Format Wars

The high definition disc format wars will be over soon after Toshiba, the main backer of HD DVD, is reportedly preparing to fall on its sword.

The move would mean consumers won't have to worry about choosing a format that could eventually become obsolete, but the reduced competition could eliminate the drive to keep prices low. Sound familiar? Look to the Betamax-VHS battle of the 1980s.

A Toshiba source confirmed earlier reports that the company was planning to concede defeat as early as this month. It follows a series of defections to the Blu-ray camp by major US retailers, which came on the back of already disappointing sales and movie studio support for HD DVD. Wal-Mart, Best Buy and Netflix recently announced they would cut their support for HD DVD and exclusively stock Blu-ray discs. The decision by the retailers came closely behind January's announcement by Warner Bros that it would drop HD DVD to focus solely on Blu-ray. Paramount and Universal are now the only major studios still supporting HD DVD.

Earlier this month Microsoft cut the price of its HD DVD player add-on for the Xbox 360 to $129.95, while in January Toshiba cut the prices of three of its players by up to 50%. Blu-ray accounted for 81 per cent of all high definition player sales in December last year. This was consistent with sales results throughout the year, but that figure doesn't include Playstation 3, which has a built in Blu-ray player and accounts for 95% of all high-definition players sold to date.

Last year, 83% of high-definition movies sold were in the Blu-ray format.