Reuters is reporting that Toshiba plans on letting the market decide which format, Blu-Ray or HD DVD, will prevail at retailers.
“Toshiba said on Thursday competing technology standards for the next-generation optical discs will eventually be unified even thought products based on the two different formats may co-exist for a limited time.
“We may actually have a situation where merchandise from both sides are put on store shelves. But the market would not allow that situation to last very long,” Toshiba President Tadashi Okamura said in a gathering of Japanese business leaders. “
Toshiba and Sony have been in talks for quite a while, trying to iron out a unified format. Toshiba and the company’s partners plan on introducing HD DVD based players by the end of the year, while Sony, Philips and others will be introducing Blu-ray compatible DVD players sometime in the U.S. during 2006. Sharp is already selling Blu-ray players in Japan.
