ignore the PS3 for your statistics to look impressive. It was hands down the best selling HD player, which blows a massive whole in your argument. If what you say is true that HD DVD players were outselling Blu players, it could likely be linked to the fact that the PS3 is the most affordable Blu player out right now, regardless of its other functionality. I'm glad this whole thing is over, and for those who wasted your money, you have my apologies. This format war certainly did not benefit the consumers, but if it truly is over then at least we can move in a positive direction from here.

[joemin97]

I don't understand?

What I don't understand is that everyone that has said that HDDVD has faster access time on their GUI compared to BluRay, Now I don't know about the Stand alone Blu Players but the PS3 has great speed for accessing the GUI on all the Blu Rays I own. I wonder sometimes if the people complaining about the time lag has even updated their Players yet because I know that even the Stand Alone Blu Players can be updated if a update is available. If not they should have done their home work and bought a PS3 instead and waited for a stand alone player like I am, You get a Internet Surfing, Photo, Video & Game machine all in one. Not to mention the Media Sharing with you pc.

[BCF1968]

Will the HD-DVD fanboys

please shut up now? It's OVER.

I suspect many will still say that it's not.

[Ntfireballs]

Good God, I'm Glad

So I've had the PS3 for about 3 months, now, and all this news of BluRay becomeing the "Winner" is simply great news. I love my PS3, Blu-Ray is Great, and I'm glad, it's here to stay!

[rattlertech]

PS3 Stil Sucks

What you so happy about they already said don't go buy Blue Ray cause this generation of them is already obsolete so the blue rays in your PS3 still sucks. Microsoft was smart by not building the damn player in the xbox. Unlike sony stupid a#%. They still losing money off the PS3 cause of that mistake.

[johnwarsh]

PS3 can play bluray 2.0 disks

Rattlertech you are wrong. The PS3 can connect to the internet therefore you can update your playstation 3 to play 2.0 discs. The ps3 is immune to the generation problem.

[sonymaster101]

stop complaining about ps3

you xbox fans are just complaining because you have to spend money to get crappy hd playback from ur xboxs.