Wal-Mart Stores Inc, the world's largest retailer that pushed HD DVD players down to $99 for the black Friday period last year and temporally boosted its sales, has now decided to follow Best Buy and the online Netflix by going Blu-ray exclusive. This will be another significant blow to HD DVD, however according to Wal-Mart; they claim that its customers have shown a clear preference towards Blu-ray products and movies with their purchases.
The retail chain will start phasing out its sales of HD DVD systems and movies over the coming months and aims to exclusively sell Blu-ray products by June. This affects 4,000 Wal-Mart and Sam's Club Stores throughout the US, along with related online stores. Traditional DVD players and movies are not affected by this move.
Going by a Hollywood Reporter article, unidentified industry sources have said that Toshiba is widely expected to give up on HD DVD in the coming weeks. Also, despite the major price cuts Toshiba has made, Blu-ray is still well ahead of HD DVD when it comes to movie sales. As all HD DVD players double up as DVD upscaling players, at least these will still have some value if Toshiba does finally gives up on HD DVD as a movie disc format.
Thanks to RTV71 for letting us know about this news.
