Toshiba Resigns from Format War; Blu-ray Wins! (Updated)

Sources close to the situation have alerted Blu-ray.com that Toshiba is expected announce at a press conference to be held at 5pm (local time) in Tokyo, Japan that they have ended their support of the HD DVD format. Toshiba will announce that effective immediately, production of HD DVD hardware, software, and authoring tools will cease, and that sales and support of existing products will end sometime in March. As the main supporters of HD DVD, their resignation effectively ends the format war. Blu-ray has won. Since Warner Brothers' announcement that they would exclusively support the Blu-ray format, rumors have been circulating that HD DVD's lagging sales and loss of studio support would force Toshiba to exit from the high definition format war. The weeks following were riddled with additional studios, retailers, and distributors announcing that they too would support Blu-ray exclusively, concluding with Wal-Mart's announcement last Friday that they would drop support of HD DVD in June. This information should be considered a rumor until Toshiba makes the official announcement, but our sources have always proven accurate. Once the official announcement is released, we will update this post with any additional information. Update: Toshiba has made their announcement. Please see press release linked below. Press release
Source: Blu-ray.com | Permalink	Relevant for:

SouthernBluBelle  » Feb 18, 2008
Woohoo!!!

Elandyll  » Feb 18, 2008
YES !!! 5:00pm Tokyo = 3am Mountain Standard Time US Won't see it live !!

mr peepers  » Feb 18, 2008
score

Monkeytool  » Feb 18, 2008
Niiice

Irishwiseguy2006  » Feb 18, 2008
Sweet music (lossless by the way) to my ears!

Blu Titan  » Feb 18, 2008
Great!!! Had to comment here too ;-)

dtrush  » Feb 18, 2008
Yippety doo da! It's about friggin time:)

cartier  » Feb 18, 2008
Finally it is reported on the Blu-ray main page. This is great news!

NoQuestion  » Feb 18, 2008
Great News....i suspect we will be hearing from paramount/dreamworks and universal either tomorrow or by the end of the week!

Dave J  » Feb 18, 2008
about damn time! Woot!

w_tanoto  » Feb 18, 2008
long live blu-ray. the format that I backed won. HD DVD, you are the weakest link, goodbye. wonder what reds will said after it become official

Blu Titan  » Feb 18, 2008
Hey... how come our avatars are now showing here?

blu-backer  » Feb 18, 2008
It's merely a flesh wound.

ezcobar411  » Feb 18, 2008
Huzza

Blu-Style  » Feb 18, 2008
OMG, could it really be... (^_^) Imagine all the Titels we will get from the former red Studios... NICE! W00T !!!

KretzJ  » Feb 18, 2008
OUTSTANDING!

AlexCruz  » Feb 18, 2008
I don't know what to say. I knew it was coming, but yet I'm in shock? Life feels good right now.

wnicholas76  » Feb 18, 2008
HD-DVD is dead! Long live Blu-ray! And all I have to say is this..."Bring it on, Transformers!!"

common_sense  » Feb 18, 2008
Perfect! Go Blu!

downunder  » Feb 18, 2008
I am so glad that this has finally been decided. As a Blu-ray supporter I do however feel for those who have invested (heavily in some cases) in HD DVD. Let's try and show some respect for them as this time. At least we can all move on now and look forward to quality BD releases from ALL the Hollywood studios. Boy, it's been a helluva ride...

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