Toshiba has refused to apologise to early adopters who bought now-defunct HD DVD players. In an interview with TechRadar this morning, Olivier Van Wynendaele, deputy general manager of HD DVD at Toshiba, says that those who bought players still have a very decent product.
“No we won’t say sorry,” he said. “We still believe that those people have a good player, they’re excellent products. Don’t forget that they’ve still got a very good upscaling DVD player, it’s one of the best upscalers on the market.”
Van Wynendaele said that while some customers may feel disappointed or let down, Toshiba will continue to support the HD DVD format by releasing firmware upgrades for the players in the future.
“Support continues for the players. We’ve got new firmware coming and we may add new online features in the future. As for the studios, we can’t comment on that.”
No comment on new movies
The HD DVD Promotional Group has been liquidated with immediate effect, but Van Wynendaele said he could not comment on the plans of its software partners. Read: ‘We don’t know whether Universal and Paramount will continue to support HD DVD or not’.
That’s baloney of course, because who would want to continue to put out discs on a dead format?
Van Wynendaele would not concede that some consumers might feel a little cheesed off by the collapse of Toshiba’s HD DVD enterprise.
On the one hand, early adopters will still have a very decent CD player and upscaling DVD player. On the other hand, that’s not really why they bought the product. And while Toshiba deep down might want to say sorry, to do so would be to admit guilt and might invite some kind of lawsuit from disgruntled format HD DVD enthusiasts.
Rock and a hard place then. A hard pill to swallow for Toshiba. And considering the fact that HD DVD was (arguably) always the better format, things could have been so different – not that that makes any difference today.
More from Olivier Van Wynendaele later.
