It’s official, Toshiba has finally thrown in the towel.

The format war has finally come to an end. Japanese electronic giant Toshiba has announced that they will stop developing and producing HD DVD players and recorders. The company also says that it will continue to monitor notebook PC’s with integrated HD DVD drives.

This comes after Warner Brothers defection after which US retailers Wal Mart and Best Buy followed suite by saying that they will stop promoting HD DVD at their stores after which Netflix withdrew it’s support to the format. Which pretty much put the final nail in HD DVD’s coffin. In a replay of the 1980’s format battle between VHS and Sony’s Betamax.

The company has sold about 700,000 units world wide and another 300,000 to Microsoft’s nex-gen video game console The Xbox 360. The company says that it is committed to provide full after sales service to all owners of Toshiba HD DVD products.