It’s time to officially say farewell to HD DVD. Following the mass shifting to Blu-ray support from major retailers and movie studios as of late and Toshiba’s announcement this past week that it was ceasing development and marketing of all HD DVD players, Microsoft has now pulled the plug on the manufacturing of HD DVD add-on players for the Xbox 360 as well. Here is the official statement Microsoft sent me earlier this evening:
As a result of recent decisions made by Toshiba, Hollywood studios, and retailers, Microsoft plans to withdraw from HD DVD. Xbox will no longer manufacture new HD DVD players for the Xbox 360, but we will continue to provide standard product and warranty support for all Xbox 360 HD DVD Players in the market. As we stated earlier, we do not believe this decision will have any material impact on the Xbox 360 platform or our position in the marketplace. HD DVD is one of the several ways we offer a high definition experience to consumers and we will continue to give consumers the choice to enjoy digital distribution of high definition movies and TV shows directly to their living room, along with playback of the DVD movies they already own.
So I guess we can finally say for certain that Blu-ray has won the HD format wars. It’ll be interesting to see what happens next as far as the possibility of a Blu-ray add-on for the 360 and better Blu-ray content in general now that it has come out on top.