Both Best Buy and Circuit City have announced programs to appease customers who bought HD DVD hardware. They both hand out gift cards or store credit instead of real money, but there is one big difference: Best Buy's program does not require that customers return their players. Furthermore, the retailer said that it will start mailing $50 gift cards to all customers it can identify through store records.

"The DVD format war has divided our customers in a way we haven't seen since Betamax took on VHS more than 20 years ago," said Brian J. Dunn, president and chief operating officer for Best Buy, in a statement.

"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," Dunn said.

Best Buy expects to ship around $10 million in gift cards. It also offers customers the choice of calling 888-BEST-BUY to make sure they are identified as a HD-DVD buyer. There will also be the option of using Best Buy's online trade-in center beginning March 21, where the value of their HD DVD player and movies can be assessed.

Instead, Circuit City, which announced first such a program, said that it will accept returns of HD DVD players within 90 days of purchase in exchange for store credit. "We will accept returns for HD DVD players within 90 days of purchase. Customers returning these products will receive store credit for the purchase price," said Jackie Foreman, a representative for Circuit City, said in an email to PC Magazine on March 6.

According to estimations from Japan’s Nikkei business daily, Toshiba will suffer a $1 billion loss due to the HD DVD fold for this business year. Toshiba reportedly expected big loses, but not as high as the newspaper reported. The question we can’t help but wondering right now is: will Toshiba turn to Blu-ray as well, since Sony’s creation became such a phenomenon?

Immediately after dropping HD DVD, the Japanese company turned for the flash memory market, announcing plans for new generation flash memory drives, which will cost them $16 billion, but the profit will be strong as well.