Japan: Toshiba announced February 19, 2008, it will stop selling its HD DVD products by end-March 2008, conceding defeat to Sony’s Blu-ray format thus concluding the long-drawn DVD format war.
Industry analysts expect the withdrawal of Toshiba’s HD DVD format will ‘reduce consumer confusion’ and will prompt Hollywood studios to release their content on the Blu-ray DVD on a much larger scale.
The swing towards Blu-ray gained momentum when Hollywood studio Warner Brothers and US retail chain Wal-Mart backed Sony’s format. Toshiba president Atsutoshi Nishida admitted that Warner Brothers’ move away from HD DVD "was a real bolt out of the blue, and the impact was very big."
Toshiba is ceasing sales of stand-alone players and production of HD DVD drives for computers. It will also reassess its options on laptops for which HD DVD drives are integrated. Toshiba previously sold 700,000 HD DVD players globally, while 300,000 more drives are going into Microsoft’s Xbox 360 video game consoles and more have been installed in laptops. Toshiba will, however, continue providing after-sales support to consumers who own HD DVD players and recorders.
Both Blu-ray and HD DVD offer cinematic-quality images and multimedia features, but movie studios have been keen to keep just one format, while consumers did not want to invest in a product that could become fully obsolete. Sony’s success has been attributed to chief executive Howard Stringer’s efforts in gaining the backing of his Hollywood contacts, having been the head of Sony’s North American division; as well as the format’s carriage on Sony’s PlayStation 3 gaming console.
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