Toshiba Concedes HD-DVDefeat.
You may recall that just after the new year began Warner Brothers triggered a bit of a defection from HD-DVD by announcing Blu-ray exclusivity. Last week BestBuy announced they would be recommending Blu-ray, then Netflix announced they were going exclusively Blu-ray by year’s end, and the finishing move was given by Wal-Mart who picked up HD-DVD’s discs and players, put them in the airlock, and then jettisoned them out into freezing cold retail space by choosing Blu-ray. Unfortunately not even a tech giant like Toshiba can breathe raw retail vacuum so today they conceded defeat in a press release.
We covered this in Aeropodcast 22 over the weekend, so if you haven’t picked it up yet give it a listen. Joe reminisced a bit about CES and how things looked for HD-DVD then just after the Warner Brothers announcement. While I’m happy to see Blu-ray driving high definition movie format adoption since I have the most upgradeable Blu-ray player on the market, I’m a little bit sad that people who forked over the money for HD-DVD players are basically going to be stuck with doorstops. Wouldn’t it be nice if Sony offered a token gift to defray the anger of early adopters, maybe 50 bucks off a PS3 if you trade in an HD-DVD player?
By the way that most-upgradeable Blu-ray player is the PS3. Blu-ray version 1.1 has already been rolled out to it, and 2.0 is coming which will let me copy a low-res copy of a movie to my PSP and take it with me, memory stick space permitting of course. Could Sony add in some features that HD-DVD had? The internet connectivity Joe talks about in the podcast sounds pretty neat, and the PS3 definitely has the network chops for it, but I’m thinking a fear of piracy might make them put the kibosh on that.
See also:
Aeropodcast #22: You, Me, and the GDC Edition
Wal-Mart Chooses Blu-ray
Source: VoodooExtreme, among others.
Recent Comments