This weekend, disturbing headlines popped up during the weekend media waves, with blasphemy such as "Toshiba dropping HD-DVD". Now when I saw these I had to read. Myself, I have been on the HD-DVD side of the format war, but not a heavy supporter and I have reasons to be revealed soon. Seeing this does hurt, do to the fact that other that storage capacity, I see no reason to go with Blu-Ray. Visuals in HD are going to be the same as is the sound. So if I can buy a movie on the HD-DVD format for a few bucks cheaper, thats what I would prefer to do. Extra content and other bonuses never justify paying an extrqa 5 dollars, so why pay mroe money for a Blu_Ray format. Well After a few quick kick to the balls for Toshiba this year, Sony may have finally won. This year we saw Blu-Rays market share grow, Wal-Mart announce they will only sell Blu-Ray. On top of that Warner Brothers said it will release its movies only on the Blu-Ray format, joining other studios such as Sony Pictures (DUH!), Walt Disney Co and New's Corp's 20th Century Fox, leaving only Paramount and Universal Pictures as the only studios in the HD-DVD camp. Lets not forget that Sony did what they wouldn't do with Betamax (and many speculate why Betamax lost to VHS), but Blu-Ray supports PORN! As much as you laugh, the porn industry as dirty as it is, is highly profitable and causeed a huge Whip-Lash to the Betamax format when Sony refused to support porn in the 80s. So congrats Sony, you have won the battle....did i say battle, yes and that is what it is exactly.

For a little while now, our buddy Bill Gates said the future is digital downloads, and hes right. We can look at the continued success as such programs as iTunes, Steam, and more. Digital Downloading, is the way to go. Xbox live continues to show this with things like Rock Band and Guitar Hero digital downloards peaking millions upon millions of downloads. More people are renting movies online and doing it that way (Xbox Live, Netflicks). It is getting to the point where CD/DVD/HD-DVD/Blu-Ray are already obselete! Why should stick movies and music on numerous discs...when i can carry a USB 1 TB Hard Drive that will hold all the music and movies in 1 item, rather than a binder full of Discs? Even more examples that the world is going digital downloads is iPod Touch and iPhone. With these devices offering people the ability to buy music and video anywhere with a Wi-Fi or cell signal, the signs that we no longer need discs, tapes, ect, is becoming reality. Soon enough we will have our debit and credit cards built into our cell phones, eliminating the need for a wallet anymore, and hey that saves on 20-50 bucks in leather!

Blu-Ray has won the battle, but the war is far from over, and even for Toshiba. Toshiba might just be backing off for now, but they have something up their sleeves. Toshiba may have been listening to Bill Gates after all:

"Toshiba is expected to focus its resources on its other businesses, including computer chip production, such as flash-memory, which are used in digital cameras and cellphones.

The Nikkei, Japan's top business newspaper, reported in its Monday's editions that Toshiba plans to invest as much as $16.7 billion in two plants in Japan for its flash memory business for fiscal 2008, starting April 1. Toshiba said no decision has been made." -USA Today 02/18/2008

Though Toshiba might back out of HD-DVD, anyone see their new market in Hard Drives in Flash Drives, maybe for holding High Def movies and music? Keep your eyes open, the War is far from over!

Quoted Source:http://www.usatoday.com/tech/products/2008-02-17-toshiba-hddvd_N.htm?csp=34