The Death of HD-DVD

Not even before DVD completely wiped out it’s meager competition of VHS there was already another format war being brought to the forefront. The two new contenders were (Sony backed) Blu-Ray in one corner and (Toshiba backed) HD-DVD in the other. These were two completely different formats although they didn’t differentiate much in appearance. The movies that would come out on each format would not be interchangeable so consumers would have to commit to one of the two formats. The greatest pro in regards to Blu-Ray was how much more information it could hold on one disc compared to HD-DVD. The biggest pro for HD-DVD was that it was much cheaper to manufacture so it would be cheaper for the consumer as well. Sony had the smart sense to use it’s foothold in the video game industry to install a base market for Blu-Ray. When the Playstation 3 was released it came standard with Blu-Ray capability. At that same time Blu-Ray players were going for over $1000. With millions of Playstation 3 consoles sold over the first few months, Blu-Ray was already in more living rooms then HD-DVD which came out first. Microsoft (Sony’s competition when it comes to video games) placed their bets on the opposing format offering a HD-DVD player attachment for the Xbox 360. Over time the scales have tipped in Blu-Ray’s favor and Toshiba has officially announced it will bail out on it’s high definition format. Blu-Ray will be the next media format but it will be quite a few years before it replaces the original DVD.