The HD disc format war is not over yet as Toshiba announces a new HD DVD marketing push based on what the company calls "-breaking unit sales in the fourth quarter of 2007".

Warner's move to Blu-ray and the resulting cancellation of HD DVD media events at the CES 2008 are so far the low points in the HD DVD history.

Toshiba will now kick off new major HD DVD marketing initiatives, including joint advertising campaigns with studios and extended pricing strategies will begin in mid- January and are designed to spotlight the superior benefits of HD DVD as well as the benefits HD DVD brings to a consumer's current DVD library by upconverting standard DVDs via the HDMI output to near high definition picture quality.

Effective on January 13, 2008 the MSRP of the entry-model HD-A3 will be $149.99, the HD-A30, with 1080p output, $199.99, and the high-end HD-A35, $299.99.

"While price is one of the consideration elements for the early adopter, it is a deal-breaker for the mainstream consumer," said Yoshi Uchiyama, Group Vice President Digital A/V Group. "Consumer sales this holiday season have proven that the consumer awareness of the HD DVD format has been elevated and pricing is the most critical determinant in consumers' purchase decision of the next generation HD DVD technology. The value HD DVD provides to the consumer simply cannot be ignored."

The new low pricing of the HD DVD players is attractive, but when consumers find out that new movies only get Blu-ray releases it will not help much.
Now the HD format war is even more confusing as nobody knows how fast it will end. I would also not have been surprised if Toshiba would have announced today to discontinue HD DVD.