Toshiba Lowers HD DVD Shipment Estimates

Not even a day after it had boasted about rapidly increasing player sales, Toshiba said Tuesday it would lower its sales target for HD DVD players in North America.

On Monday, the Toshiba-backed HD DVD Promotions Group said it regained its lead over Blu-ray, now holding 60 percent of all high-definition set-top players sold. In addition, the format was able to set an all-time record for titles sold in May, with 75,000 discs shipped.

Previously, the company had expected to sell 1.8 million players in 2007. However, Toshiba's digital consumer business chief Yoshihide Fujii told reporters that the estimate would have to be lowered to about 1 million players.

How this would affect the worldwide sales forecasts of 3 million units is not yet known, as the company declined to provide any more specific estimates.

However, supporters of HD DVD were quick to point out that Blu-ray wasn't faring much better, as sales of the PS3 were not as strong as Sony would have liked, and many were buying the console to play games - not using the Blu-ray movie functionality.