The battle over the next generation of DVD players appears to be over. At this point, it looks like Blu-Ray has won. The nail in the coffin is the fact Wal-Mart will ditch sales of HD DVD discs and players.
The world’s largest retailer said Friday it will exclusively sell discs in the Blu-Ray format. Wal-Mart joins Best Buy and Netflix in the decision. The move will be complete by June.
Now news out just this morning from a Reuters source said Toshiba is planning to throw the towel in on its HD DVD format. The Japanese public broadcaster NHK said the move will cost Toshiba millions of dollars to dump the technology.
Here’s my take on this long going battle. First, let me say, I bought one of the HD DVD players. The picture is stunning. If you take a look at the graphic put together by USA Today, you’ll see with the exception of the disc storage. Toshiba was clearly ahead in the development of their technology.
Sony put the Blu-Ray technology in their PlayStations and helped their cause in this war along by getting the gamers onboard with their format. It clearly is the better format because of the storage.
The problem is the players are so much more expensive than the HD-DVD players and aren’t as functional as the HD DVD. I’m glad the battle is finally over so we can get on with the new technology and there isn’t any more debate on the matter.
