Gamertell

The high-definition format war has finally come to an end with Toshiba humbly accepting the defeat of its HD-DVD format. The company announced in an official statement on Tuesday (February 19, 2008) that it will no longer develop, manufacture and market the HD-DVD. It stated that it was left with no choice but to discontinue the HD-DVD, while tacitly referring to major movie studios and retailers switching sides to the rival Blu-ray. It can safely be said that Warner Brothers’ recent decision to only support Blu-ray was the final nail in the HD-DVD coffin.

In the official statement, Atsutoshi Nishida, president and CEO of Toshiba said that the company carefully assessed the long-term impact of continuing the HD format war and concluded that a swift decision will augur well for the market’s development. He went on to express disappointment for the company and the consumers. But the owners of Toshiba HD-DVD products can find some solace in the fact that the company has pledged to continue complete after-sales support to them.

The company is slowly going to reduce the shipment of its HD-DVD products to the retailers before, eventually, winding up HD-DVD product supply in March. The company remains determined to develop other high definition technologies including CPUs, NAND flash memory and visual processing among other technologies.

Microsoft seems unruffled after the demise of the HD-DVD format despite many Xbox 360 owners having bought the external HD-DVD player for its console. It will soon spell out its future plans vis-à-vis Xbox 360’s external HD-DVD player.

With HD-DVD having succumbed in the HD format battlefield, and the crowning of the Blu-ray as the standard storage format, the PS3 can be expected to benefit heavily as it is still the cheapest Blu-ray player in the market. This fresh development appears inauspicious for both Nintendo and Microsoft, for the Blu-ray driven PS3 sales might hit the market share of both the Xbox 360 and Wii. I would like to offer my condolences to the bereaved – Toshiba and HD-DVD player owners.

Read [Engadget] Also Read [Next-Gen]

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