Print Email RSS RSS  Share del.icio.us Facebook Twitter
Toshiba Pulls Plug on HD DVD
After weeks of speculation, Toshiba finally surrenders to Sony and Blu-ray in the high-def format war.
image
February 19, 2008 | by Chuck McKenney

Toshiba announced on Tuesday it will no longer develop, manufacture and market HD DVD players and recorders.

“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,” Toshiba President and Chief executive Atsutoshi Nishida said in a news release.

Nishida said the decision by Warner Bros. to release movies only in the Blu-ray format made the move inevitable. “That had tremendous impact,” he said. “If we had continued, that would have created problems for consumers, and we simply had no chance to win.”

There’s been no official comment from Universal Studios, Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks Animation, the major Hollywood studios that were producing HD DVD movies.

Toshiba says it will reduce shipments of HD DVD players and recorders to retailers, and stop altogether by the end of March. Production of HD DVD disk drives for PCs and games will meet the same timeframe.

Experts predict the decision to pull out will save Toshiba approximately $400 million a year.

More to come….

Read entire press release.

(Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.)



Article Topics
What's Related
Popular Tags
Social Bookmark   less


Comments (16) Most recent displayed first.
Posted by Steve Harbor  on  02/20/08  at  10:10 AM

Sony is selling its Cell processor & RSX graphics chip manufacturing plant to Toshiba for $835 million. Reuters has the story.

If ya can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em, eh Toshiba?

(Both those chips are used in the Sony PS3 Blu-Ray Trojan Horse machine, in case anyone doesn’t get the connection.)

Posted by Jeff Kalman  on  02/19/08  at  02:33 PM

God I love that video.  Every time I watch it, it has me ROFLMAO.

“Blades of Glory is still one of our exclusive titles…”

“BLADES OF GLORY?!!

Are you F$$&#xKI;NG kidding me?!!”


ROFL

Posted by Flip  on  02/19/08  at  02:13 PM

Finally,

Oh well…This classic Youtube video kind of said it all. For all of you who have not yet seen “Downfall” ..... Enjoy!!

http://youtube.com/watch?v=ywWfmRdOmJ0

Posted by HD-DVD is Dead  on  02/19/08  at  02:13 PM

You know what, you can blame Toshiba along with Sony and all the movie studios for this.  I had no problem with there being two formats as long as all the movie studios would support both formats.  The consumer market may have supported both formats if the studios didn’t take the bribes from either side to support their format.  Once that happened then one of the two were bound to lose this war.  If the studios had stayed neutral then maybe both formats would have survived and then the consumers could make up their own mind.  Problem is the consumer market would not support two formats with different studios supporting only one format.  Toshiba had as much to do with their own demise as Sony did.  Both camps played the same game so one had to be defeated.

Posted by Digger Odell  on  02/19/08  at  01:31 PM

RIP Toshiba.

Odells Funeral Home

We’re the last people to let you down.


+ View all comments on for this article



Commenting is not available in this weblog entry.