Feb. 15 (Bloomberg) -- Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world's largest retailer, said it will start offering high-definition DVD players and discs only in Sony Corp.'s Blu-ray format and phase out a rival standard by Toshiba Corp.

Netflix Inc. and Best Buy Co. said earlier this week they would also stop selling movies using Toshiba's HD-DVD format. The decisions may hurt Toshiba further as the industry decides who will win out in the biggest format war since VHS beat out Betamax in the 1980s.

The change will take place over the next several months and be completed by June, the Bentonville, Arkansas-based retailer said today in a statement on its Web site.

``We've listened to our customers, who are showing a clear preference toward Blu-ray products and movies with their purchases,'' Gary Severson, Wal-Mart's senior vice president for home entertainment, said in the statement.

Time Warner Inc.'s Warner Bros. Entertainment unit said in January that it would stop releasing movies in the HD-DVD standard by the end of May. The two major studios that continue to use the Toshiba format are Viacom Inc.'s Paramount Pictures and General Electric Co.'s Universal Pictures.

Wal-Mart fell 53 cents, or 1.1 percent, to $49.44 at 4:34 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading.

Toshiba rose 4 yen to 784 yen in Tokyo before the announcement. The shares have declined 6.3 percent this year. Sony, the world's second-largest maker of consumer electronics, fell 50 yen to 4,850 yen.

To contact the reporter on this story: Josh Fineman in New York at Jfineman@bloomberg.net; Lauren Coleman-Lochner in New York at llochner@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: February 15, 2008 18:25 EST