Rumor 101: Xbox 360 with a built in HD-DVD
The format wars are reaching their peak, with companies on both sides forging exclusive alliances supporting a particular format. This struggle for supremacy is taking a new front every single day. The end result seems to be taking a huge toll on the actual consumers of the products for they remain undecided as to which format to support.
The Blu-ray has always had a significant edge over its competitor because of Sony’s PS3, and since Microsoft and Sony can’t really be buddies they had to go ahead and support HD-DVD although there was a slight hitch. The PS3 came bundled with a Blu-ray player whereas you needed to buy a HD-DVD to add to the 360.
This pattern may however significantly change with this recent comment to Smarthouse made by Browning, a prominent figure in the Australian CE marketing field. He has not ruled out the possibility of a 360 coming bundled with an inbuilt HD-DVD player.
- “The fact that movie houses like Paramount are behind the HD DVD format along with the likes of Universal and DreamWorks is key. I believe that more content providers will get behind the format and that the likes of Microsoft which is a big supporter of the HD DVD format will bring out an Xbox with a built in HD DVD player. This is a given.”
Although he has given no time frame for this move to occur, I feel this can be sooner than expected. The 360 is growing in numbers and an inbuilt HD-DVD will solve the problem of storage which next generation games are facing when it comes to the 360.
Assassin’s Creed and UT III are classic examples of this dilemma. Developers of both games felt that the content they had created was seemingly larger than a DVD and they were facing obstacles to fit all the content into a miniature disc.
Microsoft on the other hand had made a comment couple of months ago that they would go ahead and support that particular format that the consumers are going in for. So a Blu-ray fitted Xbox 360 cannot be ruled out of the question as well. An Elite coming bundled with the HD-DVD will actually make Microsoft 360 a formidable opponent against the PS3 on the hardware front.
The company might actually hold the key to decide the fate of the wars as well, with the sales of the 360 soaring during the pre holiday season such a move may very well end the question of choice and there shall finally be one winner to rule them all.
-Neelesh Mukherjee
Unfortunately the 360 has reached its peak. With Halo 3 dominating, there is nothing else as big to come from the 360 in the future and if that’s all they have then they are finished for this generation.
With the billions already wasted it would suit Microsoft better just to build the new box with HD in mind and get rid of the 360 once and for all, they have a habit of doing this anyway.
If they can’t get this 360 right then how on Earth are they going to fit a whole HD DVD drive in without any more issues? They can’t, they have to start from scratch.
Sony is a consumer electronics company that makes HDTVs, and is also a movie studio, and it was logical that they would use the PS3 to introduce Blu-ray. It seems even more logical that their game console competitor would try to match them by including HD DVD, but this is not Microsoft’s strategy.
Instead, Microsoft has been extremely focused on making the 360 be a good game console and a media extender, and their involvement with HD DVD has been more on the software technology side (HDi and the VC-1 codec), leaving it to Toshiba to handle the player sales.
Sure, some games might have additional content that would fit on a higher density disc, however Microsoft and the game developer have a better business opportunity when players sign on to Xbox Live and download the additional content. For Microsoft, each visitor to Xbox Live presents an opportunity to sell more games and movie downloads.
It may be inevitable that a 360 will have a built-in HD DVD drive one day, but I don’t think it’s Microsoft’s top priority.
Insomniac, I guess Gears of War, Bioshock, Halo 3, Mass Effect, Alan Wake, Army of Two, Kane and Lynch, Forza 2, Splinter Cell conviction, Assasians Creed, UT3, Fable 2, COD4, Ace Combat 6, Borderlands, Madden 08, PGR4, GTA4, DMC4, VF5 (multiplayer is better than none), NG2 (not a remake), CaC3, Too Human, and a shitload more don’t count to you? Just face it man there are more games on the 360 than the PS3 now and more in development plain and simple. You see loyal fanboy the 360 does what developers like, SELL SOFTWARE!!!! Sony had to release a 40 gig model specifically designed not to support the PS2 because the people who did go blueray weren’t buying any PS3 games. Speaking of games how is Lair? Or how about Heavonly Sword I hear it’s a great renta?l $7 sure beats the hell out of $60 for 5 hrs of entertainment. Isn’t Warhawk like so much better than Halo? I hear everyone is playing that; it has sold like 300,000 since release halo can’t beat that right?
