The Winner is …

Reports have been swarming since Friday but today Toshiba officially announced that it would no longer develop, make or market high-definition HD DVD players and recorders. The withdrawal of Toshiba all but ends the high-definition format war that has been waged over the last few years between Toshiba’s HD DVD and Sony’s Blu-ray Disc. Several developments undoubtedly led to this decision but from what I can tell the beginning of the end was last month’s decision by Warner Brothers to drop support for HD DVD and to release future titles in the Blu-ray format only.

On February 11th two more nails were driven into HD DVD’s coffin when the online rental company Netflix announced that it would drop support for HD DVD and would begin to purchase HD titles in Blu-ray only. Best Buy announced on the 11th as well that it would begin to promote Blu-ray as its format of choice in stores by March of 08′. A mere four days later on February 15th the coffin was nailed shut when Wal-Mart announced it would drop HD DVD and would only sell movies, players and recorders in the Blu-ray format. Three days later Toshiba conceded defeat in the DVD format war.

Who cares? …

Anyone who has invested the $300.00-$400.00 or in my case $600.00 dollars per system at launch on the Playstation 3 should be more then pleased with today’s news. While downloads may be the future Blu-ray at present has a clear playing field with unlimited potential. Sure it costs a little more but in my case as a gamer I don’t care. The more companies and developers that pick up support for the format the more titles we’ll get and the happier I’ll be.

The interesting part of this whole mess is yet to come however when Microsoft tries to obtain a license to make an external Blu-ray player for the XBOX 360 as it had previously supported HD DVD. It will be odd to see Microsoft on the other end of a class action lawsuit. The plaintiff instead of the defendant …HA.

All I know is my 60GB PS3s are starting to look better and better everyday. Anyone who thinks that downloadable content will kill recorded media in the near future is undoubtedly misinformed. Someday downloadable content may very well dethrone the disc but I doubt it will happen in my lifetime. In your kids lifetime perhaps but not today and certainly not tomorrow. In other words go buy yourself an HD television and a Blu-ray player. Step out of the Stone Age and join the rest of us in the HD revolution. The winner …Sony and Blu-ray!