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.)