Dell, Apple Courting Sony for Blu-ray Notebooks

If you weren't already convinced that Blu-ray has completely dominated HD DVD, here's more in the vein of coffin nails: apparently Apple and Dell are both heavily courting Sony for Blu-ray drives on their respective notebooks. According to Electronista, Apple's Macbook Pro could come sporting a Blu-ray writable drive as early as...right this minute:

"Development is said to have been progressing far enough that the drives may have appeared in the most recent update to the portables but were held back by quality issues with both the blue laser and slot-load mechanism, forcing Apple to postpone its plans."

Sigh. Much like the iPhone, we're waiting for a lower price point and a generation or two of bugs worked out before we even start looking at any shiny new Apple products. And as for Dell, well, take a wild guess as to which route they're taking with Blu-ray (a feature already optionally available on certain Dell notebooks):

"...Dell plans to offer one of the least expensive Blu-ray notebooks yet, according to statements by technology strategist Brian Zucker. Without providing many details, the expert claims his company will have a portable below the $1,000 mark in March that can at least read Blu-ray media, setting a new point of entry for the format."

We don't know about y'all, but us here at QP, we still don't even own a PS3 (not for lack of wanting one, mind you.) Blu-ray sure looks nice, but it also still has a high barrier to entry. Aren't we supposed to be planning for a digital distribution future anyways? Yep, we heard that one before too.

[UPDATED] Toshiba Nails Coffin Closed on HD-DVD

Accepting defeat can be hard. Some people get quiet, some people yell, some people eject the goddamn Smash Bros. disc and unplug everyone's stupid controllers -- not that we'd know anything about that. Companies take it a different way though.

For instance, Toshiba's announcement today that they are no longer supporting the HD-DVD format. If I found out that I'd be losing "hundreds of millions of dollars" because I bet on the wrong pony, boy would I be sore. You'd never know though, as so far they've stayed mum. Microsoft's reaction is much more entertaining:

"We do not believe the recent reports about HD DVD will have any material impact on the Xbox 360 platform or our position in the marketplace. As we've long stated, we believe it is games that sell consoles and Xbox 360 continues to have the largest next-gen games library with the most exclusives and best selling games in the industry."

While this writer certainly agrees with Microsoft's statement that, "....it is games that sell consoles...." that doesn't mean the ability to play the victorious high-def format doesn't help. We must say though, there's quite a few standard-def dvds in our collection....and zero high-def (though our t.v. is most certainly of the large and high definition variety.) Either way, the (high-def) format war is over and we can't say we're surprised with the victor. Now go make some f'ing games, Sony! Enough with the cross-media items! (I'm looking at you, PSP!)


[UPDATE]: Though it's quite likely that the statement will come tomorrow (or even today) from Toshiba officially, right now they're saying (in the third person):

"The media reported that Toshiba will discontinue its HD DVD business. Toshiba has not made any announcement concerning this. Although Toshiba is currently assessing its business strategies, no decision has been made at this moment."

Oh, in case you were wondering, "Currently assessing its business strategies" should probably be read as, "CONFIRMED." Don't you just love the way huge corporations respond comparably with sperm whales at the beach sometimes?