Take a deep breath. Sit down. Ready? Here it is:

Toshiba has officially stated that there will be no HD-DVD offered by Toshiba in the U.S. market this year.

Yikes. Dreams of sugar plums and all have fallen by the wayside as HD-DVD’s creator and largest backer has declined to bow players in the U.S. market in 2005. This is a major blow to HD-DVD, coming right after several successes (Intel, Microsoft, two Chinese firms all backing HD-DVD). With three major studios previously announcing support for HD-DVD, what are they going to do now? Just a little bit of egg on their faces this holiday season.

Is this the straw that broke the camel’s back? First, HD-DVD allows copying of movies to a computer’s HDD, now this?

marketnews.ca - Toshiba Postpones U.S. HD-DVD Launch