Paramount en Universal – de enige twee filmstudio’s die exclusief hd dvd ondersteunen – zullen onmiddellijk ‘vrij zijn van alle verplichtingen’ als Toshiba deze week het formaat laat vallen. Dat citeert althans de Wall Street Journal van een persoon die ‘bekend is met de situatie’.
Warner Bros, dat op de dag voor de CES heeft aangekondigd om in mei te stoppen met de productie van hd dvd’s, zou ook geen verplichtingen meer hebben richting het hd dvd consortium. En dat zou betekenen dat alle drie op korte termijn blu-ray versies van de al bestaande hd dvd titels zou kunnen gaan uitbrengen.
Er gaan al geruchten dat er inmiddels blu-ray titels zijn van films die tot voor kort alleen op op hd dvd verkrijgbaar. EngadgetHD heeft zelfs al Transformers op blu-ray gezien. Dit zou wel de ultieme overwinning zijn voor regisseur Michael Bay, die de beslissing van ‘zijn’ Paramount om exclusief voor hd dvd te gaan altijd heeft bekritiseerd.
Het is mij nog niet duidelijk hoe het zit met 150 miljoen dollar die Paramount/Dreamworks voor deze exclusiviteit hebben gekregen. Een gedeelte van dit bedrag is in de vorm van promotie beloofd, dus dat vervalt sowieso.
Dennis Mutsaers zegt
Toshiba Announces Discontinuation of HD DVD Businesses
Company Remains Focused on Championing Consumer Access to High Definition Content
Tokyo—Toshiba Corporation today announced that it has undertaken a thorough review of its overall strategy for HD DVD and has decided it will no longer develop, manufacture and market HD DVD players and recorders. This decision has been made following recent major changes in the market. Toshiba will continue, however, to provide full product support and after-sales service for all owners of Toshiba HD DVD products.
HD DVD was developed to offer consumers access at an affordable price to high-quality, high definition content and prepare them for the digital convergence of tomorrow where the fusion of consumer electronics and IT will continue to progress.
“We carefully assessed the long-term impact of continuing the so-called ‘next-generation format war’ and concluded that a swift decision will best help the market develop,” said Atsutoshi Nishida, President and CEO of Toshiba Corporation. “While we are disappointed for the company and more importantly, for the consumer, the real mass market opportunity for high definition content remains untapped and Toshiba is both able and determined to use our talent, technology and intellectual property to make digital convergence a reality.”
Toshiba will continue to lead innovation, in a wide range of technologies that will drive mass market access to high definition content. These include high capacity NAND flash memory, small form factor hard disk drives, next generation CPUs, visual processing, and wireless and encryption technologies. The company expects to make forthcoming announcements around strategic progress in these convergence technologies.
Toshiba will begin to reduce shipments of HD DVD players and recorders to retail channels, aiming for cessation of these businesses by the end of March 2008. Toshiba also plans to end volume production of HD DVD disk drives for such applications as PCs and games in the same timeframe, yet will continue to make efforts to meet customer requirements. The company will continue to assess the position of notebook PCs with integrated HD DVD drives within the overall PC business relative to future market demand.
This decision will not impact on Toshiba’s commitment to standard DVD, and the company will continue to market conventional DVD players and recorders. Toshiba intends to continue to contribute to the development of the DVD industry, as a member of the DVD Forum, an international organization with some 200 member companies, committed to the discussion and defining of optimum optical disc formats for the consumer and the related industries.
Toshiba also intends to maintain collaborative relations with the companies who joined with Toshiba in working to build up the HD DVD market, including Universal Studios, Paramount Pictures, and DreamWorks Animation and major Japanese and European content providers on the entertainment side, as well as leaders in the IT industry, including Microsoft, Intel, and HP. Toshiba will study possible collaboration with these companies for future business opportunities, utilizing the many assets generated through the development of HD DVD.