[2/20/08] Toshiba will discontinue its HD DVD products, it said Tuesday, handing victory to rival high definition disc format Blu-ray Disc. The company will no longer develop, manufacture and market HD DVD players and recorders.
Recent changes in the market prompted the decision, Toshiba said. Early this year, Warner Bros. said it would stop issuing movies on HD DVD in the coming months and rely exclusively on Blu-ray Disc. The Hollywood studio was one of three major studios remaining in the HD DVD camp, and its defection created widespread belief that the battle between HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc was now over. More recently, major U.S. retail chain Wal-Mart announced it would phase out the sale of HD DVD products, moving to exclusivity with Blu-ray Disc.
LAS VEGAS -- The International Consumer Electronics Show is turning out to be a celebration party for Blu-ray, the high-definition format that Sony Corp. backed, and a wake for a rival movie disc technology pushed by Toshiba Corp.
Just two months ago, Sony CEO Howard Stringer said the fight between Blu-ray and Toshiba's HD DVD was at a "stalemate," and expressed a wish to travel back in time to avert it.
The impasse was broken Friday by Warner Bros. Entertainment, the last major studio to put out movies in both formats. It announced it was ditching HD DVD, and from May on, would only publish on Blu-ray and traditional DVD.
The decision puts a strong majority of the major studios, five versus two, in the Blu-ray camp.
Asked Monday at the show if the Warner announcement decides the format war, Stringer said: "I never put up banners that say 'Mission Accomplished.'" But his cheerful delivery belied his words.
By contrast, the main media event scheduled for the show by the North American HD DVD Promotional Group, which includes Intel Corp. and Microsoft Corp., was canceled because of Warner's defection.
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