14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft's and Intel's adherence might have been the HD-DVD format's last victory, since then, Toshiba's format suffering only "painful" losses, caused by its former allies.
After Paramount has stated that it would also launch its movies in Blu-Ray format, Warner Bros reached the same conclusion. Sources within the companies have told Asahi Shimbun that it's likely for Warner Bros movies to be launched in Blu-Ray format.
For Toshiba and NEC, the main supporters of the HD-DVD format, this is extremely bad news, the movie studios being crucial in the conflict between the two formats. Universal Pictures continues to back only HD-DVD, but it's not impossible to join at some point the other two "deserters".
Blu-Ray has already the support of large studios, like Twentieth Century Fox, Walt Disney and Sony Pictures Entertainment, which are unlikely to launch movies in the HD-DVD format.
Even Intel's position is rather ambiguous; Donald MacDonald, General Manager of the Digital Home Group revealed in a statement at CEATEC Japan that Intel would back a unified format.
Toshiba states that it will introduce the HD-DVD players in Japan by the end of the year, their launching on the other markets being postponed until 2006.