Nuclear reactor maker Toshiba says Warner ended fomat war against Blu-ray
By Danny Mendez
Yes, Toshiba makes nuclear reactors, but that’s not the point. Toshiba CEO Atsutoshi Nishida admits the HD format war was over when Warner pulled its support for HD-DVD, a move that surprised analysts.
Nishida spoke to the WSJ in an interview, explaining that it was Warner Bros’ retraction of HD-DVD support that caused Toshiba to pull HD-DVD off the market.
"I didn’t think we stood a chance after Warner left us because it meant HD DVD would have just 20% to 30% of software market share."
Many analysts believed Toshiba would quit on the format quickly, so Toshiba’s fight against Blu-ray was unexpected as Japanese companies try to find acceptable compromises in order to prevent corporate shame. Though Nishida is unlike past Toshiba chief executives, he’s not one to ignore defeat if it’s obvious.
"One has to take calculated risks in business, but it’s also important to switch gears immediately if you think your decision was wrong. We were doing this to win, and if we weren’t going to win then we had to pull out, especially since consumers were already asking for a single standard."
Toshiba traditionally chooses engineers for its CEO position, but Nishida was cut from a different cloth. He studied German political thought, joining Toshiba through an Iranian connection. Though his company was humbled in the format war, he’s not one to give up in the long-run.
"It was just one avenue of growth. It was one of 45 strategic business units that we have. This just means we now have 44."
That’s the spirit, Nishida! Never give up (unless it makes sense)! This finally leads us to the most begging of questions, "what kind of Blu-ray player does the Toshiba CEO own?"
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March 4th, 2008
I really have a question. I recently bought a HD-A30 HD DVD Player from Toshiba after the announcement that Bluray won. I was not going to buy a HD DVD player but I was in the market for a Upconverting DVD Player as I cannot afford a bluray player at these prices. I then discovered that the HD DVD player was also a great upconverting player for DVD’s. So I decided to get it as it came with 2 free HD DVD Movies and the offer for 5 more free hd dvd movies plus like I said before it does a great job of upconverting regular DVD’s better then the upconverting DVD players on the market and it was discounted at $150. My only problem is that it does not support DIVX like all the other upconverting dvd on the market. Even Toshiba’s upconverting dvd player the SD-6000 has DIVX. The HD DVD does and plays everything so far with no problems. I confirmed the no DIVX by calling Toshiba. I thought that since the players have Internet conectivity that it coluld get a firmware update to support DIVX but no support was added. The lady on the phone says DIVX was built in that is why there is no DIVX support for it. I say bullshit as my Xbox 360 got a firware upgrade for DIVX and so did the PS3. Ultimately the lady behing the phone was a screen reader as I threw all sorts a technical questions at her and she was so stumped. I should have her job. Is she telling the truth?
March 4th, 2008
One more question. Do you think a firware updated could make all the HD DVD players play Blu-ray disks?
March 4th, 2008
One more question. Do you think that with a firmware update that all the HD DVD players out there could play Blu-Ray Disks
March 4th, 2008
no, a firmware update could not make all the HD-DVD players play Blu-ray discs…
and even if it was possible to add DivX support to your player, Toshiba is unlikely to do so as they’ve basically abandoned those machines