Toshiba has card up its sleeve to make HD-DVD very cheap

Quakester2000

November 3, 2005

DamnedIfIknow used our news submit to tell us that Toshiba has
another card up its sleeve to back its format after a number of u-turns by movie
studios against its format. Toshiba has decided to adopt a peculiar strategy of
letting Chinese competitors bring out their own DVD players based on the HD-DVD
standard. This tactic is not practiced much in Japan
as most companies don't want to turn their technology into a devalued one so
quickly.

The decision by Toshiba
could have ramifications for everyone in the industry. This deal could mean
extremely cheap HD-DVD players compared to Blu-ray from the start of the format
releases.

In the high-stakes battle with Sony over whose format will power the next-generation of DVD players, Toshiba has adopted a potentially perilous strategy: encouraging low-cost Chinese competitors to crank out machines using its standard known as HD-DVD.The tactic of courting Chinese makers has been largely taboo in Japan, where manufacturers like Sony and Panasonic have long tried to delay their technology from turning into cheap commodities.

But Toshiba"s decision could have
significant ramifications in the race for the billions of dollars that
will very likely flow from the next generation of DVD technology that
promises sharper pictures, enhanced audio and more disc
storage.

This sounds like a NVIDIA
vs 3DFX scenario all over again where NVIDIA let anyone build cards and 3DFX
built its own. And we all know what happened to 3DFX they had to compete against
other manufcaturers who were able to drop prices because of the vast competiton
and 3dfx just couldnt match it. This strategy by Toshiba could make HD-DVD
format extremly cheap.

Source: IHT