In the aftermath of Warner’s selection of Blu-ray over HD DVD, Toshiba is reeling from the decision and is slashing prices of its HD DVD players. However, gaining market share isn’t what they’re after.

At one time, Toshiba believed that having lower HD DVD player prices would generate a large enough market share to guarantee the survival, perhaps victory, with their format. Unfortunately, they couldn’t survive the tidal wave of Blu-ray players in the millions of Sony PS3s that have been sold.

When Warner announced, on the eve of CES, that it would go exclusive with Blu-ray after May, 2008, it pretty much sealed the fate of the HD DVD format. Now, five major studios support Blu-ray and only two support HD DVD.

As a result of that 5-2 studio support, it doesn’t really matter how many HD DVD players are in U.S. households, and the only real reason Toshiba slashed prices of its players 40 to 50 percent on Monday was not a last stab at market share, but rather to clear out inventory before throwing in the towel.

Customers who fall for this are basically buying a box for which there will be relatively few titles in the future. Paramount and Universal have claimed that they will still support HD DVD, but they have been noticeably silent on whether they would never support Blu-ray. In addition, it will become apparent that those two remaining studios are simply holding their cards until Sony works a behind the scenes deal with Toshiba that allows Toshiba to save face. Then Toshiba will announce the end of the HD DVD, and Paramount and Universal can look supremely innocent when they have no choice but to convert to the only remaining format, Blu-ray.

In the meantime, unless consumers are very well informed, they’re only going to end up spending money simply to help minimize Toshiba’s financial losses. I think it’s better if shrewd customers simply let those HD DVD players accumulate in the warehouses and sit on their current DVD player for a few more months. It’ll be money their pockets, not Toshiba’s.