HD-DVD a goner?

UPDATE – As if you needed any more ammunition, Wal-Mart will go exclusive to Blu-ray in June. Ouch.

Ever since Blu-ray sent Warner Bros. a big fat check and convinced the studio to start sipping their Kool-Aid, the home entertainment looky lous have been clucking about how HD-DVD was done for. Well it looks like HD-DVD is done for. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Toshiba, the developer of HD-DVD, is expected to formally pull the plug on HD-DVD before the end of March. Toshiba would neither confirm nor deny the report but said they would “continue to study” the viability of HD-DVD. Data collected after the WB shift to Blu-ray says that HD-DVD has made up less than 10% of the hardware sales in the high-def DVD market (actual disc sales for early February are at about 80% Blu-ray). Toshiba was hoping that slashing prices on its players would still be able to entice consumers to opt with their format. But Netflix then dropped HD-DVD and Best Buy made the choice to recommend Blu-ray to all its shoppers. The low cost of players never caught on and Toshiba is losing money hand over fist on the players it drastically reduced. All this, of course, is good news for consumers who finally can dedicate themselves to one format instead of sitting back and waiting for a winner. Let’s get this winner on-board and start moving on with our lives…