The war is by. The nearly three-year clash within the two competing high-definition DVD formats, Blu-ray and HD DVD, concluded Tuesday with Toshiba’s announcement that it is dropping its HD DVD format.

Tokyo-based Toshiba said that after “a thorough review of its overall strategy,” it has decided it will “no longer develop, manufacture and market HD DVD players and recorders.” Shipments of players and recorders to retail channels will be reduced, with a goal of stopping them completely by the end of March.

The company will, however, continue to supply support and after-sales service for Toshiba HD products for an unspecified amount of date. It plus said it will continue to assess whether market demand exists for HD DVD drives in notebooks.

Not ‘A Big Surprise’

President and CEO Atsutoshi Nishida said Toshiba had “assessed the long-term impact of
continuing the next-generation format war” and decided that “a swift decision will best help the market develop.”

He added that the opportunity for high-definition composition remains, and the company said it will continue to develop other technologies that can drive high-def use. These include high-capacity NAND flash memory, small-form-factor hard drives, next-generation CPUs, and wireless and encryption technologies.

The announcement “wasn’t a big surprise,” said Gartner analyst Van Baker, given the “serious case of piling on” recently against the HD DVD format. The “real killer,” he said, was Wal-Mart’s decision Friday to back Blu-ray exclusively. On the same day, a report in the Hollywood Reporter quoted “reliable industry sources” as saying that Toshiba would abandon the format within a few weeks.

From poor to Worse

Other news last week went from poor to worse for the HD DVD camp. Major retailer Best Buy said it was “addressing consumer confusion” and would be “prominently showcasing Blu-ray” as its preferred format, beginning in March.

Online movie renter NetFlix additionally…

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