Toshiba shares rise amid HD DVD abandonment rumors

Sometimes losing can be a good thing, at least from a shareholders standpoint. It seems that after rumors began spreading last week about Toshiba potentially abandoning the HD DVD format, shares of the company skyrocketed upwards and saw a 5% boost. Toshiba has been very adamant since the launch of HD DVD that it is a better format than its competitor's, but despite all their efforts they and the others who backed the format have lost support far and wide, making it a poor investment choice from many standpoints. Perhaps cutting their losses now would be the best thing for the company, and clearly that is what investors are believing.

But that doesn't mean Blu-ray was a sales winner either. Both formats suffered from poor sales from the beginning, and are still a drop in the bucket compared to existing formats like DVD. That, coupled with the fact that many are predicting the doom of optical media altogether, makes the waters murky for both technologies. However, in the short term, HD DVD certainly does seem to be dead. Perhaps Toshiba's shares will boost even further if they come out and claim that the rumors are true.