All rumors regarding HD DVD ends today and it seems that the speculations were all true after all. Toshiba has sent QJ.NET a press release informing us that it will begin to discontinue its HD DVD businesses.

Prior to this, the company refused to affirm all the rumors and mentioned that it is still currently assessing the situation. There was also a rumor that Microsoft's Xbox 360, a supporter of the format, will finally go to the Blu-ray side as well.

Here is the exact statements from Atsutoshi Nishida, President and CEO of Toshiba Corporation:

We carefully assessed the long-term impact of continuing the so-called 'next-generation format war' and concluded that a swift decision will best help the market develop.

While we are disappointed for the company and more importantly, for the consumer, the real mass market opportunity for high definition content remains untapped and Toshiba is both able and determined to use our talent, technology and intellectual property to make digital convergence a reality.

Toshiba also plans to end volume production of HD DVD disk drives for such applications as PCs and games in the same timeframe, yet will continue to make efforts to meet customer requirements.

3D NAND is a possible candidate, but just one of them. To avoid any confusion, we cannot say which next-gen memory technology Toshiba will choose to pursue. Nothing is final.