Although the format has been technically dead for over a month, HD DVD is now officially dead, as the HD DVD Promotion Group has formally dissolved itself, marking a quiet end to the High Definition format.
After Toshiba’s decision last month to abandon the format, other big players involved have all pulled out as well, including Microsoft, Universal Studios, Paramount Studios and more recently, Best Buy.
The Promotion group, the organization in charge of persuading the world to adopt HD DVD, has now voted to disband, leaving HD DVD and its branding to the DVD Forum.
The question still remains however if the world will go Blu or move to flash memory and HD downloads as internet speeds get faster and flash capacities get larger.
Result for: Downloads
Microsoft is about to release the much rumored 60GB Xbox LIVE starter pack, according to a GameStop pre-order page.
The bundle will include a 60GB hard drive, headset, and 3-month free Live Gold subscription.
The package is intended to pimp Microsoft’s popular online service which allows for downloads of Xbox Live Arcade and Xbox Original game titles as well as demos, game content, HD videos and more.
The 60GB hard drive should provide sufficient space for music, movies and other downloads.
The Xbox Live 60GB starter pack will be available for $100 USD beginning on November 4th.
Result for: Downloads
Wal-Mart has aggressively lowered the price today of their MP3 music downloads available from the Wal-Mart Music Downloads Store.
The service will now offer tracks for as low as 74 cents, a steep discount against market leaders iTunes and Amazon which offer most tracks for 99 cents.
From what I can see from glancing at the store (Wal-Mart MP3), the top 30 most downloaded tracks are priced at 74 cents while all other tracks cost 94 cents, a 5 cent discount from iTunes.
The new version of the store will also be available to more platforms (it was previously Windows and Internet Explorer only) and will now work on Linux, Macs, and browsers such as Opera, Firefox and Safari.
The move should help Wal-Mart compete with iTunes and Amazon although the retail giant’s catalog is lacking. iTunes currently has 8 million tracks available (with DRM however) and Amazon MP3 has 4.5 million while Wal-Mart only has 3 million.
