If you were the type of person who gets overly involved in format wars, you might see Toshiba releasing a Blu-ray player as a humiliating climbdown. But not doing so would have been a foolish move.

For those whom the next-gen DVD format wars passed by, Toshiba was the key hardware firm opposing Blu-ray. It’s decision in February last year to abandon the HD-DVD format was an inevitable end to a domino effect as other firms jumped ship, but did pretty much mark the official surrender in the battle. (The New York Times this week shared the entertaining claim that one Toshiba executive literally wept when Warner Brothers jumped from the HD-DVD ship.)

The firm has now announced it will finally produce a Blu-ray player, the $250 BDX2000, to launch in November. It’s a pretty bare-bones machine with no features you wouldn’t find on virtually any other player.

It raises the question of what market the company is aiming for: it’s no good for people wanting the sweetest bit of kit, it’s likely too expensive for the mass market (there’s a theory that $199 is a psychological sweet spot for the format to really take off), and while Toshiba has a decent enough reputation, it’s inherently not a brand name you link with quality Blu-ray machines. The player appears to be designed more to test the market than to be a money spinner.

Still, releasing a Blu-ray machine makes sense for a consumer goods company. DVD players may still dominate the market, but at this stage it’s tough for a major firm to compete on price (some import machines sold in supermarkets barely exceed the cost of a movie disc) or features (anyone prepared to splash the cash for the latest gizmo will probably go for a Blu-ray machine instead).

Toshiba’s decision to launch Blu-ray does bring into question the success of its ‘eXtended Detail Enhancement’ feature launched last year which promised to improve standard DVD quality when viewed on high-definition televisions.

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Entry was posted on Friday, September 4th, 2009 at 1:14 pm under Amusing, High Definition Formats.

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