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Toshiba Plans HD DVD Laptop Counter-Offensive

Apparently hoping to counter the "PS3-effect" on Blu-ray sales, HD DVD backer Toshiba says it plans to put HD DVD drives in all of its laptops in 2008.

While the manufacturer currently provides optional HD DVD drives for its laptops, Toshiba Senior Vice President Hisatsugu Nonaka said today at a news conference that all Toshiba laptops will come with HD DVD drives next year. "The demand is there; people want to watch their favorite movies in high-definition on the road," explained Nonaka.

This latest announcement from Toshiba would seem to suggest that the manufacturer thinks it can achieve the same kind of lift for HD DVD that Sony provided for Blu-ray when it baked a Blu-ray drive into its its PlayStation 3 game console late last year.

Of course, Sony's decision to embed Blu-ray drives in its PS3 has been great for Blu-ray (adding 3.6 million installed users), but arguably not-so-great for overall sales of the PS3, which as a result carried a higher pricetag, turning off some would-be buyers. Whether or not Toshiba's laptop sales might suffer the same fate remains to be seen.

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Toshiba to Enlist Laptops to Push HD DVD [Reuters]

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