Rumor: Did Toshiba 'Cell' Out HD DVD?
We reported in the past that Sony was going to offload their Cell production and that Toshiba was a rumored buyer, but the deal seemed to be in limbo for several weeks. Then major retailers and studios started pulling the plug on HD DVD without a whole lot of explanation.
A few more weeks go by and Toshiba officially canned their disc format and Sony sets a price on the Cell operation: $835 million. It's hard not to wonder if there is more here than meets the eye. It seems that both companies got something they wanted, but the short-term gains seem to be in Sony's favor:
“Shares in Sony were up 2.8 percent at 5,150 yen in afternoon trade while Toshiba fell 2.8 percent to 801 yen. The Tokyo stock market's electrical machinery index was down 2.1 percent.”
Comments
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Didn't HH have a story about a Toshiba laptop with the Cell processor? They clearly have an interest in it. It's a damn powerful chip. And it's good to know they won't be eternal enemies over the format war. |
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*Applies pointy-tipped tinfoil hat* I'd believe it! It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me, though, because I'd think that having exclusive rights to a worldwide media format would make more long term money than manufacturing a processor for a few years would. Processors get outdated much more quickly than media formats. Though, perhaps they saw the end of HD DVD in the distance, and figured it would be best to get it over with quickly and pick up an extra job. |
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Well I dont think this is exactly how it went down. My guess is toshiba had a contingency plan if HD-DVD failed and this was probably it. It is rumored though that sony paid warner brothers 400 million to endorse blu-ray exclusive which led to the chain of events that quickly killed HD-DVD along with blu-ray selling over 10-1 during christmas. Now we see a rise in the sales of ps3 and of course people should know that in my opinion that sales increase was directly related to blu-ray wining the format war since ps3 is a upgradeable blu-ray player. |
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I assumed we all already knew that Sony bought off all the studios. So what is so surprising that Toshiba gets an $800million + contract to manufacture the processors after they give up? I read somewhere that the current manufacturer has a contract which is up at the end of March 2008 too. |
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