February 18th, 2008
Reuters Reports that Toshiba to Give Up on HD DVD — Ending the Format War
A company source within Toshiba told Reuters that Toshiba was in the final stages of planning to exit the HD DVD business and that an official decision would be made soon. Given all the hype surrounding the format war between HD and Blue Ray, I’ll bet that most people already assumed there was an official announcement. We’ll file this under the category of, “Sorry to see you lose hundreds of millions, Toshiba.”
All that said, I guess it’s about time for Sony to have a win in the format war. Let’s recap the list of proprietary losers in the companies past:
- Betamax — Beat by VHS
- MiniDisc — Never had a chance
- ATRAC Audio Format — Beat by MP3
- SDDS (Sony Dynamic Digital Sound) — Beat by Dolby Digital 5.1
- Memory Stick — Beat SD cards
- Super Audio CD — Beat by good old fashioned CDs
- Universal Media Disc for movies — LOL
- 1GB Hi-MD discs — Have you even heard of these?
- 125 MB Magneto-optical discs — Again, have you even heard of these?
It’s a real shame but a costly warning, never try and change the wheel.