Howard Stringer, Sony’s Chariman, looking smug in a marbled labyrinth. Following the report of Toshiba officially pulling the plug on HD-DVD, Sony’s shares rose as much as 5% throughout the day.

With the proposed demise of HD-DVD, the Xbox 360′s add-on is in a worrying place. Ignoring a high-definition disc format all together and concentrating on downloadable HD content might be the most preferable direction for Microsoft, but Smart House reports that a Blu-ray add-on could already be on the way.

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.

Multiple sku’s, what can we lose? This appears to be the motto of Microsoft and Sony this generation. With rumours that Microsoft are once again going to change things up with an “Ultimate” console to further compete with Sony, this would both confuse consumers, and dig themselves a mighty HD-DVD hole.

It will even cook your breakfast! If the people over at Stuff.tv are to be believed (and why wouldn’t they be?), Microsoft is planning on beating themselves in the next-gen console war with the introduction of the Xbox 360 Ultimate.