Toshiba offically confirms death of HD-DVD

[DrCheese]

Toshiba have officially confirmed the leaked reports that it was ending production of HD-DVD and ending the format war. What's interesting is the title of the press release, it's worded as such that they are still committed to Hi Def in general which is of course, a good thing. By the end of March however, HD-DVD will no longer exist in the retail market, both in movie players and PC hardware.

Company Remains Focused on Championing Consumer Access to High Definition Content

TOKYO--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.

http://www.toshiba.co.jp/about/press/2008_02/pr1903.htm

http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/19/live-fr...rence-in-tokyo/

[AlphaPrime]

[Mathiasdm]

It was a decent format, but things like this happen.

Well, this'll probably make Blu-Ray sales jump sharply, so here's to lots of internal competition between Blu-Ray player producers!

[randomnut]

wow. RIP HDDVD and decent extra features, we hardly knew ye.

[inStereo]

Ah well.

[Shadow XL]

finally the war is over, and i survived :)

[Coldgunner]

Lets celebrate VHD Day (Victory in High Definition Day)

the HDDVD fans can bleat on about being the 'consumer' oreinted format, but people voted with their wallets!

long live BD!

[+virtorio MVC]

Hope next time they actually try a little marketing.

[Huleboeren]

The prophecy was true

[Xerxes]

Lets celebrate VHD Day (Victory in High Definition Day)

the HDDVD fans can bleat on about being the 'consumer' oreinted format, but people voted with their wallets!

long live BD!

True, but it wasn't the consumers who decided the victor though. It was the movie studios who did, seriously how was HD-DVD gonna survive with only 2 major studios, I mean seriously? I'm (well I suppose the correct term now is; was) a HD-DVD support but life goes on, just means my PS3 now gets all the new HD movies, so doesn't really change much (for me).

[FloatingFatMan]

Wonder if Microsoft will now cave and make a BD drive for the 360.

[BGM]

Wonder if Microsoft will now cave and make a BD drive for the 360.

they already said they would

[ahfunaki]

Wonder if Microsoft will now cave and make a BD drive for the 360.

I hope...

[trek]

Excellent.

[rajputwarrior]

time to fire sale the hddvds!!!

[Bhav]

WOOHOO :D Very, very pleased :) Go Blu-ray, go PS3! :p

[Lt-DavidW]

Now what do all those people who adamantly claimed that HD-DVD will win have to say? :whistle:

Neowin thread: HD-DVD wins, Blu-Ray loses

[Kenji]

woot \o/

[Bhav]

Now what do all those people who adamantly claimed that HD-DVD will win have to say? :whistle:

Neowin thread: HD-DVD wins, Blu-Ray loses

Lol nice find...people should really look through that thread to see how ridiculously confident they sounded :rofl:

[gigapixels Veteran]

Hope next time they actually try a little marketing.

Seriously. If Toshiba had actually put out some sort of competent marketing campaign for HD DVD, it probably would have won. It had a good price, excellent features, a consumer-friendly name, just no marketing.

[Matrix XII]

^ I agree, there was barely any marketing, that was a key mistake.

Oh well, maybe I can get HD DVD's for real cheap now :p

[Raa]

It's a shame, but really, it had to happen!

[Julius Caro]

The consumer friendly name only applies to those countries in which "HD" means something great and mighty. And I guess it creates confusion, with the DVD logo being part of it. Blu-ray on the other hand managed to differentiate itself from DVD enough, while at the same time not giving the idea that it was DVD that would work on every player.

During those years in which BD and HD-DVD were not public, the media hyped "blue laser next-generation dvds" to no end. And during the format-war time, the media still called both "high definition DVDs".

In the end it was all a mess, but Sony definitely got the marketing part right.

[kinetix63 Veteran]

Hopefully BluRay technology will come in at a better price point now that the competition is out of the way. I for one was one of the many consumers who didn't want to waste their money when it was very unclear as to which format was going to win the war.

I'm happy that this is now finally settled, however I do want to see BD technology fall in price before I'm going to invest my hard earned cash in it.

[FreqFace]

Question is, who is gonna waste the money on a HD-DVD player now?