Toshiba to Enter Blu-Ray Disc Market

July 19, 2009 · Filed Under Business · Comment

Japan’s electronics giant Toshiba plans to produce its own Blu-Ray disc player this year, according to a report in the Japanese newspaper Yomiuri Shimbum.

Toshiba’s weekend announcement brought confirmation to weeks of rumors that the company is going to make its own Blu-Ray disc player after almost one and half years of fighting against the format.

The format war saw Toshiba and Microsoft backing high definition DVD while Sony, Panasonic and several consumer electronics companies were in favor of promoting Blu-Ray disc format. The tussle stretched for one year and five months until Toshiba withdrew HD DVD from the market in February last year. Toshiba was forced to cede defeat after a series of market results revealed that HD DVD format was not match for Blu-Ray disc which was the format of the future.

However Toshiba announced at the time that it would explore alternative technologies in accessing high definition content. To some extent the company was even successful in its plans as is evident from the strides that Toshiba made with its cell processor and video processing. But now overarching business concerns seem to have made Toshiba embrace the very format it had battled against since Blu-Ray disc format has emerged as the most likely successor to the standard definition DVD market reputed to be worth over a quarter of a billion dollars.

Tags: Blu-Ray Disc format, HD DVD format, Toshiba