Blu-Ray Won the Format War
Sony’s Blu-Ray high-definition DVD format has won the “most expensive format battle since the VHS videocassette format trumped Sony’s Betamax in the 1980s” (McBride and Kane, “As Toshiba Surrenders, What’s Next for DVDs?”).
After Warner Bros., Best Buy and Wal-Mart said that they would only back high-definition movies formatted in the Blu-Ray technology, Toshiba has decided it will no longer produce its HD DVD formatted discs.
Toshiba will keep supporting their HD DVD players, which cost much less than the Blu-Ray players. Perhaps the lower prices of the Toshiba HD DVD players caused the Blu-Ray players’ ticket prices to lower over time.
Consumers who have invested in the HD DVD formatted movies over the years fought back with an online petition that drew 30,000 signatures, but to no avail. Understandably, quite a few people are upset at their investment in a disappearing technology.
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