September 27, 2005 - Microsoft and Intel officially announced their support of the HD-DVD format today. Representatives from both companies stated that the decision was based upon the cost effective features of the format when compared to Blu-Ray technology. Prior to this announcement both companies had stayed on the sidelines regarding the talks between Toshiba and Sony to offer a unified format for next generation of disc storage.

 
Toshiba supports the HD-DVD format which is less expensive to manufacture due to the fact that is has the same surface layer thickness of a DVD. However, the Blu-Ray format has a higher capacity holding 25GB on a single layer where as HD-DVD holds 15GB on a single layer.

Microsoft's decision to side with Toshiba isn't surprising considering it is the only format currently supported by Longhorn. Bill Gates was also quoted last month stating that future version of Xbox 360 will possibly have the ability to play HD-DVDs. Sony has already confirmed that PlayStation 3 will use Blu-Ray technology creating a rather large installed user base for the format.