HD DVD Supporters Lay Down Their Discs

The war for high-definition DVD supremacy is over; Blu-ray has won

Toshiba has given up on its HD DVD format for high definition DVDs, conceding defeat to the competing Blu-ray technology backed by Sony.

With a rash of recent announcements by movie studios and DVD suppliers like NetFlix and Wal-Mart that they would releases titles on Blu-ray exclusively, the move appeared only a matter of time. Microsoft also hastened the end when it said in January that it would support Blu-ray technology for its Xbox 360 video game console (which currently only works with HD DVD).

The move effectively puts an end to a fierce format war—much like the 1980s Betamax-VHS battle — that has raged on for several years between consortiums led by Toshiba and Sony, who were looking to establish their respective formats as the standard for next-generation DVD releases and compatible video equipment.

The format war led to consumer confusion and thus poor sales of the requisite players, which some had predicted to be (and still do) a multibillion-dollar high-definition DVD industry. Hollywood studios had initially split their alliances between the two camps, with only certain titles playing on specific DVD machine.

Industry reports said Toshiba, which led the HD DVD consortium and invested heavily in the format, would lose hundreds of millions of dollars in deciding to give up the fight.

Sony has spent large sums of money to promote Blu-ray and its flat-screen TVs, and its PlayStation 3 game console plays Blu-ray movies (and standard-definition DVDs) exclusively.

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