It may not be long for this world, but HD DVD had a good week. For the week ending 3/9 it took 35% of the market, to Blu-ray’s 65%. That puts them at 75:25 year-to-date, and 66:34 since inception. Beowulf on HD DVD was once again the top high-def seller, 30 Days of Night on BD took second place with over 80% as many copies, but HD DVD’s American Gangster came in 3rd with nearly 70%.

The Blu-ray vs. HD DVD format war is over, but the fallout and consequences aren’t. And the big loser in the war, Toshiba, is facing the music for their failed campaign. Toshiba started the war in an attempt to increase their consumer electronics market share, but their attempted grab for lebensraum backfired and they’ve been left holding the bill. How large of a bill? According to Japan’s Nikkei business daily Toshiba will have to book a loss of $986 million relating to HD DVD, bringing their full-year profit down to roughly $2.44 billion. That’s certainly not a crippling blow for a company the size of Toshiba, but it certainly isn’t exactly pleasant. And it just goes to show the size of the risk, and the stakes, that where at the core of the format war in the first place.

Via CNET News.com.

It is a bit ironic that, after the ‘death’ of the format’, the HD DVD studios have released some of the formats strongest titles ever. This has boosted HD DVD’s market share in its final weeks. For the week ended 3/3, HD DVD took a 25% share, with Blu-ray holding the other 75%. This puts them at 76:24 for the year, and 66:34 since inception. HD DVD didn’t manage to take the top selling spot this time around, that went to 30 Days of Night on BD, but it did grab the second and third spots – with the new release Beowulf, and American Gangster, in its second week of release. Beowulf was close, selling 82.52% of 30 Days of Night’s sales. After this, there aren’t really any Blockbuster HD DVD releases left. So I expect their percentage to start falling off again.

This issue of Home Media Magazine also includes an article which states Sony and Microsoft are in talks to bring Blu-ray to the Xbox 360. President of Sony Electronics U.S., Stan Glasgow, said that a Blu-ray drive could be incorporated in the Xbox Elite model, or as an add-on, as originally reported in the Financial Times online edition. Glasgow also said that Sony is in talks with Apple about the use of Blu-ray in Macs.

It seems that if you’ve purchased an HD DVD player from Circuit City in the 90 days leading up to Toshiba’s announcement of the end of the format on February 19th, you can return it for a credit towards the purchase of a Blu-ray player equal to the original purchase price. Alternatively, you can receive the credit on a standard Circuit City gift card, which you can use towards any purchase. This is a quiet offer – you have to ask for it. Via Electronic House.

The Wall Street Journal talked to Toshiba’s CEO, Atsutoshi Nishida, focusing mainly on the HD DVD decision. While I still blame Toshiba for starting the format war in the first place (I really should get around to writing up my synopsis of the war), I have to give Nishida credit for making the decision to end the war. I have to say he comes across fairly well in the interview, though the gloves definitely stayed on – the questions were easy lobs, not exactly hard hitting.

WSJ: When did you first start thinking about withdrawing from the HD DVD business?

Mr. Nishida: When Warner [Time Warner Inc.'s Warner Bros.] announced its support for Blu-ray on the 4th of January. We took a little time before reaching a final decision, so we could give people a chance to voice their opinions and we could consider all the ramifications and consequences of pulling out, such as how it would affect consumers and us.

WSJ: Most industry observers had expected the format war to continue for a while longer. Why did you decide to pull out so quickly?

Mr. Nishida: I didn’t think we stood a chance after Warner left us because it meant HD DVD would have just 20% to 30% of software market share. One has to take calculated risks in business, but it’s also important to switch gears immediately if you think your decision was wrong. 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.

Sounds like he approached it logically and rationally, and didn’t allow corporate pride to keep Toshiba in the fight. He recognized that the war was lost, and if Toshiba couldn’t get a win then it was time to concede and cut their losses. He deserves credit for making the decision to end things quickly. And yes, January 4th (Warner’s announcement) to February 19th (Toshiba’s announcement) is very quick for a major corporate direction change. Toshiba had to coordinate with all of their partners as well.

Nishida reiterates that Toshiba plans to focus on DVD, at least for the time being. It sounds like they’ll be sitting out the Blu-ray market, though personally I can’t see them abstaining forever. They may wait until the market grows a bit to try to carve out a bit for themselves. For now they plan to focus on upconverting DVD players and PCs. They’ll also be putting more resources behind video downloads now that HD DVD is dead.

As HD DVD plays out its last days on the market, it has had one last shot at the limelight. For the week ended 2/24 HD DVD managed to grab 23% of the high-def market, with Blu-ray taking the other 77%. This makes them 76:24 for the year, and 65:35 since inception. But the real story is American Gangster. It managed to do something HD DVD has done in quite a while, take the top spot for best selling high-def title. In fact, it is the only HD DVD release to make the top 10, outselling second place Blu-ray Michael Clayton 3:2. This is one of the last major HD DVD exclusive blockbuster titles, there aren’t many titles left. And it is possible that some of those announced titles could be dropped, just as Paramount did with their post 3/4 titles.

Tuesday, March 4th, will see the last HD DVD releases from Paramount and DreamWorks Animation – Into the Wild and Things We Lost in the Fire, both from Paramount. All previously announced HD DVD releases due after 3/4 are canceled. Those titles are Bee Movie (3/11), The Jack Ryan Collection (3/25), The Kite Runner (3/25), Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (4/1), and There Will Be Blood (4/15). So, while Paramount and DreamWorks Animation were the last major studios to official announce the end of their HD DVD effort, it seems they will be the first to actually drop the format due to the abrupt nature of their plans. They did the same thing when they switched from format neutral to HD DVD, canceling Blu-ray releases that were already in retailers’ hands.

This means no high-def releases from the two studios for a couple of months, as they plan to begin distributing their films on Blu-ray this summer. I imagine that the HD DVD films that were dropped will be undergoing a crash remastering effort for Blu-ray. Picked up from High-Def Digest, Video Business, and The Hollywood Reporter.

Amazon’s HD DVD sale with up to 50% off 150 titles is still running, but it isn’t the only one. They also have a second sale, with up to 57% off 33 HD DVD titles. So that’s 183 HD DVD titles currently on sale. And this is probably just the start as they clear them out.

If you have an HD DVD player the time is running out on your ability to acquire new movies to watch on it. Over the next few months we’ll probably see a number of sales as studios phase out HD DVD and retailers look to clear out their stock for good. Amazon is starting off with a 50% off sale on 150 HD DVD movies.

Via Gizmodo.

Microsoft announced, via their Gamerscore Blog, that the Xbox 360 HD DVD drive is being discontinued:

As a result of recent decisions made by Toshiba, Hollywood studios, and retailers, Microsoft plans to withdraw from HD DVD. Xbox will no longer manufacture new HD DVD players for the Xbox 360, but we will continue to provide standard product and warranty support for all Xbox 360 HD DVD Players in the market.

See their post for the full announcement. This isn’t surprising, of course, as everyone is pulling out of the format at this point. But it clears up the uncertainty over timing, as well as laying to rest the rumors about pricing changes, etc, with continued sales. At this point the drives will probably end up on clearance soon. If you have an HD DVD collection the Xbox 360 drive could be a good buy as an insurance policy against future player failures. Even if you don’t have an Xbox 360, the add-on drive also works as a PC USB drive.

Via Engadget.