Toshiba slashes prices to shore up HD DVD
January 16, 2008
Toshiba announced an aggressive campaign to bolster its HD DVD movie disc format against Sony-backed Blu-ray technology, cutting prices on players to as low as $149.99. The HD DVD camp suffered a serious blow when Warner Bros. Entertainment said it would stop publishing movies on HD DVD in May, to focus on Blu-ray and regular DVD.
That leaves only two major studios, Paramount and Universal, still supporting HD DVD, while five support Blu-ray. HD DVD players have been cheaper than Blu-ray players for a while, and sales of standalone players have been strong. But Blu-ray has benefited from Sony’s reputation among video enthusiasts, as well as the ability of the PlayStation 3 game console to play Blu-ray discs.