With the exception of ~1 million owners, the HD DVD story pretty much concluded today when Toshiba pulled the plug:
Toshiba Corporation today announced that it has undertaken a thorough review of its overall strategy for HD DVD and has decided it will no longer develop, manufacture and market HD DVD players and recorders. Toshiba will begin to reduce shipments of HD DVD players and recorders to retail channels, aiming for cessation of these businesses by the end of March 2008. Toshiba also plans to end volume production of HD DVD disk drives for such applications as PCs and games in the same timeframe
The tipping point came just prior to CES when Warner Brothers gave up on HD DVD. And it’s be all downhill for Toshiba ever since. However, we won’t see mass market adoption of Blu-ray until the hardware prices creep down. Not to mention that most folks are perfectly content with DVDs – they include surround sound, hold up well on HD sets, play on all modern computers and in minivans, plus they can be ripped. Having said that, industry will now focus on educating the consumer – moms don’t know what Blu-ray is. While digital downloads and expanded VOD/PPV offerings are gaining momentum, there’ll always be a retail market for optical video discs.