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"  That was quick. Sure, Toshiba was fighting what seemed like an uphill battle from the start, outmanned and out-muscled by Sony&amp;#039;s Blu-ray team, which always had more studio and manufacturer support. But just about everybody expected this war to drag out longer. Today, not two years after the first HD DVD product went on sale, this format joins the Betamaxes, MiniDiscs, and UMDs of years&amp;#039; past in format heaven. Only, this time, after decades of pushing proprietary formats, Sony (much to the chagrin of just about everybody else) pulled out what appears to be a winner. On the surface, it&amp;#039;s simple: Toshiba lost, Sony won. But this was a war that had a lot of peripheral players, some of whom benefit from the latest developments, and some of whom suffer. Lets take a look at the winners and losers. WINNERS: The PlayStation 3 Had HD DVD triumphed, Sony&amp;#039;s fledgling game system would have been seriously wounded. The PS3 has always had the highest price tag of the current batch of gaming systems\u2014a fact that is at least partially justified by its inclusion of a Blu-ray player. If Blu-ray had died, this price premium would be a waste, and the PS3 system would have suffered. As it is, Sony&amp;#039;s big gamble might yet pay off. Sure, stubbornly including a Blu-ray drive in the PS3 delayed its release by months, raised its price far above its competitors, and caused sky-high production costs that meant Sony still lost a few hundred dollars per console sold (at least initially). But the PS3 has always been cheaper than most other Blu-ray players, meaning it should catch the eye of consumers who were waiting for a victor before jumping into the high-def disc game. And while that thing is sitting in your living room, it can&amp;#039;t hurt to check out Assassin&amp;#039;s Creed. Warner Bros./Wal-Mart/Best Buy/Netflix In a matter of weeks, these four companies bolted from format neutrality to the Blu-ray camp. Warner&amp;#039;s pre-CES announcement was the first domino to fall, and proved to have unstoppable momentum. In the end, there is an argument that each of these four actors played kingmaker\u2014Warners got the ball rolling and Wal-Mart was the final nail in the coffin, but the mega-retailer waited for Best Buy and Netflix to make their moves. Each of these companies can sleep at night content with the power it wields, and know that next time a format war comes around, it won&amp;#039;t be taken for granted. Hitachi Hitachi&amp;#039;s largest stake in the format war was the inclusion of Blu-ray recorders on some of its new high-end camcorders. Saving your home movies onto a dead format means inevitable heartbreak when your no-longer-produced player dies. Hitachi made a significant investment in these camcorders\u2014one that would have been paid off painfully had Blu-ray lost.  The Public: If you were holding off on buying in until a winner was declared, the wait is over.  LOSERS: Apple For high-def aficionados hoping to forgo the format war, Apple&amp;#039;s new iTunes-based high-definition movie rental service (delivered to your TV through Apple TV&amp;#039;s recent upgrade) was a low-risk way to get an HD fix without investing in a possibly dead format. Now that Blu-ray is the clear victor, purchasing a high-def player and some movies doesn&amp;#039;t seem like such a bad idea, so Apple&amp;#039;s role as a high-def pinch hitter is essentially moot\u2014and just days after Apple released its Apple TV upgrade.  Microsoft Technology conspiracy theorists have long believed that Microsoft&amp;#039;s allegiance to HD DVD has little to do with any confidence in the format, but rather with its desire to drag this crazy format war out as long as possible. When Microsoft jumped into the fray, Toshiba was seriously out-muscled by team Blu-ray. The addition of Redmond reinforcements could have been Microsoft&amp;#039;s attempt to keep either side from declaring victory until both sides were obsolete. Bill Gates has been public about his belief that the future of high-definition movies lies not in a physical disc, but in over-the-air streaming. Microsoft is already knee-deep in the IPTV business, and undoubtedly has more to gain from this future delivery system than from either competing disc format. Blu-ray&amp;#039;s victory undoubtedly gives a boon to the PlayStation 3\u2014something that can&amp;#039;t make the Xbox division too pleased. And while Microsoft hedged its bets by selling the Xbox&amp;#039;s HD DVD player as an optional add-on, that is now looking to be one pretty useless accessory.  The Public Once again, the victor of a format war was not decided by consumer preference (HD DVD and Blu-ray hardware and disc sales were always pretty comparable), but by backroom dealings and cash-filled brown paper bags. Warner Bros. decided. Netflix decided. Best Buy decided. Wal-Mart decided. We just accepted.\u2014Seth Porges MORE ANALYSIS: Format War Over: Blu-ray Wins, Early Adopters Lose "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/gadgets/a2618/4250040/>