It's been a rough year for Toshiba's HD DVD
format. After spending 2006 and 2007 locked in a heated battle with the
Sony-backed Blu-ray for high-definition, high-capacity disc format
dominance, HD DVD has suffered a series of devastating setbacks in the
first two months of the year.
Warner Bros. kicked 2008 off by
going Blu-ray exclusive in the first week of January. An apparently
panicked HD DVD camp canceled its Consumer Electronics Show conference
in response, and reports quickly surfaced that HD DVD holdouts
Paramount and Universal were looking to switch to Blu-ray.
Bad
news for HD DVD fans is continuing to snowball this week, as Best Buy
and movie rental service Netflix both said they would back the
Sony-supported format going forward. (Best Buy will still stock HD DVD,
but its salespeople will advise prospective customers to go Blu-ray).
Two
more big names came up as abandoning HD DVD today. This morning the
official Wal-Mart blog confirmed that the massive retail chain is going
Blu-ray exclusive by June, and the Hollywood Reporter is citing
"reliable industry sources" for the news that Toshiba itself is ready
to drop its own format.
A Toshiba representative denied the
news to the film-focused trade newspaper, but left plenty of room for
people to infer there is some truth to the report.
"Given the
market developments in the past month," the rep is quoted as saying,
"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."
A source "close to the
HD-DVD camp" told the paper that an announcement could be made in a
matter of weeks, but that it is definitely coming soon.
Source:
http://www.gamespot.com/news/6186141.html?om_act=convert&om_clk=newstop&tag=newstop;title;3***Haha all I can say is cheaper ps3s(due to making blu-ray parts cheaper by wining its war) are on the way = more sales.
Also the porn industry is backing blu-ray...
if so its the end of the line for hd-dvd and dvd.
the porn industry is MUCH larger than any other dvd retail like movies etc. what they back wins.
Subject: HD-DVD = DEAD 
Mon Feb 18, 2008 12:24 pm
