In a last ditch effort to combat their newly revitalized rival Blu-ray, the HD-DVD Consortium has resorted to pulling out the big guns. Literally. Consortium spokesperon Lance Jabuti announced today that several new partnerships and a corporate rebranding have raised the fallen hope of many who felt they would never get it up again.

Effective January 15, 2008, HD-DVD will be rebranded as HarD-DVD with a special focus on the high definition adult entertainment. With an enormous injection of hard cash into the tiny little blackhole that was the HD-DVD consortium’s battle chest, the chest has become much larger. Industry analysts have suggested it may very well be the largest chest in the adult entertainment industry.

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HarD-DVD announced two new sponsors that are firmly behind this renewed call for action. Viagra and Cialis have teamed up to lift the shriveling HarD-DVD Consortium to new heights with no sign of returning to their previous state. HarD-DVD players will use their advanced feature set such as internet connectivity to download current ads for other products that will automatically play every ten to fifteen minutes of video playback (to ensure consumers see an ad every time they use their player).

In addition to simply having ads, we’ve heard that Immersion Inc’s famed TouchSense vibration technology is being included in the remote controls to alert viewers to when “the good parts” are coming according to HarD-DVD representatives.

When Sarcastic Gamer reporter Dave Cothran contacted 27 of his favorite adult studios for comment, several indicated they were very excited for alternate uses of this technology. One studio (that commented only on the condition we didn’t reveal their name) has plans for a line of HarD-DVD based adult entertainment games. One title in development for the Japanese market, tentatively called Remote Buzz-Buzz Tentacle Holiday has reportedly proven very popular with females 18-25 as well as males 18-25 in the United States.

When asked what this meant for existing HD-DVD players and supporters, we were told that players with the ability to be upgraded may be able to renegotiate their license through their main sponsors Viagra and Cialis to become HarD, but many stand-alone players will remain alone and not HarD. When specifically asked about the HD-DVD add-on for Microsoft’s Xbox 360, HarD-DVD representatives said they were in fact “in bed” with Microsoft, but nothing has come up yet that they can announce. We were ensured that if they are able to put anything into place that feels right, we would know as soon as the deed was done.