HD-DVD Is Officially Dead!

[Wizxon]

Finally, this long tiresome Blu-Ray Vs. HD-DVD format war is over.



While the news was already technically broken on Saturday by NHK, Toshiba has today held a press conference to tell the world that HD-DVD is being dropped. Toshiba will no longer develop, manufacture or market HD-DVD, bringing the shipping of hardware to retailers to a gradual halt by the end of March. The format war ends today with the much-signposted victory for Blu-Ray. This is obviously great news for PS3 owners (as well as would-be PS3 owners who were sitting on the fence about Blu-Ray).

We suspect we'll hear from Universal and Paramount before too long regarding their schedule for Blu-Ray releases. Finally we can expect to see films like Serenity and TV shows like Heroes on our favourite Hi-Def medium. Obviously, we'll keep you up to date with any announcements these studios make. The "war" is finally, officially, over. How does that make you feel?The Financial Times is reporting today that Stan Glasgow, President of Sony Electronics, has stated that there have been discussions with Microsoft to incorporate a Blu-ray drive into the Xbox 360. After the [Only registered and activated users can see links. ] Microsoft announced that they would be discontinuing the HD-DVD add-on, leading on to discussions between Microsoft and Sony regarding the possibilities of a Blu-ray add-on, or even a fully integrated drive for future SKUs. The result of this would be an increased price point for the Xbox 360, along with a portion of all hardware revenue going to Sony. Yes, that means Sony would be making money off of every 360 and PS3 sold.

Of course, Microsoft are being coy about this entire thing, stating that they have "made no such announcement. Games are what are driving consumers to purchase game consoles and we remain focused on providing the largest library of blockbuster games available." Nothing new there, then. Nothing's confirmed yet, but we're intrigued to see where (if anywhere) these talks will lead.

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