Report: New Line, HBO Abandon HD DVD For Blu-ray

According to a new Hollywood Reporter article, movie studios New Line and HBO have followed Warner Bros' lead in choosing Blu-ray as their exclusive high definition video format of choice, narrowing support for Toshiba's competing HD DVD. The article reports that a New Line spokesperson has said the studio will be "releasing all future next-generation titles only in the Blu-ray Disc format." It also quotes HBO Video president Henry McGee as saying the TV studio will be "following the same policy as Warner Home Video." Warner Home Video said last week that it would phase out HD DVD production -- the only HD video format supported by Microsoft's Xbox 360 -- by May of 2008, in a pre-CES announcement. Since then, Paramount has reiterated that it would continue to support the format, along with Dreamworks. Microsoft has been quoted at CES saying of possible future support of Blu-ray "if that's the way [consumers] vote, that's something we'll have to consider," though a Microsoft representative told Gamasutra that the company is explicitly not currently developing plans for that support.