Toshiba (News - Alert) Corporation announced its decision to stop developing, manufacturing and marketing HD DVD players and recorders. This decision was taken following recent major changes in the market and a careful review of its overall strategy for HD DVD.

 

After this decision, the company has assured that it will continue to provide full product support and after-sales service for all owners of Toshiba HD DVD products, which has given much of a relief for the users.

 

HD DVDs were mainly developed to offer consumers high-quality, high definition content at affordable prices and prepare them for the digital convergence of consumer electronics and IT.

 

“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’s decision to stop production of HD DVDs will not effect on Toshiba’s commitment to producing standard DVDs. The company will continue to market conventional DVD players and recorders. The company aims to continue to contribute to the development of the DVD industry as a member of the DVD Forum.

 

DVD Forum is an international organization with approximately 200 member companies who are committed to defining of optimum optical disc formats for the consumer and the related industries.

 

Toshiba also continues to maintain collaborative relations with the companies who joined with Toshiba while developing HD DVDs, including, Universal Studios, Paramount Pictures (News - Alert), and DreamWorks Animation, as well as major Japanese and European content providers on the entertainment side, as well as companies in the IT industry, including Microsoft (News - Alert), Intel, and HP.

 

Toshiba will now study possible collaborations with those companies for future business opportunities for utilizing many assets which were generated when developing HD DVDs.

 

Toshiba will start to reduce shipments of HD DVD players and recorders to retail channels, aiming for cessation of businesses. It will also end volume production of HD DVD disk drives for applications such as PCs and games.

 

Toshiba will continue to assess the position of notebook PCs with integrated HD DVD drives within the overall PC business according to the future market demand. It will also continue to lead innovation in a wide range of technologies that will drive mass market access to high definition content, which include high capacity NAND flash memory, small form factor hard disk drives, next generation CPUs, visual processing, and wireless and encryption technologies.