Woolworth’s is a store chain that has all but disappeared from America but remains a robust enterprise of more than 800 outlets in the United Kingdom, where it has become the first major retailer across the pond to pull HD DVD titles from its shelves. The move, according to published reports in Europe, came about mostly because Woolworth’s said Blu-ray Disc titles were outselling HD DVD packaged content by margin of 10-to-1 in the chain’s 820 stores.
The chain lays the blame for HD DVD’s failure mostly on the success of the PlayStation 3 game console from chief Blu-ray proponent Sony. All PS3 units come with internal Blu-ray drives. There are an estimated 750,000 or more PS3’s in the U.K. at this stage in the next-gen disc wars.
