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Gartner: HD DVD dead by the end of the year

PCWorld is reporting that Gartner Research has predicted the death of HD DVD by the end of the year. It dubs Toshiba's massive HD DVD player price cuts as "useless resistance".

While I have no idea how long it will take before Toshiba gives up, I am in agreement that it is incredibly difficult for HD DVD to make a comeback. It is too costly for the studios to output to three different formats (standard-def DVD, HD DVD and Blu-ray). More importantly, HD DVD is already dead in the eyes of several consumers I have spoken to, and I am sure the recent negative publicity cemented this belief in many more people.

Lack of studio support and constant predictions of HD DVD's demise are denting consumer confidence and increasing Blu-ray's lead. If Toshiba is planning a comeback, it needs to be now.

As an update to my previous post, the "Save HD DVD" petition now stands at over 30,000 signatures and the "Let HD DVD Die" petition stands at over 10,000. I cannot see Warner or the others doing a U-turn on this policy, however, no matter how many votes it gets.

Update 1/30/08:
Video Business is reporting that HD DVD player sales rose significantly over the past week. This is likely to be due to the massive (half-price in some cases) price cuts that took place. Last week's player sales put Blu-ray at 63%, HD DVD at 33% and dual-format players at 4%. The week before it was 90% for Blu-ray and 7% for HD DVD.

This shows that consumers are more susceptible to pricing strategies in this war than previously thought. HD DVD is the cheaper format, in terms of both disc and player costs but if Blu-ray does become the dominant format, production costs (and presumably prices) will fall with time.