Toshiba announced today that the company has applied for membership of the Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA) and plans to introduce products that support the Blu-ray format. Toshiba was the main backer of the HD DVD (short for High-Definition/Density DVD) format which losted out to the Blue-Ray to be the disc format of choice for HD content.
Toshiba aims to introduce digital products that support the Blu-ray format, including BD players and notebook PCs integrating BD drives, in the course of this year. Details of the products, including the timing of regional launches, are now under consideration.
This annoucement will only add fuel to the fire that Microsoft will have an Blu-ray add-on drive like they did earlier for HD DVD. Toshiba made the HD DVD add-on unit for Microsoft.