Toshiba officially discontinues HD-DVD
 

There you have it folks. From the end of March, the HD-DVD format will be discontinued.

http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=92955

Just for those that don't know, the event that probably started this was the announcement by Warner Bros., just before CES, that after the end of May they would no longer release films in the HD-DVD format, but instead release them exclusively on Blu-ray (and carry on with DVD). WB have a 20% market share in all films sold, and their move to Blu-ray gave the BR camp a 70% market share of all films. WB's children companies (HBO and New Line... BBC haven't made an announcement yet) quickly followed suit. Throughout January and the first half of February, many retailers jumped off the HD-DVD bandwagon and went Blu-ray exclusive - Blockbuster (no HD-DVD in store), Best Buy (no HD-DVD in store), Netflix (no HD-DVD at all) and finally Wal*Mart (4000 stores and chains owned by WM across America, and every single one of them are to stock only Blu-ray). Rumours over the past few days said that Toshiba would discontinue HD-DVD, and they've come out to be true.

Sony wins again.

As long as they still produce regular DVDs it's all gravy. I don't want to be forced to get a Blu-Ray player.

In time, you are going to be forced to have everything in HD. Even HD radio is starting to sweep the nation, eventually every new car will be equipped with it, and i'm sure old school antennas will go out of style, etc.

Yeah but I figure that won't be for another 5-10 years.

Unless the FCC mandates digital radio because analog radio is too wastefull...

Very similar to the new digital TV standards going into effect next year (February?).

That's how I see it, yeah I doubt 5-10 years, maybe 5 years.. just think of how fast HD came onto the scene in the TV world, now they don't even sell Tubes anymore, it's amazing.

Actually, they still sell CRTs, and HDTV has been arround since well into the 90s, there just wasn't any programming stateside back then.

I have to say that I haven't seen any CRT televisions in any shop I've been to - PC World, Dixons, Currys, Comet, not even in Asda or Tesco.

Eventually films are going to be released exclusively on Blu-ray with no DVD release, which will force people to go HD. As it is, Sony are going to sell millions of PS3s specifically to those who want a cheap, futureproof Blu-ray player (it's the only player on the market that can receive and install firmware updates) until cheaper players are released, particularly when players that have the same ability to upgrade firmware are released. If Blu-ray is forced on the masses sooner rather than later, then PS3 sales are going to absolutely sky-rocket.

You have to admit, Sony are good tacticians... good, but extremely lucky. If HD-DVD had had a stronger backing from the start (maybe games being released on HD-DVD for the 360, or 360 SKUs with built-in HD-DVD drives) then they would have been crippled (or at least they would have lost millions of dollars). As it is, they've just secured the future for the PS3.

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A quick comment about Toshiba's announcement - whilst it had to come, it still surprised me somewhat, particularly how early on they've given in.

Good news for a lot of people, though. One word: Firesale! Everything HD-DVD is going to go really cheap now, so it's a great oppurtunity to get a really cheap player and build up a HD library. Sooner or later, though, people who do will have to make the move to Blu-ray if they want to keep up. Currently only Universal and Paramount are still releasing HD-DVD films, and an announcement by Universal today looks like they might have jumped ship:

I saw several CRT models at BestBuy arround Christmas.

:) So DVD series are going to drop in price?~