In a rather surprising move, Toshiba Corporation, the architect of the HD-DVD format, has announced that it's conceding defeat to Sony Corporation, makers of Blu-Ray:
TOKYO (Reuters) - Toshiba Corp is planning to give up on its HD DVD format for high definition DVDs, conceding defeat to the competing Blu-Ray technology backed by Sony Corp, a company source said on Saturday.
The move will likely put an end to a battle that has gone on for several years between consortiums led by Toshiba and Sony vying to set the standard for the next-generation DVD and compatible video equipment.
The format war, often compared to the Betamax-VHS battle in the 1980s, has confused consumers unsure of which DVD or player to buy, slowing the development what is expected to be a multibillion dollar high definition DVD industry.
As a consumer, I have some thoughts on this:
The superior (albeit more expensive) technology won, for once. During the last battle, Sony's Betamax lost to JVC's VHS, even though it was superior in picture and sound quality. The reason was due to Sony's lack of support from other manufacturers: JVC gambled and made licensing VHS easier to other manufacturers, so VHS became the defacto standard because it was more readily available, and cheaper.
Sony apparently took heed of the lesson this time, and began pushing hard for Blu-Ray's acceptance early on, garnering support from several movie studios and bundling Blu-Ray disc players into its popular Playstation 3 game consoles.
It also seemed as though Toshiba saw the writing on the wall earlier than most observers would have guessed. But after Best Buy, Warner Brothers and finally Wal-Mart decided to opt for Blu-Ray, they decided to pull the plug now and avoid further profit hemorrhaging. Perhaps this was due to the uncertain state of today's economy, perhaps it was simply pragmatism. Whatever it was, Toshiba conceded, and Sony has the market to themselves now.
Furthermore, Sony succeeded even though Microsoft lent its support to HD-DVD. Their competing XBox 360 console made HD-DVD an optional, not a standard, accessory. As a result, HD-DVD wasn't able to penetrate the gaming market as easily as Blu-Ray did. And then even Microsoft reconsidered its early support of HD-DVD:
The exclusive backing of Microsoft Corp was also put in doubt when the software giant said in January that it could consider supporting Blu-ray technology for its Xbox 360 video game machine, which currently works only with HD DVD.
Finally, Sony won even thought the biggest player in the last format war, the porn industry, wavered in its support and started to lean towards HD-DVD.
So what does it all mean for us? Well, the war is over, so everyone can buy Blu-Ray players with confidence that it's going to be the industry standard.
But given that the USS Capitalist is sinking faster than Lindsay Lohan's press value, and in this time when ordinary people are forced to choose between buying medicine for their sick kids or paying the rent on their overvalued, overpriced sub-prime mortgage house....
Well, I'll let you all decide what to do with your $600 rebates... in the meantime I'll be putting that money away in a short term CD and hope I don't get sick.