After much rumor and speculation, it looks like the Grim Reaper himelf has finally come for HD DVD: In a press conference held in Tokyo, Japan today, electronics giant Toshiba announced they will no longer manufacture HD DVD players and recorders. More from Toshiba CEO and president Atsutoshi Nishida:
We carefully assessed the long-term impact of continuing the so-called 'next-generation format war' and concluded that a swift decision will best help the market develop ... 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.
Toshiba will reduce shipments of the HD DVD products immediately to retailers, with an aim to stop altogether as of March 2008. Volume production of HD DVD disk drives for PCs will also slow, although Toshiba has specified they will continue to try to meet customer requirements.
Well, I'm glad I have a PS3 right about now, but frankly I never championed either side of this war. Blu-ray certainly suffered its fair share of ridicule, and it's only now that the PS3's price has significantly dropped that people are even starting to take the format seriously. What's your take: is this the way you wanted it to go, or do you feel HD DVD got an unfair axing?
Press release after the jump, as usual.
[Via The Digital Bits -- thanks, Samit]
Toshiba Announces Discontinuation of HD DVD Businesses
Company Remains Focused on Championing Consumer Access to High Definition Content
TOKYO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Toshiba Corporation today announced that it has undertaken a thorough review of its overall strategy for HD DVD and has decided it will no longer develop, manufacture and market HD DVD players and recorders. This decision has been made following recent major changes in the market. Toshiba will continue, however, to provide full product support and after-sales service for all owners of Toshiba HD DVD products.
HD DVD was developed to offer consumers access at an affordable price to high-quality, high definition content and prepare them for the digital convergence of tomorrow where the fusion of consumer electronics and IT will continue to progress.
“We carefully assessed the long-term impact of continuing the so-called 'next-generation format war' and concluded that a swift decision will best help the market develop,” said Atsutoshi Nishida, President and CEO of Toshiba Corporation. "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.”
Toshiba will continue to lead innovation, in a wide range of technologies that will drive mass market access to high definition content. These include high capacity NAND flash memory, small form factor hard disk drives, next generation CPUs, visual processing, and wireless and encryption technologies. The company expects to make forthcoming announcements around strategic progress in these convergence technologies.
Toshiba will begin to reduce shipments of HD DVD players and recorders to retail channels, aiming for cessation of these businesses by the end of March 2008. Toshiba also plans to end volume production of HD DVD disk drives for such applications as PCs and games in the same timeframe, yet will continue to make efforts to meet customer requirements. The company will continue to assess the position of notebook PCs with integrated HD DVD drives within the overall PC business relative to future market demand.
This decision will not impact on Toshiba’s commitment to standard DVD, and the company will continue to market conventional DVD players and recorders. Toshiba intends to continue to contribute to the development of the DVD industry, as a member of the DVD Forum, an international organization with some 200 member companies, committed to the discussion and defining of optimum optical disc formats for the consumer and the related industries.
Toshiba also intends 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 and major Japanese and European content providers on the entertainment side, as well as leaders in the IT industry, including Microsoft, Intel, and HP. Toshiba will study possible collaboration with these companies for future business opportunities, utilizing the many assets generated through the development of HD DVD.
Contest:
11:44 AM on 02.19.2008
| 
either way im happy for sony.
Blu-ray, though fun to diss on, was the best of the 2
Oh well, no BR for me. I'll revert back to normal DVD before I switch to BR.
I still have 10 quarters left CONTINUE DAMMIT CONTINUE!!!
but 10gig-20gig max is not enough for consumers, they want more. In todays age, consumer want more space even if it cost a bit more than the cheaper version. 25gig-50gig is pretty freaking sweet, and having the PS3 with Divx support, how many movies in one BRD can you fit?
When Optical Disks come out, with 1 terrabyte of space, with a affordable player, the same will happen and fade out BRD.
FORMAT WARS lol wut?
that being said can we all get back to our lives?
If you got an everyday consumer which do you think they would feel more confident about just by the name alone? I thought HD-DVD, because people know that HD=pretty and DVD=Disc with some type of media. As apposed to blu ray, where I figured most people would have just said "what?"
I guess that was not enough to overcome the blu ray onslaught.
Personally, I will stick with DVDs until the PS3 gets some better games. I don't care about blu ray enough to want to buy a player just for it.
I got the choice with my 360 though. If I got a PS3 I had to pay for the blu ray too, and frankly, I don't care about HD-DVD or blu ray.
I'm just glad it's over.
And in all honesty, it has nothing to do with features, picture quality, cramming it into a console, or what have you.
Sony got cut out of DVD licensing profits. Sony came back with something better and left the DVD Group scrambling to catch up and they failed.
