Toshiba may not launch HD DVD products until 2006, breaking its previously stated deadline for the introduction of the technology.

Toshiba and other HD DVD backers have for some time pegged late 2005 as the launch point for the next-generation, blue-laser optical disc format in the US and Japan.

However, a spokeswoman at the company’s Tokyo HQ today revealed that for Toshiba at least, zero-hour may now come in 2006, Reuters reports. Toshiba may launch in Japan this year, the spokeswoman hinted, but it certainly seems unlikely that the planned end-of-year US debut will now not take place.

Source: The Register