SCE President Ken Kutaragi has confirmed that negotiations between Sony and Toshiba on a unified next-generation disc format have come to an end.

Sony (which supports Blu-Ray) and Toshiba (which backs HD-DVD) have failed to reach an agreement. Negotiations began in February, but failed to reach an agreement on the storage capacity of the format. Blue-Ray can hold up to 50GB of data, while HD-DVD stores only 30GB, but, the backers of HD-DVD cite lower production costs as a distinct advantage.

You have to be kidding me. You two conglomerates couldn’t come up with a unified technology because your disagreement was based on whose format would form the base of the technology? This is BS. Now consumers have to face yet another format war because Sony and Toshiba have egos bigger than their bank accounts.

No, the truth is that they never wanted to find a unified solution. Sony has the Playstation 3, and a prime opportunity to own the market with its Blu-Ray format (something they have had wet-dreams over since Beta and Minidisc), while Toshiba is backed by a very large number of DVD manufacturers and producers.

This whole format war – in which consumers were never a concern for either player – is all about money and ego.

Provided by Geekstreak