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Toshiba quits HD DVD business

TOKYO: Toshiba said on Tuesday it would no longer develop, make or market HD DVD players and recorders, handing a victory to rival Blu-ray disc technology in a protracted format battle for next-generation video.

“We concluded that a swift decision would be best,” Toshiba president Atsutoshi Nishida told reporters here.

The move will make Blu-ray — backed by Sony, Matsushita which makes Panasonic brand products, and five major Hollywood movie studios — the winner in the battle over high-definition DVD formating .

Mr. Nishida said last month’s decision by Warner Brothers Entertainment to release movie disks only in the Blu-ray format made the move inevitable. But he said his company had confidence in HD DVD as a technology.

“That had tremendous impact,” he said. “If we had continued, that would have created problems for consumers, and we simply had no chance to win.”

Mr. Nishida tried to reassure the estimated million people in the world who have already bought HD DVD machines by promising that the company would provide continued product support for HD DVD.

He said it was still uncertain what would happen with the Hollywood studios that had signed to produce HD DVD movies.

Toshiba’s pulling the plug on the technology is expected to reduce the number of new high-definition movies that people will be able to watch on HD DVD machines. — AP

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