Roughly Drafted's take on Blu-ray victory

[Galley]

Lessons from the Death of HD-DVD

Toshiba wanted to dump HD DVD back in 2005, but was pressured by Microsoft?

Through 2005, Toshiba continued to struggle with HD-DVD. The components required to to render HD video and display Microsoft’s HDi were similar to a low-end PC, and cost roughly $675 just for the bill of materials. That left Toshiba with a major hardware loss when trying to sell the players at a $500 consumer price target. The company was ready to drop HD-DVD that year and join the Blu-Ray consortium, but Microsoft pushed it to continue.

The first HD-DVD players weren’t ready until early 2006. Blu-Ray players debuted just weeks later, priced closer to $1000. By the end of that year, Microsoft began selling an external $200 HD-DVD player for the Xbox 360, just as Sony introduced its PlayStation 3 with an integrated Blu-Ray player.