Toshiba is “surprised and disappointed” by Warner’s decision to back Blu-ray in the HD format war, but insists HD DVD has a future.
However,with Jodi Sally, Toshiba's VP of marketing for digital AV, kicking off her presentation by saying, “this is a tough day for me”, and no new HD DVD players on the release schedule, the company's protestations seem rather hollow.
“We've been declared dead before,” Sally insisted, adding that “we still firmly believe HD DVD is the best format for the consumer”.
And in a dig obviously aimed at the studios, she said, “ Toshiba's always put the interests of the users ahead of the interests of individual companies”.
She pressed on with a brief review of HD DVD's successes so far, plus a stress on the upgradability of Toshiba's players via the Ethernet port fitted as standard to every model.
But with a spokesperson for the HD DVD Promo Group privately describing its own press event as a “wake”, the future for the format looks bleak at present.