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After a long a painful agony, the obituary for Toshiba's HD DVD format is finally here: the less-capacious, cheaper next-gen DVD will be discontinued, giving Sony's Blu Ray the unquestionable lead for the next decade.

The first sign that the battle was lost for the HD DVD came right before the beginning of this year's Consumer Electronics Show, when Hollywood behemoth Warner decided to go Blu Ray-exclusive. Although Toshiba did not immediately admit defeat, it was obvious that with only Paramount, Universal Studios and DreamWorks in its sinking boat, the Japanese company would not resist for much longer.

The following weeks meant an overwhelming plethora of Blu Ray successes, with giant retailer Walmart, movie-rental company Netflix or Niveus deciding to favor Sony's format exclusively, in detriment of Toshiba's.

The anticipated denouement of the next-gen DVD war (a reminiscence of last century's VHS vs. Betamax war) came today, with Toshiba's announcement regarding the discontinuation of its HD DVD business.

According to the official statement, the Japanese behemoth "decided it will no longer develop, manufacture and market HD DVD players and recorders." Early adopters of Toshiba's HD DVD products will however enjoy full support and after-sales service.

"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," said Atsutoshi Nishida, President and CEO of Toshiba Corporation. "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 will progressively reduce shipments of HD DVD players, recorders and disc drives by the end of March. It is yet unknown what happens with those who bought laptops with integrated HD DVD drives, but it is assumed that these early adopters will benefit from the same product support mentioned earlier.

Future plans for Toshiba include continuous cooperation with the Intel, Microsoft and HP, the big-trio that supported HD DVD from the beginning, and a focus-shift towards money-making businesses like NAND Flash memory, small form factor HDDs, next-gen CPUs and wireless and encryption technologies.