By Chris Nicholls

TOKYO: Toshiba has announced their estimated losses from HD DVD will top the AU$700 million mark.

Announced yesterday, Toshiba revised their 2007 Japanese financial year forecast for the failed format from 65 billion yen in sales (AU$719 million) and 50 billion yen in losses (AU$550 million) to only 26 billion yen in sales (AU$287 million) and 65 billion yen in losses (AU$719).

The news comes after a week of speculation from various news media the announcement would be closer to AU$1.1 billion in losses from the HD DVD project. 

In other negative news, Toshiba also expected their LCD panel business to turn a 12 billion yen loss (AU$132 million) for FY07, despite net sales of 285 billion yen (AU$3.1 billion).

The drop from the two AV-related divisions meant Toshiba revised their overall operating income forecast from 7.8 trillion yen to 7.7 trillion yen (AU$850 billion), a drop of 70 basis points from their original 3.7 per cent forecast.

All other divisions continued to perform, though, with the ‘social infrastructure’ division and other consumer electronics devices selling well.

Despite the announcement, Toshiba shares were up three per cent today to 691.

By Chris Nicholls

MINNEAPOLIS, USA: America’s largest electrical retailer, Best Buy, has decided to offer more than US$10 million in gift cards to customers who purchased an HD DVD player or plug-in drive from their stores prior to February 28.

The majority of the US$50 gift vouchers will be mailed to each registered owner, i.e. customers who purchased an HD DVD player with a rewards program card, also purchased a Performance Service Plan or purchased online, while other customers can contact a special phone number and confirm their purchase by quoting a receipt number or their credit card number used. 

"At Best Buy, we understood and shared our customers' frustrations as they were being asked to choose one format or the other. Now that the format war is over, we hope these gift cards will reassure our customers that we will help them make a smooth transition into the right technology for their needs," said Best Buy president and chief operating officer, Brian J. Dunn.

"The beauty of this offer is that it doesn't require our customers to give up their HD-DVD player," said chief marketing officer, Barry Judge.

"We know that many people who purchased these players have HD-DVD movies that they would like to continue to watch. We're telling our customers they can keep their players to play these movies as well as their older DVDs and use the $50 to treat themselves to anything else in our stores."

Best Buy stated HD-DVD players can still be used to upscale Norman DVDs.

The program will complement Best Buy’s online trade-in program for HD DVD, also announced today, which means from tomorrow, customers who purchased an HD DVD player anywhere can receive a trade-in price on their machine at www.bestbuytradein.com . 

Visitors to the site will receive instant estimates of the value of their HD-DVD players and movies. Those who agree with the estimates can then ship their goods to the trade-in centre free of charge by downloading a prepaid shipping label. They will also receive an additional gift card as payment for their trade-in.

Spielberg was inspired to make family games

When Steven Spielberg announced he was entering the video game business many people assumed his first project would be a cinematic, visual-effects laden epic.

But his first game made under a multi-project arrangement with Electronic Arts, called Boom Blox, is a family-friendly puzzler for the Nintendo Wii.

"The first assumption is big, epic game… yadda yadda. [It's] not the game," says Louis Castle, who has worked closely with Spielberg to develop the title.

"But it's so not that product that the moment you see it, you know what you are in for.

"Steven has a multi-project deal with us and without giving too much away, there are projects much more in line with people's expectations, but those take a long time to make."

Spielberg got involved with EA because, says Castle, he is a gamer.

"He is a very big game player – not a lot of people know that. He loves playing games.

The game is a 3D puzzle action title

"He wanted to make them with some people he could trust. It seemed like a great partnership."

Spielberg was inspired to make a title for the Wii after playing on the console with legendary Nintendo developer Shigeru Miyamoto.

"He wanted to play a game he could play with his friends and family.

"He came to us with idea for the game and has been working with us on a weekly basis, overseeing the development of the game and working with me personally on the product.

"It's been a great kick."

Despite his commitment to film-making, both directing and producing titles, Spielberg has been dedicated to the development process.

"Steven will come in and tell us: 'These are kind of ideas I'd like to get to'.

"We brainstorm about what that might be, we might do some quick drawings on a whiteboard and then he goes away and does his stuff like making movies and saving the world.

Steve's instinct on people is incredible Louis Castle

"A week later we review the progress we have made and talk about what we do next. It's literally a very iterative process and we work very closely together."

Boom Blox uses the Wii's innovative controller to give players freedom to wreak havoc in the game.

"Steven wanted to make a game where the complexity and challenge of using your brain to look at three dimensional puzzles, and throw objects at it, and knock them over, was intriguing enough for adults to be interested.

"And at the same time this kinetic, visceral feeling would be attractive to children as well."

Castle adds: "As Steven would say: 'Kids just like to break things'."

The development team spent a long time working on the control system for the game.

Spielberg came up with the idea of the game

"We brought in the best computer scientists and we working on analysing the data you get from the Wii remote," says Castle.

"That was actually a very, very difficult problem involving lots of calculus.

"So many Wii games record just what the Wiimote is doing without much thought about or at least computation about what it was intended by the player.

"We've put a lot of thought and energy into what was intended by the consumer."

Spielberg's skill, says Castle, is to understand the player.

"More than anything he gets people. I have made a lot of games, more than a hundred and I am quite accomplished in this field, even I don't have that kind of instinct.

"Steve's instinct on people is incredible. He really understands what they are going to say about the game and what they are going to enjoy about it."

Castle is at pains to emphasise that Spielberg's attachment to the game is no marketing hook.

"This collaboration is not about attaching Steven's name to a game to make it sell. This is a creative collaboration between people in very different entertainment fields trying to make a product that will appeal to a very broad audience.

"We're making Steven's game and of course he's going to talk about it because he is excited about his game."