Another blow has been dealt to HD DVD as Blockbuster elects to stock only Blu-ray movies at most stores starting next month.

Since late last year, Blockbuster has been experimenting with renting movies in both HD DVD and Blu-ray format in 250 of its stores. Customers were selecting Blu-ray more than 70 percent of the time. Now, according to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Blockbuster will rent only Blu-ray titles when it expands the program to 1450 stores next month.

"The consumers are sending us a message. I can't ignore what I'm seeing," Matthew Smith, senior vice president of merchandising at Blockbuster, told The Associated Press.

The results were probably helped along by the dominance Blu-ray has in title selection. "When you walk into a store and see all this product available in Blu-ray and there is less available on HD DVD, I think the consumer gets that," Mr. Smith said.

Following that story, Adam Turner for ITWire, observed that while an early end to the format war would be good, a new breed of players that play both formats could only serve to drag on the war. These kinds of systems are "...just going to delay mass adoption of one format and thus stop hardware and movie prices falling. Blu-ray v. HD DVD is a battle to the death, and the sooner one dies the better off consumers will be," Mr. Turner wrote.