Last week, GamerNode reported that industry insiders were pointing towards the resignation of Toshiba’s HD-DVD format from the war with rival Blu-ray. As of yesterday, the surrender has become official.
Toshiba has come to their decision after a Tuesday (Japan time) board meeting, where they discussed the direction of the market and, undoubtedly, their format’s chances for survival in the wild. Said company president and CEO, Atsutoshi Nishida:
"We carefully assessed the long-term impact of continuing the so-called ‘next-generation format war’ and concluded that a swift decision will best help the market develop. While we are disappointed for the company and more importantly, for the consumer, the real mass market opportunity for high definition content remains untapped and Toshiba is both able and determined to use our talent, technology and intellectual property to make digital convergence a reality."
Toshiba will now shift its focus toward other forms of HD technologies and digital media, such as "NAND flash memory, small form factor hard disk drives, next generation CPUs, visual processing, and wireless and encryption technologies." Production and shipment of HD-DVD hardware units is expected to cease by the end of March.
