Andre Yoskowitz
4 Mar 2008 17:25
Toshiba CEO Atsutoshi Nishida has finally talked out about his company's decision to drop HD DVD and went as far as to say that the format did not "stand a chance" following Warner's decision to drop the format for Blu-ray.
Citing the Warner decision, Nishida said that the format would have only had 20% of the software market share and that Warner's decision sealed the format war's fate.
"One has to take calculated risks in business, but it's also important to switch gears immediately if you think your decision was wrong," explained Nishida. "We were doing this to win, and if we weren't going to win then we had to pull out, especially since consumers were already asking for a single standard."
In the wake of the end of the HD format war, Toshiba said it would focus more on upconverting standard-def DVD players and PCs as well as HD digital downloads.
"We've been developing technologies in [the video downloads] area already, but now that we don't have the HD DVD business, I want to put even more energy into that,"added Nishida.