And It's Official: Blu-Ray Wins

For the first time in the history of recordable media, Sony has come out on top. Bucking a trend that started with Betamax and continued through Mini-Discs, Memory Sticks, and UMDs (and I'm probably missing one or two), Sony has finally developed a media format destined to be the defacto standard.

I knew we were taking a risk buying an HD-DVD player in December, but damn, I didn't think it would be over this soon! In the immortal words of emailers the world over, "WTF?" For chrissakes, Mike Tyson knocked out Michael Spinks in 91 seconds and even he thinks Toshiba hit the mat too easily.

From Reuters:

TOKYO (Reuters) - Toshiba Corp is planning to stop production of equipment compatible with the HD DVD format for high-definition video, allowing the competing Blu-Ray camp a free run, public broadcaster NHK reported on Saturday.

Toshiba is expected to suffer losses amounting to tens of billions of yen (hundreds of millions of dollars) to scrap production of HD DVD players and recorders and other steps to exit the business, Japan's NHK said on its website.

No one at Toshiba could be reached for comment.

The format war between the Toshiba-backed HD DVD and Sony Corp's Blu-Ray, often compared to the Betamax-VHS battle in the 1980s, has slowed the development of what is expected to be a multibillion dollar high-definition DVD industry.

Toshiba was dealt a blow on Friday when Wal-Mart Stores Inc said it would abandon the HD DVD format, becoming the latest in a series of top retailers and movie studios to rally behind Blu-ray technology for high definition DVDs.

Toshiba plans to continue selling HD DVD equipment at stores for the time being but will not put resources into developing new devices, NHK said.