Toshiba might delay US HD-DVD player launch until next year

Toshiba is the undisputed Don of La Familia HD-DVD, but they admitted today that they might have to scrap their plans to introduce an HD-DVD player here in the States before the end of the year. That'd sort of eliminate whatever first-mover advantage HD-DVD has over Blu-ray, since we'd probably see both Blu-ray players and HD-DVD players entering the marketplace right around the same time (or at least within a few months of each other), but Toshiba doesn't want anyone to think this means they're getting ready to blink and spare all of us a frustrating format war: a spokesperson reiterated the company's commitment to HD-DVD and insisted that "any change in the launch schedule would be intended to maximise potential demand for the new products." Gotta love that logic.