The format war between HD DVD and Blu-ray has eventually ended, but who won in fact? Blu-ray won the war, but what is people’s opinion after all?

First of all, despite the fact that HD DVD eventually lost the battle, this high def format had its fans. What happened to these fans? They lost money, of course! Secondly, we have Blu-ray’s supporters, who have probably got already sad, as Blu-ray players and recorders’ prices have started to rise just like that after Toshiba officially dropped support for HD DVD.

In this context, the popular retailer Best Buy seems to have created a plan for cheering up at least HD DVD’s fans. The company announced on Wednesday that it would start offering $50 gift cards to the ones that bought HD DVD products before February 23. The gift cards should be arriving by mail by May 1.

"At Best Buy, we understood and shared our customers' frustrations as they were being asked to choose one format or the other," said Brian J. Dunn, president and chief operating officer for Best Buy. "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," Dunn also said.

In fact, Best Buy’s move is a smart one, as it is obvious that people will have to use their gift cards in Best Buy’s stores. They lost with HD DVD, but now they will have to buy Blu-ray players and / or records, won’t they? Thus, Best Buy wins again, by becoming these people’s Blu-ray products provider.