The world criticized Sony for their expensive PS3 and questioned the gaming giant’s decision to install a Blu Ray drive in the console. The bet paid off a few days ago when Toshiba backed out of the HD DVD production. according to a report by digitaljournal.com:

Toshiba wasn’t going to lose the next-gen DVD battle and leave unscathed. According to the Nikkei business daily, Toshiba will likely face a 100 billion yen ($986 million US) loss in its HD DVD business. The death of HD DVD is also expected to post a full-year profit of 250 billion yen ($2.5 billion US), falling short of its outlook. Toshiba declined to confirm the accuracy of the report. In February, Toshiba announced it will no longer develop, make or market HD DVD players and recorders, giving a victory to the rival Blu-ray disc technology primarily backed by Sony.

Microsoft was backing Toshiba’s HD DVD and was providing an external solution as well, but the external add-on wasn’t the answer, I believe Microsoft should have included an HD DVD drive based Xbox “Super Elite”. Many may find this absurd, but I believe that if gamers are ready to buy an Xbox with HDMI and a 120Gb hard Drive for more about $450, they would also buy a Xbox with a 20GB HDD and a HD DVD drive for $450

If M$ had sold even a million of these Xbox 360 Super Elites, the HD DVD and BLu Ray battle would have been different. You can read more about the HD DVD demise here.