Tag Archives: HD-DVD

According to this, Sony’s shares rose up to 5 percent on the NYSE this morning on the news that Toshiba has pulled out of the next gen movie disc race.

“We believe Blu-ray’s victory could drive market share gains for the PS3, as we believe consumers will now be more willing to pay up (versus 360) for the standard Blu-ray player,” said William Blair analyst Ralph Shackart.

Sony US shares rose to a session high of $47.07 in early trade on the NYSE before easing to $46.30, up $1.52, or 3.4 percent from the Friday close. On Monday, markets were closed due to the President’s Day holiday.

According to this, this morning’s HD-DVD cancellation is likely to push PS3 sales up 10 percent in the short-term and lay the way clear for a heavy increase in sales this holiday, as predicted by videogaming247.

“Longer term, I think it’s a huge boon for Sony, as most retail clerks will be instructed to push Blu-ray along with sales of HD monitors at holiday, so we should see a large increase in PS3 sales year-over-year at holiday,” said Wedbush Morgan’s Michael Pachter.

Ed Barton and Richard Cooper, from Screen Digest, broadly agree: “With the format war over, and the end of the consumer indecision resulting from it, video consumers are likely to purchase the PS3 as the most cost effective, future proof Blu-ray player,” they said.

“In the longer term lower price, higher specification set-top Blu-ray players will take on the role as best entry level Blu-ray player but not within the next 12 months. This could result in a small but significant rise in the number of PS3s bought over the next 12 months as Blu-ray players.”

Full thing through the link.

As predicted, Toshiba’s confirmed a “discontinuation” of its HD-DVD businesses.

In a statement, the company said:

Toshiba Corporation today announced that it has undertaken a thorough review of its overall strategy for HD DVD and has decided it will no longer develop, manufacture and market HD DVD players and recorders. This decision has been made following recent major changes in the market. Toshiba will continue, however, to provide full product support and after-sales service for all owners of Toshiba HD DVD products.

“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,” said Atsutoshi Nishida, president and CEO of Toshiba Corporation. “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.”

Full statement here.

According to this, Toshiba is about to hold a press conference detailing the fate of HD-DVD, as reported by Nikkei. Don’t blame us if we’ve got the time wrong. It’s 6.30am and there’s no coffee in the house.

As reported yesterday, Toshiba is expected to announce a complete withdrawal from the next gen disc business. Toshiba president Atsutoshi Nishida is to hold the conference.

Please, let it end. According to this, the Nikkei is now reporting that Toshiba president Atsutoshi Nishida will be announcing the final discontinuation of HD DVD tomorrow, as well as halted sales of hardware and media by March. Like, within two weeks.

According to that Engadget report, Toshiba is planning to just pull all HD-DVD-related stock off store shelves and make no compensation to adopters. The announcement is expected to be made alongside another piece of news about semi-conductors, designed to overshadow the fact that Toshiba just binned hundreds of millions of dollars in the disc war against Blu-ray.

Can we talk about games again? Please?

According to this, sales of the 40Gb PS3 SKU have risen 60 percent in Amazon.com since news emerged over the weekend that Toshiba is about to pull out of the next gen disc race.

The rise left the machine “ranked in the No. 10 position in the videogames division,” said the report.

In other HD-DVD comedy news, even the BBC’s in on the act, reporting that, “It looks as though Toshiba has lost this format war.” See the video below.

Microsoft has issued a statement on the impending announcement on the fate of HD-DVD from Toshiba, saying that the company’s withdrawal from the next gen disc space won’t have “any material impact on the Xbox 360 platform or our position in the marketplace” adding that “it is games that sell consoles.”

“We will wait until we hear from Toshiba before announcing any specific plans around the Xbox 360 HD DVD player,” said the statement.

Microsoft’s comment follow a turbulent few days for HD-DVD, with an announcement expected to confirm on Tuesday that Toshiba is to drop the format altogether.

Toshiba has issued a statement saying that the fat lady hasn’t sung quite yet on HD-DVD, despite reports from both NHK and Reuters to the contrary.

“The media reported that Toshiba will discontinue its HD-DVD business,” said a spokesperson. “Toshiba has not made any announcement concerning this. Although Toshiba is currently assessing its business strategies, no decision has been made at this moment.”

Toshiba’s shares are up 6 percent in Japanese trading today, pushed by the news that Toshiba is making a sensible exit from a potentially damaging contest with Blu-ray in the next gen disc space. A final announcement from Toshiba is expected on Tuesday.

While Toshiba is yet to make a formal announcement on the state of its beleaguered HD-DVD format – following weekend reports that the company is to cancel the disc brand completely – US retailers are already slashing Blu-ray disc prices and some have dropped HD-DVD from their President’s Day advertising.

According to this, Circuit City has dropped up to $10 off Blu-ray discs, and is carrying “Step into Hi-Def with Blu-ray” ads with no mention of HD-DVD at all.

Best Buy has now dropped some Blu-ray titles as low as $14.99.

“We still sell HD-DVD’s but we are telling customers that Blu-ray won,” a New York Best Buy sales assistant told Reuters.

According to this, a final decision on the fate of HD-DVD may come from Toshiba as soon as Tuesday.

“A company official, speaking on condition of anonymity as she is not authorized to speak on the matter, said a board meeting could be held as soon as Tuesday, where a decision is likely,” said the AP report.

The news comes after NHK first published a piece saying Toshiba was the drop the ailing format, which was that backed up by a Reuters piece on Saturday. Engadget then posted this this morning, saying a final announcement is expected from Toshiba in the coming days.

Hindsight’s a beautiful thing. We all said CES was terrible for gaming this year, and we were right in part. Microsoft decided to stay away, not even showing Xbox 360 on its stand, and PS3 was virtually non-existent. One of the big stories of the show, however is likely to have a huge impact on how this console generation plays out, even if most of us didn’t realise it at the time: just before the Las Vegas expo, Warner Bros. dropped HD-DVD.

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Surely this means the end? Wal-Mart is to completely drop HD-DVD players and movies by June. You can’t get much more final than that. The company officially announced its intentions today, saying, “By June Wal-Mart will only be carrying Blu-ray movies and hardware machines, and of course standard-def movies, DVD players, and up-convert players.”

If HD-DVD manages to survive after this, we’ll eat our hats. And we don’t have hats, so that tells you how final this is.

Another nail for HD-DVD’s already groaning coffin arrives in news that major UK high street retailer Woolworths has dropped the format following slow Christmas sales. Blu-ray will be the only HD disc format now stocked in the store.

“Sales figures clearly show that the market is moving towards one format of high definition DVD,” said Woolworths DVD buyer Steven McGunigel. “The main reason is the success of Sony’s PlayStation 3 machine. Because it plays Blu-Ray discs, there are over three quarters of a million homes in the UK that can view the new high definition format. There is nowhere near that number of HD-DVD players around. Switching to Blu-Ray only will provide one clear offer to customers in the format they want to watch high definition movies in.”