*Opinions* When will we see a Toshiba Blu-ray player?

[JadedRaverLA]

Originally Posted by Clark Kent

Toshiba will be making combo players by Christmas of this year.

I agree. Toshiba's initial press release... as well as their cancellation of the CES event, leads me to think Toshiba realizes it has two choices now:

1) Attempt to sue Warner for breach of contract. This was kind of hinted at in their initial press release. It also explains why Warner is obligated to release HD DVD discs through May. Toshiba may or may not have a valid legal case here, but it won't matter... their format is dead. It's just a matter of attempting to sue to recoup some costs. If they go this route, they will likely continue trumpeting HD DVD for a little while, in order to make their case better. Also, if they're successful, they could start pulling a RAMBUS and start suing everyone else in the world for patent infringement... in order to try to get a larger slice of the Blu-ray royalty pie.

2) Throw in the towel with dignity. Announce that they will be producing Blu-ray players and the current HD DVD-exclusive studios will be free to start releasing Blu-ray movies. They will likely bring out a dual-format player almost immediately after clearancing out the remaining stock of HD DVD players, and may follow with a Blu-ray-only standalone as early as holiday season this year. Similarly, they'll ask Universal and Paramount to continue releasing HD DVD discs until their contracts run out, but will allow them to start releasing Blu-ray discs as well.

Any other play at this point would just be madness. There's no money to be made in a niche format that offers nothing or a mainstream product, and the studio support for Blu-ray is now far too much to continue competing against.

Just my $0.02