Reports are surfacing that Toshiba backed HD-DVD will throw in the white towel following a string of setbacks that have unfolded in 2008.
Back in December I predicted that sagging HD DVD sales would help the biggest studio, Warner Brothers, switch becoming a Blu Ray Exclusive studio.
A month later Warner Brothers did make the switch, tilting the playing field heavily in Blu Ray’s favor.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=ywWfmRdOmJ0
In the following month corporate America opted to accelerate the death of HD DVD hoping to end the next gen format war.
In Late January , Woolworths, the biggest distributor of UK electronics decided to exclusively back Blu Ray with Best Buy and Netflix making similar commitments in the following weeks.
I had planned to write up something on the eminent demise this weekend only to find out that Wal Mart, the biggest domestic seller movies and players had also joined the Blu Ray party.
With the onslaught of setbacks, Toshiba will allegedly throw in the white towel early next week. Its been a fun, intriguing, and hard fought battle between Sony and Toshiba. Its been intriguing to see the corporate game of chess played with Fortune 500 companies filling up the board as all the major studios (Fox, Disney, Warner Brothers, Paramount, Unviersal), retailers (Target, Blockbuster, Wal Mart, Best Buy, Netflix), and hardware makers (Apple, HP, Microsoft, Samsung).
