Toshiba Turns Off HD DVD

Toshiba Corp. announced today it will no longer develop, manufacture or market HD DVD players and recorders, after a "thorough review of its overall strategy for HD DVD" and "recent major changes in the market." It said it will continue to provide support and after-sales service to owners of Toshiba HD DVD products. It will continue to market conventional 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," said Atsutoshi Nishida, president and CEO of Toshiba Corp. "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 said it will continue to develop "convergence" technologies, ones that will enable high-definition content, including high-capacity NAND flash memory, small-form-factor hard disk drives, advancedCPUs, visual processing, and wireless and encryption technologies. The company said it expects to make announcements about its progress in these technologies.

Toshiba said it will begin to reduce shipments of HD DVD players and recorders to retail channels, aiming to cease the businesses by the end of March. It said it plans to end volume production of HD DVD disk drives for applications such as PCs and games in the same timeframe but will "continue to make efforts to meet customer requirements."

The company also said it will "continue to assess the position of notebook PCs with integrated HD DVD drives within the overall PC business relative to future market demand."

The company said it will 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 with major Japanese and European content providers on the entertainment side, as well the IT industry, including Microsoft, Intel and HP. It said it will also looking into possible collaboration with these companies "for future business opportunities, utilizing the many assets generated through the development of HD DVD."

For more information, visit: www.toshiba.com/