Toshiba announced on Tuesday it will no longer develop, manufacture and market HD DVD players and recorders.

“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,” Toshiba President and Chief executive Atsutoshi Nishida said in a news release.

Nishida said the decision by Warner Bros. to release movies only in the Blu-ray format made the move inevitable. “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.”

There’s been no official comment from Universal Studios, Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks Animation, the major Hollywood studios that were producing HD DVD movies.

Toshiba says it will reduce shipments of HD DVD players and recorders to retailers, and stop altogether by the end of March. Production of HD DVD disk drives for PCs and games will meet the same timeframe.

Experts predict the decision to pull out will save Toshiba approximately $400 million a year.
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Toshiba Officially Drops HD DVD, to End Shipments in March
Format war ends: how it all happened.

Toshiba has officially discontinued production of HD DVD players, confirming the rumors and reports of the format’s demise since late last week.

The company held a press conference held in Japan this morning, announcing that it will aim to stop shipping HD DVD products by the end of March 2008.

“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, Toshiba president and CEO.

“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.”

According to Engadget, Toshiba has “no plans” to adopt Blu-ray, only supporting SD DVD for now.

With the format war officially over, Paramount and Universal—the only two major studios still supporting HD DVD—have been freed from their contracts, according to a Wall Street Journal report, as has Warner Bros., which was committed to the format until May.

A number of custom-friendly manufacturers, including Kaleidescape and Niveus, have recently joined the Blu-ray camp.

The format war hasn’t been easy on integrators, with some choosing one route or the other, hybrid players, or even high-end upconverting DVD systems. Custom shops felt the pain too, expressing hesitance in recommending either format.

But how things have changed. Just four months ago, Sony CEO Howard Stringer was calling the format war a “stalemate” after Paramount and Dreamworks were wooed to HD DVD exclusivity.

Big-box deals and manufacturer incentives couldn’t stop the impact of Warner Bros.’ decision to back Blu-ray exclusively.

With Netflix, Best Buy and Wal-Mart all supporting Blu-ray, rumors swirled of Toshiba’s impending decision to drop HD DVD.

The company says it will still support the products even after it stops manufacturing them, and is still determining its position on HD DVD laptops.

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