HD DVD Promotion Group Turns Out the HD DVD Lights

Not that this is too much of a surprise but we report today the demise of the HD DVD Promotion Group. This was the group, anchored by Toshiba, which brought together the companies which supported the HD DVD format under one trade organization umbrella. It is, as you can see from this screen shot of the group's Web site, no more.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of HD DVD. This more or less puts the final nail in the HD DVD coffin.

Toshiba Has Staggering $$ HD DVD Losses

Now that Toshiba has left the HD DVD format in the past, you might be wondering to yourself: what kind of financial motivation might have been behind this move? While it is hard to speculate exactly how this played into the final equation, we can tell you the Japanese consumer electronics giant took a huge hit in this area.

A recent Bloomberg story tells us exactly how bad Toshiba got slapped. The company reported it would take "a  45 billion yen charge to write down the value of its HD DVD assets, forcing Toshiba to face its first annual profit drop in six years." That works out to nearly $454 million American.

Taken into further analysis, Toshiba said specific losses in the HD DVD group almost doubled "to 65 billion yen this fiscal year, compared with the 50 billion yen deficit forecast earlier." That is $656 million American, give or take.

How ever you look at it, that's an ugly ending folks.

Best Buy Tries to Ease HD DVD Pain

Best Buy is reaching out to customers who own HD-DVD players post the end of the Blu-ray war with an offer: a $50 gift card if one purchased a HD-DVD player or HD-DVD attachment before Feb. 23.

The electronics retailer said it will "proactively mail cards to all   customers that the company can identify as having purchased an HD-DVD player. Members of the Best Buy Reward Zone program, customers who purchased Performance Service Plans (PSPs) or who made their purchase on BestBuy.com should look for their gift cards in the mail by May 1."

As a further HD DVD gesture, HD DVD player owners can get trade-in values on their players and movies from Best Buy. One visits a special Web site, gets information about estimated values for their collection and ships their gear free of charge to Best Buy in exchange for another gift card. This service is open to HD-DVD owners regardless of where they bought their player.

Toshiba Conducts HD DVD Exit Interview with WSJ

Much like a fired employee might do on his way out the door, Toshiba did an exit interview of sorts in yesterday's Wall Street Journal about its HD DVD trials and tribulations. The interview was conducted with Toshiba CEO Atsutoshi Nishida.

Nishida told the WSJ, in summary, that Toshiba realized the time was near when Warner Bros. threw in the towel and switched to Blu-ray at CES. It seriously hurt HD DVD market share and made Toshiba see the battle could not be won. The company did not, however, throw its support behind Blu-ray, but instead promised to develop standard DVD players which improve upon the "upconverting feature" as a way to remain competitive.

HD DVD Goes Fire Sale at Circuit City

If you don't mind having what has unfortunately become a failed format as a new purchase, you might want to check out the HD DVD fire sale Circuit City is putting on right now to gut its inventory. This is according to an article in Video Business.

VB reports Circuit City wants to have its HD DVD stock decimated by the end of the month. To that end it has significantly cut the price of Toshiba HD DVD players. This is on top of  offering deals where you purchase three HD DVD titles and get two more for free.

So, if you don't mind the fact you are shopping for a format which soon won't have any more available titles, you look to be getting some good deals. This also might be a good time for existing HD DVD player owners to stock up as well.

HD DVD is Dead. The Format War is Over.

Just like predicted, Toshiba officially pulled the plug on HD DVD. The format was is officially over. Toshiba just made the official announcement in 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.

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.

After a Q&A period, Toshiba said they had no plan to join Blu-ray. That could have been predicted as well. But let's give these folks a break.

Read the complete press release after the jump.

HD DVD Nearing End?

Could it be game over for HD DVD? We here at HDDVDFreak feel like of late it has been nothing but negative news to report. Now comes word from industry sources Toshiba could be killing the format altogether some time shortly.

The Hollywood Reporter, citing sources, said Toshiba is "widely expected to pull the plug on its HD DVD format sometime in the coming weeks...after a rash of retail defections that followed Warner Home Video's announcement in early January that it would support only the rival Blu-ray Disc format after May."

Speculation suggests substantial losses related to HD DVD hardware production, dips in HD DVD disc sales and defects from the HD DVD camp may have made Toshiba finally cash in its chips. Toshiba denied it was planning to end HD DVD, but did say it is continuing  "to study the market impact."

Wal-Mart Dropping HD DVDs From Shelves

Scratch another location where you can purchase HD DVDs: Wal-Mart announced today it will be dropping the HD DVD format from its shelves shortly in favor of carrying Blu-ray only.

Wal-Mart said this change "will take place quickly over the next several months whereby the retailer will phase out HD DVD offerings and reorganize shelf space." It expects to have this phase out done in its physical locations and online shopping sites by June.

"We’ve listened to our customers, who are showing a clear preference toward Blu-ray products and movies with their purchases," said Gary Severson, senior vice president, Home Entertainment, Wal-Mart, U.S. "With the customers best interest in all we do, we wanted to share our decision and timeline with them as soon as possible, knowing it will help simplify their purchase decision, increase selection, and increase adoption long term."

This announcement follows recent word of related changes coming from Netflix and Best Buy.

HD DVD Suffers Some Bad Blows Today

Even as Toshiba marches bravely forward with very low HD DVD player prices, rival Blu-ray scored some more coups today as the post-Warner departure continues to impact the format war:

• Best Buy will begin pushing Blu-ray to consumers over HD DVD, though HD DVD fans will not be out of luck as the retailer will continue selling HD DVD products.
• Netflix is getting out of the HD DVD online rental business all together. It said by year's end it will phase out its existing HD DVD stock. Perhaps that will mean some nice HD DVD disc fire sales?

Microsoft Cuts Xbox 360 HD DVD Player Price

It looks as if Microsoft has shaved a little off of the price tag for its Xbox 360 HD DVD Player accessory. It was reported this morning by Major Nelson, aka Larry Hryb of Microsoft, the company was dropping the retail price from $179.99 to $129.99 and that the drop was immediately effective in the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

There was no immediate word on why the price drop was made, but one has to think with the recent Toshiba HD DVD player price drops Microsoft is just trying to stay up with the pack.