HD-DVD - fat ladies, singing, etc...

Reuters report that Toshiba has decided to give up of the HD DVD format (though Toshiba is neither confirming nor denying this at the moment), which would concede defat in the HD disc format war to Sony's Blu Ray format.  Warner Bros' decision to go Blu Ray only made HD-DVD look increasingly untenable, but Wal Mart's decision to turn its back on HD DVD (they are the biggest seller of DVD's in the US) effectively killed the format. Other big movers who turned away from HD DVD were Best Buy (US electronics retailer, think Curry's or Comet) and NetFlix, a postal DVD rentals a la LoveFilm, but the fatal blow was Wal Mart.

Market surveys in the US have suggested that many consumers were holding off buying an HD disc player until the format issue was decided. With DVD sales reaching a plateau, some companies seemed to have wanted to kill off this counter-productive format war AND QUICK. Wal Mart and NetFlix may also have been spooked a little by Apple Inc's relaunch of AppleTV - with HD movie rentals, along with the continued success of Microsoft's XBOX live movie downoads service, and wanted to hurry a resolution along before the confusion in formats allowed downloads to gain a strong foothold.

So you can all rush out and buy Blu Ray Players (and Blu Ray PC drives) in confidence now - and then invite me round to watch them!