Three weeks ago, Warner has announced that it will drop its support of the HD DVD format, and will begin releasing its next generation titles on Blu-ray exclusively.

In the wake of this announcement, many retailers such as Trans World Entertainment, Newbury Comics, Video Buyers Group members and Hastings Entertainment are beginning to emphasize Blu-ray in hopes of accelerating the end of the format war.

Currently the format war is confusing the consumers, many consumers were saying they weren’t going to make a decision on either for a while, until they figure out which one to buy. “…As retailers, we need to simplify things for the consumers as much as we can with merchandising one format. We don’t want to be biased, but that is clearly the direction that high-def production looks to be going.” said Mark Higgins, Trans World VP of DVD, videogames and consumer electronics merchandising.

Sony Blue Ray Player - www.sony.com

However, the format war is not over as over 1 million HD DVD devices are in households. “Obviously, [Warner going BD-only] is the latest news. The ‘blue shirts’ are up to date on the latest developments, but it would be irresponsible to tell them [the war] is over when it’s not yet.” said Best Buy spokesman Brian Lucas.

Many retailers will still continue to offer both formats, but have been and will continue to order more copies of Blu-ray titles versus HD DVD titles due to demand. DVDEmpire editorial director Shannon Nutt commented, “Obviously, Warner’s announcement has made us a little more cautious about how many HD DVDs we bring in, but that’s not going to stop us from stocking strong on what we feel will be solid HD DVD releases, like the upcoming Bee Movie. Although it looks like the writing may be on the wall, DVDEmpire will continue to push both formats equally until our customers show there is no longer any demand for one format or the other.”



My two cents:
The HD-DVD and Blu-ray formats are not that different from one another. Blu-ray has advantages over HD-DVD in the areas of capacity, price, speed, and support. But there is another news that Blu-ray holds 90% of HD Recorder market in Japan.
Is Blu-ray going to win the formatting war? Isn’t the answer very obvious?
Let’s just end the war and declare blu-ray victorious!

Source: VideoBusiness