Toshiba Corporation has decided to withdraw from next generation high-definition DVD production. Toshiba has been struggling with its version of the next generation DVD format, as support for Blu-ray technology has spread among US retailers. Toshiba has been in heated competition with other Japanese electronic giants such as Sony, Panasonic and Hitachi, which produce the high-definition DVD format, Blu-ray. The Blu-ray format now makes up 90 percent of the Japanese high-definition DVD market after winning last year's price war for DVD recorders and players. Toshiba faced even more difficulty when the major movie studio, Warner Brothers Entertainment, announced that it planned to use only the Blu-ray format for its movie software. The company said it will continue to sell HD-DVD products for a while but will stop further development of HD DVD. Meanwhile, it said its DVD factories in Aomori Prefecture, northern Japan, would be closed. Market observers said that Toshiba could suffer a loss of hundreds of millions of US dollars. LinkageLinkage in JapaneseLinkage to Reuters Story |