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?

HD DVD Sales Regain Ground

HD DVD continues to see a slow rebound in the public spotlight as new sales figures from NPD Group show a rebound in sales following a bad week immediately after CES. This is according to a news report published in Video Business.

The report shows HD DVD hardware sales totals accounted for around a third of HD set-top unit sales for the week ending Jan. 19, according to Video Business. This is a sharp upkick from the previous week, when HD DVD player sales only amounted to seven percent.

An NPD analyst told Video Business he felt the change in position was likely due to "sensitivity to pricing". This would tie in with a recent move Toshiba made to cut prices of its HD DVD players.

Toshiba HD DVD Players Leading Hardware Pack

Toshiba, despite struggles the HD DVD format has had of late, did quite well in HD DVD player sales last year. The reason for this seems to be its aggressive pricing, which is reflected in more recent price cuts the manufacturer made.

Research firm DisplaySearch recently unveiled a report in which it stated, among other next generation DVD information, that Toshiba "was the leading vendor of standalone devices worldwide during the Q1-Q3’07 period, cumulatively accounting for nearly 64% more standalone units than all Blu-ray brands combined."

Toshiba was also in the top three for cumulative sales of next generation DVD hardware when game console hardware was factored in. It, Microsoft and Sony combined for a 98 percent share of the world's hardware shipments.

Interview Reveals Interesting HD DVD Thoughts

A recent interview published by BetaNews focuses in on thoughts of executive vice president for Universal Studios and co-president of the HD DVD Promotional Group Ken Graffeo about the recent turbulence in the HD DVD camp. It provides HD DVD fans some interesting insights into how things are looking for the disc format.

Graffeo talks openly about how Warner's abrupt move to jump ship impacted the planned flow of the annual HD DVD CES press event, resulting in its cancellation. He also states firmly that Universal continues to back HD DVD, backing up earlier statements, and, perhaps most interestingly, the door is never closed to the possibility of HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc coming together to unify under one standard.

[via High-Def Digest]

Samsung Reveals New Dual Format Player

Samsung is betting not everyone is ready to go one next generation optical disc format over the other yet so it is showing off at CES a new dual format disc player called the BD-UP5500. It is slated to be available sometime in the latter part of the year.

This disc player is noted by Samsung for its ability to support "the latest BD-Java and HD DVD interactivity available." You'll find the BD-UP5500 is HDMI 1.3 compliant, looks pretty sharp and is quite slim (2.3 inches).

Get more details on this dual format playback Samsung player after the jump.

Microsoft Reaffirms HD DVD Love

Toshiba must surely have a headache by this time today. First Warner Brothers announces plans to end HD DVD support. Microsoft next comes along and indicates it might begin offering Blu-ray Disc support. Things smoothed out later however for the HD DVD camp as Microsoft backpedaled on the comments.

A Reuters interview earlier this week quoted a Microsoft marketing manager as saying his company would consider a Blu-ray option for the Xbox 360 if there was consumer demand for it. The company changed its tune quickly though after these comments were published, indicating that "HD DVD remains the only format to deliver quality experiences at affordable prices."

You can hear the sighs of relief right now coming from Japan.

HD DVD Group Puts Out Good News

The HD DVD Promotional Group has been busy this week at CES doing damage control after the abrupt departure of Warner Bros. It has released some new data about the success of the format in 2007.

There are now apparently close to one million dedicated HD DVD players floating around out there in North America now, according to the trade group. It also said that "during the key five week holiday selling period, HD DVD software sales grew at nearly twice the rate of Blu-ray, which was consistent with increased player growth."

Other factoids of note: there are now more than 400 titles available in the US and more than 1,000 titles available worldwide, HD DVD-enabled PCs represent more than 80% of all high definition-capable PCs, HD DVD is supported by 41 studios and 65 distributors worldwide.

Want more HD DVD good news? Check out the full press release after the jump.