I'm just glad it's over. Which ever side would've won, had it gone the other way would've gotten my dollars either way.
As opposed to some who bear some mysteriously stupid grudge against Blu Ray, I just want movies in HD. I don't care if they're on flash carts or disks or whatever. I could care less if they're shipping 1.0 players when 2.0 is around the corner. I just want a movie box that plays HD media.
I have that now.
"how is toshiba sad for the consumer, i wonder."
Toshiba is sad because I think they will now have to pay royalities to Sony to use the blue-ray format, as opposed to Sony having to pay Toshiba DVD royalities. Thats the real reason, that and the fact that they stand to lose a lot of money over this. If toshiba was smart they should work fast, get a good and inexpensive blue ray player out there, one that can play hd-dvds as well and start moving some units.
The movies had better go on sale, though. $30 still? Crazy.
ps3 sales are going to rocket this year.
i've only got the spiderman trilogy on bluray, only cost £15 in tesco.
Regardless of whether or not you think HD-DVD was superior, it just never had any support. Microsoft might have more money than God, but they don't own a movie studio (yet) and HD-DVD needed movies.
The way I see it, everyone wins. If all you own is Blu-ray, you're golden. If all you own is HD-DVD, you would've had to have bought a Blu-ray player at some point anyway if this format war continued on much longer.
If you own both, you probably don't care anyway.
It's the people sitting on the fence who are the real winners though, because now they can finally jump into Blu-ray and not have to worry about this nonsense any more.
I was kind of hoping the universal disk players would take off and make the format war a totally moot point. Although I'm also with Caffeine Powered and waiting for the HVD's to become standard.
None of this matters until I can afford an HDTV anyway
Also, w00t...tip recognition! Thanks, Colette!
Most Blu-Ray players are _not_ upgradeable you mean? Only the PS3 is upgradeable. If profile 2.0 is non backwards compatible, people with stand alone players are screwed.
@Corak
BDA, like the HDDVD association are associations... Sony doesn't own it, any more than Toshiba owns HDDVD. They're just the major promoters.
@naia-the-gamer
You have it exactly right. The consumer didn't pick anything.
I think DVDDESIGN voiced my opinion best in his post. I just want my damn movie. I don't want to be dicked around with format shit.
1. Sony forced PS3 owners to purchase a Blu-ray player with the console, allowing the Blu-ray group to announce much higher player sales.
2. Sony spent big money to buy studio's support.
Know though, that this was only the first battle in a war. Now Sony needs to prove to the average consumer that they need to pay 50-100% more for HD content. It'll be interesting too see how long it takes for prices on players and discs to come down when Sony has the only format.
Even with HD TV's becoming a standard in houses, you only really see differences in larger TV's. Without anything other than resolution going for Blu-ray (does anyone care about better menus?), it's going to be a hard sell to you average consumer.
I think consumers feel the same way. And I HIGHLY doubt we will ever see downloadable only videos as piracy would shoot through the roof.
digital distribution is NOT gonna replace HD disk ; it's way to early for it. With the current hardrive sizes that are COMMON (as in everday consumer and not high powered gamer) are too small to house an entire library of HD movies and tv shows and what not... they may be about good enough for standard definition, but their a long way off from doing HD... HD digital download won't have a chanceuntil something like 1 TB hardrives start becoming common place (by everyone not just high powered gamers and the like)
@CaffeinePowered
No, the format war is over... your thinking about the NEXT format war which will probably be like decade or two from now where it may very well be competing against digital distribution
@harrmonica
The reason is that their are plenty of 360 owners that do not care about most of the addons and as such got the console and JUST the console. They had a legitimate point about the PS3's price since they spent only $400...
those that got Xbox live though have a somewhat less legit point... onje year of xbox live may only cost $50 which still made it cheaper, but if you multiply that by 5 years for the life of the console, you get a price greater than that of the PS3... however, one would argue that the better online service makes it worthwhile enough to bring some legitimacy to their point of PS3 being more costly... some... either that, or they just don't know how to add up costs in the long run...
those that got all the other add on's like HDDVD, have no right to make that point, as they spent just as much money if not more on their xbox... if they complaigned that PS3 was too costly while spending more money on their 360 then they obvious don't know how to add up costs
Oh! I thought they already had the upgradeable stand alone players on the market. Non-PS3 owning Blu-Ray people are going to get screwed on that deal.
Woah! Slow your road there kid. No need for rampant fanboism. I'll save your comment and keep it tucked away for when the NPD numbers come out for GTA4. Even if I have a PS3 by then (which is possible) I'll probably get it for X360 BECAUSE of the extra episodes and the multiplayer (as in, I'll have more friends to play with).
In the end, who cares though as long as you get to play it.