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| james@rock |
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moderator
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| Joined: 01 Aug 2007 |
| Posts: 98 |
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Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2008 9:41 am |
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| Post subject: Toshiba Announces Discontinuation of HD DVD Businesses |
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Quote:
February 19, 2008
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.
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Due to popular demand from customers and the announcement from Toshiba, a DVDRW 'downgrade' option will be available from today onwards. Existing customers will be able to contact our sales department to alter their configuration.
HD-DVD and HD-DVD-R will still be available and the addition of BluRay and BluRay writable options will be added in due course. |
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_________________
James Dean, PR & Marketing Manager |
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| coolant8 |
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rubble
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| Joined: 09 Jun 2007 |
| Posts: 113 |
| Location: Perthshire |
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Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2008 10:19 am |
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Well, any plans on being the first company to offer blu-ray as standard?  |
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_________________
Old Dell M90 for now, T7400,2GB RAM, 1920x1200, Quadro FX2500
*Crimson Red XPS M1730 Owner , T9300, 4GB, 400GB, SLI 8800GTX, WUXGA* |
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| leep |
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gravel
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| Joined: 08 Dec 2007 |
| Posts: 52 |
| Location: Halesowen |
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Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2008 10:55 am |
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| Will it mean a reduction in the base price of the range? |
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| jsymes |
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stone
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| Joined: 29 Mar 2006 |
| Posts: 1260 |
| Location: Barnstaple, Devon @ Home, UWE Bristol @ Uni |
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Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2008 11:32 am |
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| good to hear that you have adapted to the news straight away. Good job! |
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| sbc |
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rubble
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| Joined: 14 Jun 2005 |
| Posts: 185 |
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Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2008 11:44 am |
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| Blu-Ray would add quite a bit to the cost, especially since the cheapest Blu-Ray player (i.e. the PS3) is over twice the cost of the cheapest HD-DVD one was. HD-DVD was more consumer friendly (no regions and cheaper), but perhaps Sony just has deeper pockets and better marketing than Toshiba. |
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_________________
XTreme XT 3.2GHz
60GB 7200 Hard drive
1GB RAM
256MB ATI Radeon X800
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| BrunMr0tuns |
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Diamond
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| Joined: 07 Nov 2006 |
| Posts: 4834 |
| Location: Brewood |
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Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2008 1:32 pm |
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leep wrote:
Will it mean a reduction in the base price of the range?
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As far as i'm aware, and as i've mentioned about 50 times thus far, Rock shipped all HD-DVD machines with the drives at no extra charge compared to the normal DVD-RW price.
jsymes wrote:
good to hear that you have adapted to the news straight away. Good job!
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Knowing Rock as we do, you really think they haven't been talking about it before this Toshiba issue? People haven't shut up about Blu-ray for months, Rock won't have ignored that. |
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_________________
I aim to misbehave.
Demoted: Rock Peg665 T72 |
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| jsymes |
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stone
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| Joined: 29 Mar 2006 |
| Posts: 1260 |
| Location: Barnstaple, Devon @ Home, UWE Bristol @ Uni |
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Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2008 1:49 pm |
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BrunMr0tuns wrote:
Knowing Rock as we do, you really think they haven't been talking about it before this Toshiba issue? People haven't shut up about Blu-ray for months, Rock won't have ignored that.
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i have no doubt that they were planning for it, but i should imagine that they were waiting for the signal to say that HDDVD had deff lost, otherwise they would not have been ready to announce this so soon after the announcement. |
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| Soup2 |
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pebble
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| Joined: 26 Jan 2007 |
| Posts: 947 |
| Location: London, England |
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Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2008 5:03 pm |
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sbc wrote:
Blu-Ray would add quite a bit to the cost, especially since the cheapest Blu-Ray player (i.e. the PS3) is over twice the cost of the cheapest HD-DVD one was. HD-DVD was more consumer friendly (no regions and cheaper), but perhaps Sony just has deeper pockets and better marketing than Toshiba.
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Blu-ray drives can be had for around US$80 online for a single unit so the cost of buying in bulk is going to be less.
Sony represent about 8% of interest in Blu-ray - Pioneer have a bigger stake in Blu-ray than Sony.
So to clarify, Bu-ray isn't Sony and Sony isn't Blu-ray. You have swallowed all the FUD that Toshiba have shovelled out, you do not get to pass Go! and do not collect $200.
Soup |
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| Soup2 |
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pebble
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| Joined: 26 Jan 2007 |
| Posts: 947 |
| Location: London, England |
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Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2008 5:19 pm |
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BrunMr0tuns wrote:
Knowing Rock as we do, you really think they haven't been talking about it before this Toshiba issue? People haven't shut up about Blu-ray for months, Rock won't have ignored that.
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I suspect - and I doubt Rock will be in a position to clarify, but it would be great if they could - was Rock accepted one of the HD-DVD Promotion Group's offers to underwrite the cost of HD-DVD drives (so Toshiba effectively supply the drives at DVD drive costs or even free) and were able to offer HD-DVD at no extra cost or even cheaper (if they got them free) to consumers but with Rock bound by format exclusivity - so no offering Blu-ray at any cost.
The HD-DVD Promotion Group were reported on making such offers to vendors and there's nothing wrong with it, it's just business.
Soup |
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Last edited by Soup2 on Tue Feb 19, 2008 9:39 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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| PhilHibbs |
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rubble
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| Joined: 01 Nov 2004 |
| Posts: 186 |
| Location: Birmingham |
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Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2008 5:46 pm |
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Soup2 wrote:
The HD-DVD Promotion Group were reported on making such offers to vendors and there's nothing wrong with it, it's just business.
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Yeah, I don't blame Rock for throwing their lot in with one side. It probably makes the build and config process a little simpler, no need to worry about which drivers to load. I think I would be inclined to go for the down-grade, as it's likely that the power draw on a HD-DVD drive would be higher than on a plain old DVD. Anyone know better? |
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_________________
Phil Hibbs.
Blue Rock Xtreme 3.0GHz 1GB RAM 60GB+80GB 7200RPM HDD DVD+-RW |
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