Ding dong, the HD DVD witch is dead!
We reported on Friday that Death was waiting at the door of Toshiba’s headquarters, on stand-by to claim the soul of its high definition optical disc format (
http://newsletter.itpro.co.uk/c/17LZNzrapFwZJeJ1).
It seems that Death won’t have to hang around the lobby for much longer (
http://newsletter.itpro.co.uk/c/17M00uZYwKkQ58Jq), as the end is clearly in sight for HD DVD, and victory is all but assured for Sony and its Blu ray format.
Yes – believe it – Sony has finally won a format battle! It had to happen one day, and having lost out with both Betamax and Mini Disc, the company was overdue for a win.
As for Toshiba – all is not lost. The market has responded favourably to the prospect of HD DVD being killed-off, a prospect that has boosted Toshiba’s share price by more than five per cent, the market reassured that the company will not throw any more good money after bad.
It is a shame, as HD DVD had many redeeming qualities, least of all the fact that it was a cheaper platform to manufacture and duplicate. Unfortunately for Toshiba, a format war of this kind is a far more complex battle than it was in the VHS/Betamax days. Simply getting the movie studios on-board wasn’t enough, as both platforms all have applications in data storage, games, music and TV.
Ultimately, the installed user community of Sony’s Blu ray-based PlayStation 3, and potential future sales, coupled with the backing of Sony’s own content businesses, non video content partners such as games developers and music labels, subsidised hardware, not to mention broad Hollywood support was just too much for The HD DVD camp to compete with. Support from Microsoft with its excellent, but less popular Xbox 360, some corners of the adult entertainment industry (a group which famously swung the video tape war in favour of the cheaper to duplicate VHS) and a dwindling number of second tier studios held in place by financial incentives wasn’t enough to win over the public, let alone business customers looking for a high capacity optical storage format.
So, it looks like we will all be fitting Blu ray burners to our computers and servers going forward. At least we now know…