BWF89
September 17th, 2005, 02:25 PM
Consumers are about to get shafted. Sony and Toshiba have been holding on-and-off talks about Blu-Ray and HD-DVD - their competing next-generation media formats - and the possibility of working together on a single, unified format. The talks have failed.
A report out of Yahoo! News citing Japanese publication Kyodo News has Toshiba sources confirming the talks have floundered. "It is regrettable but unavoidable that two formats will remain (on the market)," said an unnamed Toshiba official.
Regrettable is an understatement; now we're on the verge of an awfully nasty format war.
The end result for you, me and the rest of the world is complete chaos. PlayStation 3 will ship with Blu-Ray compatibility, while a recent alliance between Microsoft and Toshiba suggests Xbox 360 will eventually incorporate HD-DVD sometime down the road. You will not be able to play your Blu-Ray movies on Xbox 360 or HD-DVD films on your PlayStation 3.
Studios are split between supporting the two formats, which means the market will soon flood with movies on DVD, HD-DVD and Blu-Ray, but in order to play all three you'll need at least two kinds of players.
Extreme, ridiculous and very likely? Yes, yes, and yes.
http://consolewar.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3143081
A report out of Yahoo! News citing Japanese publication Kyodo News has Toshiba sources confirming the talks have floundered. "It is regrettable but unavoidable that two formats will remain (on the market)," said an unnamed Toshiba official.
Regrettable is an understatement; now we're on the verge of an awfully nasty format war.
The end result for you, me and the rest of the world is complete chaos. PlayStation 3 will ship with Blu-Ray compatibility, while a recent alliance between Microsoft and Toshiba suggests Xbox 360 will eventually incorporate HD-DVD sometime down the road. You will not be able to play your Blu-Ray movies on Xbox 360 or HD-DVD films on your PlayStation 3.
Studios are split between supporting the two formats, which means the market will soon flood with movies on DVD, HD-DVD and Blu-Ray, but in order to play all three you'll need at least two kinds of players.
Extreme, ridiculous and very likely? Yes, yes, and yes.
http://consolewar.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3143081