Following the recent decision of Toshiba to end its support of HD DVD, the battle of the high-def formats has taken a considerable turn in Blu-ray’s favour. Yet Universal’s HD release of American Gangster has proved to be a plucky wee fighter in this fight for supremacy, blowing away its Blu-ray rivals in the sales charts.

American Gangster came out guns blazing in its first week, leading VideoScan’s Weekly High-Def Disc Sales Chart for the week ending 24 February. HighDefDigest reports that Ridley Scott’s crime epic, which was incidentally released on the same day as the Toshiba announcement, sold almost twice the amount of units as the leading Blu-ray runner Michael Clayton. Not bad for a format that looks to be on the decline.

However before you HD fans out there get too excited, it must be pointed out that the remaining nine titles on VideoScan’s chart were all Blu-ray releases. This just further emphasizes the well-known fact that Blu-ray is very much in control of the high-def market, despite the best efforts of American Gangster.

VideoScan’s complete list of the ten top-selling high-def releases for the week ending 24 February 2008:

1. American Gangster (HD DVD); INDEX: 100
2. Michael Clayton (Blu-ray); INDEX: 62.24
3. The Rock (Blu-ray); INDEX: 27.26
4. Cars (Blu-ray); INDEX: 26.18
5. We Own the Night (Blu-ray); INDEX: 24.29
6. Planet Earth (Blu-ray); INDEX: 22.69
7. Con Air (Blu-ray); INDEX: 21.37
8. Gone Baby Gone (Blu-ray); INDEX: 19.89
9. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest (Blu-ray); INDEX: 19.26
10. Crimson Tide (Blu-ray); INDEX: 18.28