Analyst: HD DVD Resistance is Futile
January 29, 2008

Research firm Gartner believes that Toshiba's hardware price cuts won't do it a lick of good in making HD DVD survive as a format. The Gartner analyst, Hiroyuki Shimizu, cites the usual suspects as his reasoning: Warner turning Blu exclusively, and BD settops' 90% dominance in sales the week ending Jan. 12. Toshiba's 50% price cuts on its third generation models, effective Jan. 13, should just provide a little more fight in HD DVD than the format would otherwise. But Shimizu believes that BD will be crowned high-def champ by the end of the year, and the HD DVD price cuts amount to "useless resistance." Check out the report here, but you'll have to pay $45 to read it in full. Shimizu does make a logical argument, but there are analysts that certainly disagree with him, notably including the NPD Group.  NPD, which tracks weekly hardware sales and provided us all with the information about Blu-ray selling 90% of all high-def settops that week, has warned that one week does not a trend make. As for me, I think it definitely looks bad for HD DVD, but it seems premature to make a doom and gloom prediction without a few more weeks of sales under our belts. And with relatively high-profile HD DVD exclusive software coming in February, Beowulf and American Gangster, I figure it doesn't hurt to give these titles a chance on shelves as well.

Posted by Susanne Ault on January 29, 2008 | Comments (3)