High-Def Disc Rumors and Rumors of Rumors By Darryl Wilkinson June 28, 2006 — Reuters reports that Toshiba President Atsutoshi Nishida provided this bit of corporate wisdom at an annual shareholders' meeting: "We have not given up on a unified format. We would like to seek ways for unifying the standards if opportunities arise." Mr. Nishida may have brought up (again) the idea of a single, unified format due to the fact that initial consumer response to HD DVD has not been overwhelming. Perhaps he was engaged in a bit of wishful thinking after it became clear that Sony will delay the introduction of its BDP-S1 Blu-ray Disc player until sometime in late October. Maybe he was acknowledging the fact that most consumers couldn't care less which format becomes a de facto standard as long as there's only one format.

Or it could be that Mr. Nishida had been going over Toshiba's balance sheet in preparation for the shareholders' meeting and realized that, as analyst firm iSuppli estimates, Toshiba may be losing $200 or more on each entry-level HD-A1 HD DVD machine it sells. Of course, other companies have driven down the expensive road of selling a product below cost in order to gain market share. However, iSuppli's senior analyst of consumer electronics, Chris Crotty, says "It’s unusual to find this level of subsidization outside of the video-game console and mobile-phone markets. Presumably, Toshiba anticipates making back any initial HD-A1 losses with subsequent products... But there is a big question as to whether pricing its player so much less than Blu-ray is worth the financial risk."

Establishing a unified format would not only save face for all involved, it would generate larger amounts of revenue for all involved, too. Better to get half of a large market, some might say (Mr. Nishida being among them), than get all of a next-to-nothing market.

Although rumors have run rampant about a possible dual-drawer, dual-format player from Samsung, the company officially pooh-poohs any such idea. In a statement released on June 22, the company said it is "fully committed to the Blu-ray format and currently only has plans to introduce a Blu-ray player to the market. Samsung is looking forward to a very successful launch of the BD-P1000 which will be available on retail shelves, June 25th for a $999 MAP price in the United States."

That's the official line anyway.