The End is Near
By Scott Wilkinson February 16, 2008 — According to a report today from NHK, Japan's public broadcaster, Toshiba has decided to stop production of HD DVD players. The company said it would continue to sell its current products, but there will be no further development, and its related factories in Aomori Prefecture in northern Japan will be closed. Market analysts expect the company to lose hundreds of millions of dollars.

There has been no official announcement in the US as yet, though it must be imminent. This seems inevitable in the face of last week's news, including Wal-Mart's decision to stock only Blu-ray products and the announcements by Netflix to rent only Blu-ray titles and Best Buy to promote Blu-ray over HD DVD.

This is big news for anyone who has been waiting on the sidelines for a clear winner to emerge from the format war. Now, hopefully, high-def discs can begin to improve their 1% share in the video packaged-media market. Still, I mourn the demise of HD DVD, which was much more stable than Blu-ray when it launched and remains so to this day, and the players are much less expensive. But the market has spoken, and I'm glad to have the silly format war finally behind us.