Back in February last year, Toshiba, one of the world's leading vendors of consumer electronics and the creator of the HD DVD optical disc format, announced that it would no longer develop the format it announced in 2002, consequently putting an end to a long-lasting format war between HD DVD and Blu-ray. In a more or less expected turn of events, one year and five months following the end of the “war,” Toshiba confirms plans that it will produce its own Blu-ray Disc player, joining Sony and other industry players in the market.

 

The news has been confirmed by Japanese newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun and quickly picked up by PCWorld in a recent article. According to the report, the Japanese company plans to debut its own Blu-ray Disc player, confirming previous rumors that placed Toshiba among other Blu-ray technology adopters. The news is more or less surprising considering that the maker has been actively promoting the HD DVD format as an alternative to the less affordable Blu-ray.

 

Back when Toshiba withdrew the HD DVD from the market, the company promised that it would continue to follow a “a wide range of technologies that will drive mass market access to high definition content. These include high capacity NAND flash memory, small form factor hard disk drives, next generation CPUs, visual processing, and wireless and encryption technologies.” It now appears that the company's focus will also shift to a product that it has competed against more than a year ago.

 

The company's move is also justifiable in the light of the current economic situation, especially since a recent report from the Digital Entertainment Group indicates that Blu-ray sales in the first quarter of 2009 were double that of the previous year. Taking that into consideration, we are now left waiting for the much anticipated release of Toshiba's first Blu-ray player.


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