HD-DVD Walks Off into the Sunset
Don't be so BLU, friend. There's always next time.
Published: February 16, 2008
Toshiba Corporation has officially announced its plans to bow out of the high-definition media player fight.
Since the inception of high-definition media, Toshiba has been struggling to capture the market with HD-DVD like the DVD it helped to pioneer before it. They found tough competition in the form of Sony, who has been working hard to win studios over with their Blu-ray format. The PlayStation 3 was one such way they helped to accomplish that feat.
The two formats, while sporting many of the same feature sets, are incompatible. This caused a splintering marketplace. Sales of both formats to slow to catch on due to pricing, consumer confusion, and movie availability, despite of the upswing of HDTV adoption rates and the push electronics manufacturers have taken to get their high-definition media into homes.
Sony has been gaining steam with their Blu-ray format, winning movie studios over to their side, even after they came to market months after HD-DVD. In January 2008, Blu-ray struck a blow to HD-DVD when Warner Bros. Entertainment moved from the HD-DVD camp to the Blu-ray camp just before the big Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Toshiba, along with the DVD Forum, pulled their CES events soon after. In response to this news, movie outlets have also pulled HD-DVD support, Netflix and Blockbuster being two of the most prominent. Retail outlets such as Wal-mart plan to pull HD-DVD support as well.
The company plans to sell its remaining HD-DVD stock but will cease further development of the format and its subsequent items going forth. It's factories in the northern Japanese prefecture of Aomori will be closed.
Since the inception of high-definition media, Toshiba has been struggling to capture the market with HD-DVD like the DVD it helped to pioneer before it. They found tough competition in the form of Sony, who has been working hard to win studios over with their Blu-ray format. The PlayStation 3 was one such way they helped to accomplish that feat.
The two formats, while sporting many of the same feature sets, are incompatible. This caused a splintering marketplace. Sales of both formats to slow to catch on due to pricing, consumer confusion, and movie availability, despite of the upswing of HDTV adoption rates and the push electronics manufacturers have taken to get their high-definition media into homes.
Sony has been gaining steam with their Blu-ray format, winning movie studios over to their side, even after they came to market months after HD-DVD. In January 2008, Blu-ray struck a blow to HD-DVD when Warner Bros. Entertainment moved from the HD-DVD camp to the Blu-ray camp just before the big Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Toshiba, along with the DVD Forum, pulled their CES events soon after. In response to this news, movie outlets have also pulled HD-DVD support, Netflix and Blockbuster being two of the most prominent. Retail outlets such as Wal-mart plan to pull HD-DVD support as well.
The company plans to sell its remaining HD-DVD stock but will cease further development of the format and its subsequent items going forth. It's factories in the northern Japanese prefecture of Aomori will be closed.