Wal-Mart announced today that they will only carry Blu-Ray next Generation DVDs moving forward. Frankly, this is the death knell for the format. This is just the latest defection from major retailers. Best Buy and NetFlicks have also discontinued stocking the product.
From the report:
The so-called format war between HD DVD and Blu-ray has been a thorn in the side of retailers, which have had to commit shelf space to devices from both camps even as they field complaints from frustrated and confused customers.
Next-generation DVDs and players, boasting better picture quality and more capacity, were expected to help revive the $24 billion global home DVD market. But Hollywood studios had initially split their alliances between the two camps, meaning only certain films would play on a consumer's DVD machine.
So Why Different Formats?
To be fair to Toshiba and the HD-DVD format, the split between formats comes from one thing, IP, or Intellectual Property. Sony/Philips invented the CD, and the DVD. This means that every blank CD or DVD generates partial pennies for Sony/Philips. If you are Toshiba or any of the other electronics manufacturers, or studios, do you want to pay Sony? No. But CDs caught on, then DVDs did as well.
When it came time for the next-gen DVDs Sony said, "Here you go!" And...to make sure it does well every PS3 will have a player built in. So the studios couldn't just ignore the format. But at the end of the day all this dual format stuff did was to scare off the consumers from buying...and no one wants that.
RIP HD-DVD...We hardly knew ya!
