Concedes defeat to Sony in long-running DVD format war.
Sony execs have to be bursting with joy today over news that Toshiba has decided to discontinue sales and marketing of HD DVD players. Accordingly, Toshiba will begin to cease shipments of its HD DVD products to retail channels.
Toshiba America Consumer Products, L.L.C. (”Toshiba”) made the decision after completing a thorough review of its overall strategy for HD DVD and as a result of recent market developments, namely Warner Bros. having chosen to release movie discs only in Sony’s competing Blu-ray format. For this then meant it along with Sony Pictures, Walt Disney Co. and News Corp.’s Twentieth Century Fox had all chosen Blu-ray instead.
“That had tremendous impact,” said Toshiba Corp. President Atsutoshi Nishida. “If we had continued, that would have created problems for consumers, and we simply had no chance to win.”
“While we continue to believe HD DVD is the best format for consumers, based on its technological advancements and the value and quality inherent in our player offerings, recent market developments have led us to the decision to choose new and different paths,” said Yoshi Uchiyama, Group Vice President of Toshiba’s Digital A/V Marketing Group.
The whole affair revisited the VHS/Betamax wars of the 1980s in which Sony was soundly defeated by the more popular VHS video format. It took Sony 10 years to concede defeat in that case and discontinue Betamax products. It seems that Toshiba decided to learn from that ill decision and make the painful choice to pull the plug on HD DVD sooner rather than later.
“We concluded that a swift decision would be best,” Nishida said.
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