The cookie appears to have disintegrated. Toshiba, the creators of HD-DVD, are pulling out of the high definition format war to leave the road fully open for the competing Blu-ray format, as reported by broadcaster NHK this morning.

Toshiba Corp. has been struggling with its format around the world, with support for Blu-ray spreading considerably in the United States. Blu-ray’s creators Sony, Panasonic and Hitachi made considerable ground in gaining the majority support of the Hollywood movie studios when Warner Bros. decided to exclusively support the format in January.

Further blows came from Wal-Mart announcing that they would abandon the format, adding to the already negative position Toshiba had found themselves in.

The Japanese broadcaster NHK reports that the company will continue to sell HD-DVD for a short time before finally stopping any further development. Meanwhile, Toshiba has said that its HD-DVD factories in Aomori Prefecture, northern Japan, will be closed.

The company is predicted to lose millions of dollars from the failed format, which won’t have the kind of back-up plan that Sony’s Betamax format found in the 1980’s when it was taken up by television broadcasters.

Toshiba has yet to make an official comment, but we will keep you posted on any further developments.

Tags: betamax_format, blu_ray, broadcaster, hd_dvd, high_definition, hitachi, hollywood_movie_studios, toshiba_corp, wal_mart_stores, warner_bros

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1 Comment » DavidGX on February 16, 2008 12:11 pm I guess it had to happen eventually. At least now maybe microsoft can start planning the specs of the blu-ray drive in the Xbox 3/720/whatever o_O RSS feed for comments on this post. Comment Now Note: Commenting on Ripten does not currently require registration, however to be eligible for contests on the site, you must be a registered user. Name (required) Mail (will not be published) (required) Website Commenting Rules: No hate speech allowed. If you must argue, please debate intelligently. Comments containing selected keywords or outbound links will be put into moderation to help prevent spam. Ripten reserves the right to delete comments and ban anyone who doesn't follow the rules. Thanks. Notify me of followup comments Tired of the Goomba? Upload your own custom comment avatar.