Bowing to
reality, Toshiba is apparently going to delay the release of its
HD-XA1 and
HD-A1 (pictured) HD DVD
players until at least next month, so that early buyers will actually have something to play on them. The players were
originally meant to ship this month, but that timeline was jeopardized by Warner Home Video's
announcement last week that its initial
slate of HD DVD flicks wouldn't be out on March 28th as originally planned. Now, Toshiba says it plans to
"synchronize the launch of our players with HD DVD title releases." Of course, if you've
preordered one of the players
and were hoping to use it as a very large and expensive paperweight, you're out of luck. For everyone else, the delay
will give us one more excuse to wait a little longer for a dual-format player to hit the market.
