Toshiba and Microsoft have no Blu-ray plans

By Nate Mook | Published February 19, 2008, 12:35 PM

With the news early Tuesday that Toshiba is ending the next generation optical disc war by pulling the plug on HD DVD, the manufacturer said it has no plans to support or manufacture Blu-ray players. Likewise, Microsoft said it has no plans to announce.

The companies, who were the sole hardware vendors for HD DVD, are clearly going to be re-evaluating their position on the matter, but at this time they are not ready to shake hands with Sony. Microsoft on Monday said Toshiba's decision will have little impact on the Xbox 360, because games are what drive console sales. In January, Microsoft told BetaNews that it could certainly build an external Blu-ray drive for the Xbox 360 if the market conditions made sense.

Comments

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Misleading title. The correct title should read "Toshiba and Microsoft still have not announced any BluRay plans". Just because they formally say they don't have a plan doesn't make it news anyway. No matter how you spin this, it's not really news. When an event happens, that's news. Saying (essentially) nothing happened, or nothing was announced is just dumb. It's not newsworthy.

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Nor should they make any plan to adopt Blu-ray. This doesn't surprise me in the slightest.

Keep in mind that there are new optical disc technologies just over the horizon now that will significantly leap frog over Blu-ray from a technology and capacity stand point (250 to 500 GB capacity right out of the gate) so why bother investing in and adopting a limited, crippled format fraught with problems and tainted by massive customer credibility issues when you can just wait a while and get on board with a far superior, much more advanced, brand new format and start over from scratch with a clean slate?

That one is easy math for sure.

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Microsoft, why does it seem like they are on the wrong side so often. Besides windows and office, I wonder if they will ever be the winner in anything. The latest example is being denied and rejected by trying to buy yahoo, now this.

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Besides windows and office,

What, not enough?

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Yeah... we all know they barely scrape by with just those products. I don't know how they survive. :)

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The first link is classic.

Laughing at Nate about the numbers and then "Oops, the numbers are right...but that's okay, we're still smarter..."

...and they try and accuse him of being in denial.

Hilarious.

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hi dave

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I guess the biggest corporation on the planet will not support BD just for spite. I like this kind of thinking, I'd do the same thing if I lost.

I'm all about spite.

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I was thinking the same thing, non-participation in the Blu-Ray market by Microsoft and Toshiba could really hurt Blu-Ray.

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I very much doubt it.

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"No plans to announce" to betanews doesn't equal 'no plans' ;-)

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naw
MS is already inking deals regarding On Demand High Def. Despite what the bloray fanbois believe they have already moved into the future market ON Demand HD.

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So as a silly HD DUD fanboy, you were clearly on a loser when you were backing it!

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"HD-DUD"

and were suppose to believe your older than 12 ?

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As opposed to your silly "Bloray" spelling? Takes one to know one.

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can't say i blame them with blu having such a small market share might as well wait it out till there is some more customers to be had

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