It’s official - HD-DVD is dead.
In a press release a few days ago, Toshiba made it official. They have abandoned the HD-DVD format and will stop production and distrubution of all players and movies within the next couple of months.
Right from the horse’s mouth:
Toshiba Announces Discontinuation of HD DVD Businesses
19 February, 2008Company 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. “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.”
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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.
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Of course, anyone reading the site would have know of HD-DVD’s demise for some time now. 
Now bring on Transformers on Blu-Ray already.
A7
March 19th, 2008 at 8:41 am
I was just reading this morning (in the elevator of all places) that Toshiba is taking a $666 Million Hit for pulling HD DVD off the market. Ouchies!
March 19th, 2008 at 10:54 am
As long as these companies continue to push different technologies without creating standards first, there will always be a big loser. And unfortunately, the biggest loser of all is the consumer. How would you feel if you spent $600 on an HD-DVD player only to find out a year later that it only plays regular DVD?
Instead of trying to be greedy monopolistic bastards, companies need to come together and agree on standards BEFORE they put these devices to market.
A7