Update 01: It's over. All you early adopters have our deepest condolences. From Engadget: "Toshiba is shutting down its DVD manufacturing facilities in Aomori Prefecture, Japan, while official word is expected 'soon'.".

Update 02: Toshiba have now made the offficial announcment.

Take this one as you will, but there are many reports floating around claiming that Toshiba has summarily executed HD-DVD, thus ending the HiDef format wars.

But before you rush out and buy Sony stock, note that Toshiba has yet to make an official announcement yet, so how this story was broken by the web sites reporting it is not clear.

Here a few of links, some reporting it as fact, others as speculation.

• Wired: HD-DVD Death Made Official. Downloads To Kill Blu-Ray Next
• Reuters: Toshiba to exit HD DVD, end format war-NHK
• Digg comment thread: (comes with the warning "The Content in this Article May be Inaccurate")
• Crunch Gear: It’s official: Blu-ray wins
• Techtree: Toshiba to Withdraw HD DVD Format
• Blorge: HD DVD is dead - Now Blu ray needs to beat DVD and downloads