Unified DVD dead

For three years, the two groups, headed by Toshiba and Sony, have pushed to have their respective technology standards adopted to gain dominance in the multibillion-dollar markets for DVD players, PC drives and optical discs.

Toshiba, along with NEC and Sanyo, has been promoting HD DVD, while Sony and Matsushita, the maker of Panasonic brand products, have been developing a technology known as Blu-ray.

The two groups have held negotiations on unifying their formats to persuade consumers to shift to advanced discs and to promote growth in the industry.

But negotiations fell through as neither side yielded, and time ran out to develop a format before the launch of new products from both groups, Japan's Yomiuri newspaper has reported.

[ Funny if sony looses again... ]