No, not THAT war. Don’t be silly.
I’m talking about the war between high-definition DVD formats.
I for one have flatly refused to get involved in the HD Format war by choosing a side. The battle between HD-DVD and Blu-Ray has waged for months and months, and it’s looking like there might just be a winner on the horizon.
Recently, Toshiba — one of the co-developers of HD-DVD — has been bragging that HD-DVD has surged ahead of Blu-Ray in terms of sales. Yet unfortunately, studios have been shifting their support towards Blu-Ray.
In what may be one of the final blows to HD-DVD, Warner Bros. Entertainment has thrown in with Blu-Ray, announcing that it would release titles on both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray until May 2008, at which time HD-DVD production of its titles would cease.
That’s a huge kick in the gut for HD-DVD. Toshiba has already issued a rather stingy press release on the matter:
TOKYO, Jan. 4 /PRNewswire/ — Toshiba is quite surprised by WarnerBros.’ decision to abandon HD DVD in favor of Blu-ray, despite the fact that there are various contracts in place between our companies concerning the support of HD DVD. As central members of the DVD Forum, we have long maintained a close partnership with Warner Bros. We worked closely together to help standardize the first-generation DVD format as well as to define and shape HD DVD as its next-generation successor.
We were particularly disappointed that this decision was made in spite of the significant momentum HD DVD has gained in the US market as well as other regions in 2007. HD DVD players and PCs have outsold Blu-ray in the US market in 2007.
We will assess the potential impact of this announcement with the other HD DVD partner companies and evaluate potential next steps. We remain firm in our belief that HD DVD is the format best suited to the wants and needs of the consumer.
Ouch.
The North American HD-DVD Promotions Group has also cancelled it’s Sunday press conference in light of this breaking story.
It seems as though the armies of HD-DVD have retreated after a metaphorical nuke attack, and they’re licking some pretty gaping wounds.
Paramount still clings to HD-DVD.
I never had a favorite in the format war, but for some reason I thought HD-DVD would win out. I have no idea why, and my reasoning isn’t logical.
But Sony has a few million Playstation 3s out there, all with Blu-Ray drives in them, and those aren’t counted in the total sales of Players.
Warner Bros. claims that this ongoing struggle between HD-DVD and Blu-Ray has been hurting sales of both High Definition formats as well as standard DVDs as consumers wait out the chaos. Maybe the format war will finally be over soon.