Wired

Don’t feel too sad for Toshiba, the backer of HD-DVD. Sure they committed huge sums of cash to several studios in exchange for exclusive backing. But they also get a huge write-off on their taxes for the money spent. Notice that they killed off HD-DVD really fast. And their last day for supporting HD-DVD just so happens to be the last day of Quarter 1, 2008. The accountants must have jumped at the chance to utilize this huge write-off in this first quarter.

Usually a company, especially a Japanese company, would keep the format alive for a bit and just dwindle down support over time. This saves face, which is all too important for a Japanese corporation. But the quick exit by Toshiba makes me think there needed to cut their losses immediately in order to take advantage of some accounting detail. At lease we didn’t get to witness the slow demise of HD-DVD. It was quick and relatively painless.

Now the focus is on BluRay, which I wish the best of luck to succeed. It is not going to be easy. With a recession in the U.S. and the continuing success of standard DVD, the sales of BluRay are not going to pick up for awhile. Let’s just hope that the BluRay standard makes it through the next consumer cycle. Otherwise we might end up with another standard making into to the consumer’s wallet. God, I hope not.

-Mark

mark (at) wiredinc . com

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 2nd, 2008 at 12:45 am and is filed under Marks Corner Table. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.