Jeff Bell, corporate vice president of global marketing for interactive entertainment at Microsoft replied with the words "absolutely not", when asked about future plans to release a version of the Xbox 360 with a built-in HD-DVD player. This happened shortly after Microsoft failed to meet expectations about such a product announcement at CES. The software giant has always been an advocate of the HD-DVD, even if their only interest was to delay the adoption of any High Definition format, but such frail backing seems to be at an end. Seeing how they've slashed the price of the external HD DVD player for the Xbox 360 and now that Wal-Mart will only be selling Blu-ray, we don't think the guys at Microsoft believe a word when Toshiba says they aren't out of the HD market:

"The media reported that Toshiba will discontinue its HD DVD business. Toshiba has not made any announcement concerning this. Although Toshiba is currently assessing its business strategies, no decision has been made at this moment." (techPowerUp!)

They must feel that investing more money in HD-DVD is worthless, and it's better spent speeding up the availability of HD content trough their Xbox Live service:

"We'll let the market decide how they're most interested in consuming entertainment," Bell dixit.

Link: PC World.

Update: it's all over for HD DVD. 

TrackBack URI for this entry

Comments (0)

Subscribe to this comment's feed

Name

Email

Website

Comment

smaller | bigger

Subscribe via email (Registered users only)

I have read and agree to the Terms of Usage.

Write the displayed characters

Add Comment