360 Bluray Drive

[darrensen]

Hi,

Now it looks like HD DVD is dead in the water..... how long do you think it'll be until we see a Bluray drive for the 360?

My initial guess would be a while as Microsoft haven't dropped this format yet, but news this morning looks like Toshiba (founders of HD DVD) are stopping production!

Interested to hear your thoughts.

Darren

[toolsong]

There's a rumour on The Inq
Xbox 360 to go Blu in May - The INQUIRER

[danroyle]

dont think they'll jump over to blu ray just yet

and the inquirer is not the most reliable place in the world for news

[Stoo]

Nope, but the inq didn't source it..

[Lord Midas]

It could be a while before Bluray comes to Xbox. But then again if MS did it soon then there really would be no need to get a PS3.

[Veles]

I don't really see the point, by the time they get around to designing and releasing one a stand alone BR player won't be much more expensive.

[Johnakajohn]

It could be a while before Bluray comes to Xbox. But then again if MS did it soon then there really would be no need to get a PS3.

Exactly, with HD-DVD dead MS have a real incentive to get a Blu-Ray addon out there to discourage sales of PS3's on this basis.

[tfboy]

Exactly, with HD-DVD dead MS have a real incentive to get a Blu-Ray addon out there to discourage sales of PS3's on this basis.

True, but the BDA could see this as a threat and refuse to give MS a licence to produce blu-ray drives

Although I doubt MS will try and release a BD drive. The ties with Tosh meant they could produce HD-DVD drives cheap as the technology was an ally. Now, they have to "buy the right" to resell BD drives.

I don't think they would see the cost of buying into BD a worthwhile investment unless they were planning on using the extra capacity for games too. But purely as another way of watching BD movies? I think not.

Remember, MS were adament they'd never use the HD-DVD drive for games, it was only ever intended for playing back films.

JMTPW

[Johnakajohn]

I was just thinking in terms of functionality, the HD-DVD add on countered the PS3's Blu-ray and it was optional. With the demise of HD-DVD MS have nothing in the 360 to counter that.

IIRC MS and Toshiba have already been invited to join the BDA.

[Nick]

I don't see it as being any matter of urgency for MS.

They've invested a huge amount in tuning and tweaking Xbox LIVE and I reckon they'll focus more in digital delivery for HD content than worry about slapping a BD player and the associated software (as well as licensing) into an Xbox 360.

From a competing consoles view, there's no particular advantage in going with a BD Xbox 360, they already have massive market penetration and a well established brand... there's little to gain from a BD Xbox 360.

The DVD format is going to be around for a very long while yet, so there's little for MS to worry about not having the media to sell their games on...

[vdbswong]

Like people have said, I don't think it's an urgent matter.. however i do believe that if they decide to make a Blu-Ray add-on they would an advantage.

Now that Blu-Ray has won it means that the PS3 has more of an incentive to be bought... it has an "established" hi-definition *futureproofing* since consumers can now buy it for it's Blu-Ray functions without fear that they're investing in something that could have been beaten by HD-DVD.

If MS were to produce a Blu-Ray add-on it would give you the ability to buy into that format whenever you wanted at your choice... so as with the HD-DVD argument.. if you want to invest in the player you could but you're not *forced* into it as with the PS3 meaning that that would be more of an incentive to buy the 360 over the PS3 in this regard.

Also, whilst MS are trying to push digital download, their current plan only allows you to effectively "rent" the movie and hence the lower costs... I understand it would be easy to reduce the DRM so that you can "own" the movie but then they would have issues with the whole "copy off of the HDD" copyright issue which i'm sure consumers wouldn't be happy about if they invoked DRM like iTunes. Not to mention that some people like owning a "Physical" copy of the movie anyways... i know i do =].

Anyhow i don't know where i got the ability to type such a long post... in the end i hope that MS do a Blu-Ray drive because i know i'd buy one ^^.

[directhex]

they've officially canned the hd-dvd drive now

[Rob_B]

Nick - I'd heard that too, MS weren't really too bothered HD died on its arse as what did they really gain from it? Using live is a better option for them (no warranty/production costs!) So Blue-ray isn't exactly a must-have!

[bigblue]

I can recall MS saying (regardless of real motives) the reason for the HD-DVD being an add-on was to allow flexibility, and that they could and would release a Blu drive if it was deemed necessary.

As long as the standalone BD players don't suddenly drop in price, I'd say they should add a BD drive, or even build one in. Not for games in any way, shape or form, but simply as the PS3 has made many sales off the back of it's movie capabilities. Now we have a format victor, why shouldn't MS grab a portion of those sales ? I imagine many people will pick PS3 over 360 because of the bonus of HD movie playing, and as 360 currently can't offer this at all, I think they're missing a trick.

MS may be planning to go down the download route (didn't Michael Bay claim that was their plan all along) but I'm not sure the public, and more importantly our internet connections, are ready.

[Rob_B]

Problem is just how much would MS need to charge for a BR add-on in order to make it profitable? After all they don't get any profit from somebody else selling BR movies & it'd reduce the amount of sales from Live.

If its near to the price of what the HD drive was (It'd be more surely!) then you'd get even more of the "buy a PS3 as it has BR built in not an extra £100/£150 like the 360" comments.

[Lord Midas]

I'd love to get digital content but as i'm too far from our exchange I can only get 512mb broadband. This is far too slow. So discs it is for now.