In the recent weeks, technology giants Sony and Toshiba have expressed an interest in settling the dispute over the next generation of high definition digital versatile discs. Now it appears that both sides are as far apart as ever, with the billions of Yen spent in development of each company’s respective format being the dividing factor.
In May it appeared that the format war would finally be settled. Each company recalled the VHS/Betamax format fued of the 1980’s, citing a concern for the consumer as their basis for coming to terms with one another. However, things have changed since then, and Sony Computer Entertainment president Ken Kutaragi believes that the chances of the two companies coming up with a unified format to replace Blu-Ray and HD-DVD are slim.
So which format should you, the consumer, support? While HD-DVD doesn’t have a recognizable, tactile piece of hardware to showcase itself, Sony has the Playstation 3 as a launching pad for its Blu-Ray format. While this would apparently place the ball in Sony’s court, there is always a possibility that some of us will be stuck buying new hardware should our chosen format ultimately fail.