Although Toshiba fought the good fight for three years against rival Blu-ray Disc for the next generation successor to the DVD, today at a press conference in Japan, Toshiba reps formally announced that they would cease manufacturing HD DVD players effective immediately. Existing customers will still be supported but no new players will be produced.
Although development of both next generation formats began around 2002, it was late 2005 before the two camps (Blu-ray and HD DVD) announced the end to negotations and that each would move forward with their own competing technology. Players of both formats as well as the software to support them were introduced in 2006 thus beginning the format war in earnest.
Many saw the Warner announcement in January, announcing exclusive support for Blu-ray Disc as the beginning of the end, but the news got worse for HD DVD when retailers such as BestBuy and WalMart issued strong statements in support of Blu-ray as did movie rental giants, Blockbuster and Netflix. Toshiba tried to keep HD DVD alive with expensive Superbowl ads (probably locked in before the Warner announcement) and by slashing player prices 50%. But once the content tide had turned, the end was inevitable.
Although it's a sad day for HD DVD supporters, the end of the format war is good news for consumers, and potentially for the Consumer Electronics and Entertainment industries as a whole. With a single high definition disc format, the FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) of buying a next generation high definition disc player is greatly reduced, allowing consumers to buy a player with confidence and start enjoying high definition movies at home on their HDTVs and home theater systems. And with a single format, the entertainment industry can rally around Blu-ray Disc as the successor to the mighty DVD, ramping up software production.
As to whether any high definition disc-based format will be as successful as DVD at this point, the jury is still out. With increasing competition from online download services and boxes such as Vudu and AppleTV, the need for physical media may be decreasing. As iTunes killed the CD, will it also lead to the demise of physical storage of movies? Only time will tell.
