Toshiba’s press release verbatim:
Toshiba Announces Discontinuation of HD DVD Businesses
19 February, 2008
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, in the press release. “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.
Source: Toshiba
Buh-bye.
Toshiba… stick to making what your good at…. NOTHING!
really…. your laptops have completely sucked for the last 7 years… *cough*clas action lawsuit*cough* ahem.. waht do you do thats good?
just stop.
and in the land of 4TB raid arrays costing less than $1000… why do you think your meeger 30GB offering would compete? who wants a technology that stores 60% of the data their competitors stores??
MORONS!
Just further evidence of Microsoft’s true irrelevance. They were the biggest proponent of this technology. With MS’s resources and ubiquity, why could it not keep HD DVD viable? Because MS basically sucks, that’s why. They couldn’t innovate their way out of a paper bag. Hence, any company relying on MS for support is doomed to fail. Let’s hope that Yahoo doesn’t fall victim to this jugger-not
What will all the fanboys who took sides over a dumbass format war do now?
I guess Microsoft got tired of pushing and paying. Amen.
Surely not good news for Microsoft either, with its promotion of HDVD.
Sure looks like the days of Microsoft being a major influential player in matters like this are dying.
That’s the really good news then!
Maybe MS shouldn’t give up and continue to pour billions and billions into it? Hehe
How many X-Box users bought HD drive for their wanna be PS3 player?
I look forward to the price of Blu-ray players falling. Hopefully this will speed the process.
Hey Zune Wang,
Got HD DVD????
All the best,
Ray
It’s looking like Sony had the long-term vision this time by bundling the Blu-ray player and HD into their PS3. MS, of course, is not capable of vision – only copying what Apple is doing, hence the miserable hardware that is the XBox. Perhaps the lesson is that the company with the vision and innovation is the one that succeeds.
Now that’s settled, how about Sony make the PS3 easier to network with Mac OS X? Right now the procedure is just stupidly complex.
Actually, HD-DVD wasn’t all bad. No regions, and Microsoft’s HDi was technologically more advanced than the JAVAthingy Blueray uses. But nice to see Microsoft defeated once more.
And don’t forget Apple ally Intel was also on-board with HD-DVD.
And now, the following will happen:
1. Rapid growth in Blu-Ray player sales;
2. Rapid decline in Blu-Ray players prices (below $150);
3. Rapid growth of library titles on Blu-Ray (and sub- $25 prices);
4. Rapid growth of selection of Blu-Ray burners (R and RW);
5. Rapid decline of blank Blu-Ray media prices
(Did I mention ‘rapid’ often enough?)
This gives me the final excuse to:
1. Buy HD TV
2. Buy HD camcorder (Canon Vixia HF 100 perhaps?)
I may not buy BD player just yet (until it goes below $100), since I don’t watch movies, but for home movies (I have small children), I have to act very quickly. AVCHD and Blu-Ray are hand and glove. FCE can work with AVCHD out of the box. All the pieces are ready for long-term format stability. I think we can all officially agree, HD has finally arrived.
@tt
Wow, can someone please show me where I can get a 4TB RAID array for under $1000? I’d really like to know…
Will Toshiba start making Blu-Ray devices?
Good Riddance.
I see an upsampling Sony Blu-ray player in my future…
Why do you morons keep pushing your MAC BluRay format even though it’s doomed to failure? Great, Toshiba won’t be making their HD DVD players anymore–this will just increase the supply for Microsoft’s awesome Xbox HD DVD players and lower the prices.
I’ll be rocking to my next-generation HD DVD-playing Zune long after you MAC retards finally figure out how to put a CD drive in a MacBook Air. Good luck with that.
Your Potential. Our Passion.
Not bad.
Your potential. Our passion.™
Good riddance HD-DVD. You won’t be missed….
While I am happy BR won, I am reminded of the VHS/BETA format war. Most of you youngsters probably have no idea how many people got screwed on that one. This entire format war was totally pointless and should never have happened. Also, this is the exact reason I have not yet purchased one of the two formats. Anyone who bought a HD DVD player is a sucker and should have known better.
@tt
I second that. Where is 4TB RAID array for under $1000?
Western Digital 1TB bare drives are $230 x 4 = $920.
OK, still haven’t paid for tax and shipping.
Oh yea, then there’s that thing called the RAID enclosure that you put the drives in.
Cables.
PCI X card.
And that still only gets you 3TB of space.
“Where is 4TB RAID array for under $1000?”
You can easily get a rental truck, a ski mask, a Universal Lock Out Tool Kit and decent gloves for under $1,000.
Anyone else impressed at how Apple seemingly always “gets” the right format or trend or direction to go?
Not trying to be too much of a fanboy, but Apple sure seems to get the call right most of the time. That’s pretty amazing when you think about it.
Does anyone else make HD DVD drives? Where will M$ get theirs?
There will be no reason to buy an HD-DVD player/drive because there will be no movies released on HD-DVD. That’s what they mean when they say the format war is over. HD-DVD lost. This means that the people who have HD-DVD players including the M$ Xbox360 people will eventually have to buy BD players to get high definition movies. There will be no reason for M$ to produce HD-DVD players because there will be little or no reason to buy one because new releases will only come out on DVD and BD.
And there was much rejoicing.