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Posted On: February 18th 2008
Posted By: Creature Of War
Source: GamePro |
Wal-Mart chooses Blu-Ray, sources claim Toshiba will kill off HD DVD soon
According to a new report citing anonymous insider sources, Toshiba is quietly preparing to pull the plug on HD DVD.
First, time Warner pulled the rug out from under Toshiba by dropping support for HD DVD to exclusively support Sony's Blu-Ray high definition DVD format. Then Netflix and retail big box chain Best Buy pledged their support to Blu-Ray as well, with plans in place to phase out HD DVD completely later this year. Today, Wal-Mart joined the fray and announced it was going Blu, too.
It was an undeniably tough start to 2008 for the war torn HD DVD, and today it would appear the damage is irreversible: one of the sole remaining backers of the format, Toshiba, is allegedly putting together a plan to kill off the format sometime this year.
This according to a report in The Hollywood Reporter (via ars technica), which quotes "reliable industry sources" as saying that Toshiba will euthanize HD DVD in the coming months.
To date, Toshiba has attempted to boost sales of HD DVD by drastically cutting prices on DVD players -- the lowest price today is $119 -- but the move thus far has had little effect. Microsoft, which sells an add-on HD DVD player for its Xbox 360 game console, cut the peripheral's price to $129 in January.
Officially, Toshiba is taking a wait-and-see attitude in regards to HD DVD. "Given the market developments in the past month, Toshiba will continue to study the market impact and the value proposition for consumers, particularly in light of our recent price reductions on all HD DVD players," Jodi Sally, VP of marketing for Toshiba America Consumer Products, told The Hollywood Reporter.
Unofficially, the format tea leaves show HD DVD is all but dead.
Next stop on the format war tour? Replacing your existing standalone Blu-Ray player when it won't play Blu-Ray 2.0 discs. Luckily for gamers, the PS3 is immune to this issue. |
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