wow this guy just named lot of games that are going to be on ps3 too lol assasians creed cant fit on a 360 dvd tho ut got cut off 360 what next ???cuz i know blu ray can fit more we dont need to buy the addon and we dont need to pay for live with have free online
You have a grammatical error in the very first clause of your very first sentence: “The format wars are reaching its peak…”
You can either write, “The format wars are reaching their peak” or “The format wars is reaching its peak.” Grammatically, you can’t have it both ways.
Thats right you dont have to pay for live and you can play for free but who is actually online? I have a PS3 and I got to tell you….not to impressed.
Why aren’t anyone suggesting just allowing to develop multi-dvd games??? MS start supporting Multi-DVD ganes… thats it, we dont need anything more!!!
This will boil down to affordable prices…..
the ps2 and xbox had the similar competition….(one has more games but inferior graphics and the other has better graphics but not much games.)
now the tables have turned.
being im my 40′s I remember many consoles that were much better than nintendo’s glory days…but lack of games and high prices sunk them.
sega game gear in color, better than game boy for example
this “WAR” is just better for consumers…finally!
There is only one possible winner in the format war, and the winner will be the Internet (aka Digital Delivery). Interestingly, Sony isn’t in a very good position to win once everything goes digital, since they’re part of the BluRay consortium. Sony’s best plan of attack is therefore to get licensing fees from as many BluRay disks as possible by 3rd party publishers. The hardware required to run BluRay is still pretty steep, so hitting the mainstream price-point of $99 for a player is still pretty far away for BluRay.
HD-DVD will hit the $99 sweet spot sooner, but they can’t really ever “win” the format war unless Sony starts producing HD-DVD content, which is a very slight to no possibility. Without movies like Spiderman 3, HD-DVD can never truly win – BluRay would always be hanging around.
Digital distribution has no such restrictions, since every PS3 and 80% of the 360s can do Hi-Def video today, downloaded directly into the homes of users everywhere (the missing 20% in the 360 pool – Core systems don’t have hard drives, although for $100 they can upgrade to a HD which would bring that percentage to 100%). This also completely addresses inventory concerns, shipping costs and retail markups, plus it allows for both rental and purchase in a market that’s getting used to the idea of digital property thanks in large part to the iPod.
Microsoft doesn’t need to choose one of the formats, and the last thing they need to do is increase the manufacturing cost of their system. They DO need to include a hard drive in each and every 360 (the Arcade version is a mistake) and developers can always stream content over the Internet if it doesn’t all fit on a 9GB disk (which, by the way is rediculous – 9GB is plenty of space for everything except for HD video, and we just don’t need CGI in games – if developers would just do their cut scenes in-engine instead of pre-rendering them there is no space constraint).
qbs,
Though Assasins Creed has it’s 360 problems, it has it’s PS3 problems aswell, 256mb ram to be exact. You see, it doesn’t matter how much space you have, if you can’t load it all into memory then you don’t have a game. They’ll get it all worked out on each side though, better compression tech on both sides would work. As far as UTIII, Epics Mark Rein, has said that the 360 version isn’t cut at all. Also, Just because a game is on multiple platforms doesn’t make it any more of a system seller, especially if it comes out at the same time on each end or as in GTA IV’s situation, a whole lot of exclusive additional story related content that the PS3 won’t get. Also as far as upcoming games not already released ones, 360 has: Mass Effect, Alan Wake, Splinter Cell conviction, Fable 2, Ace Combat 6, Too Human, and Ninja Gaiden 2. Those are the ones mentioned that are exclusive by “The Guy Who Knows” and if the hype that was generated for the first Fable is anything to go by then Fable 2 will hit a fever pitch though probably not as big as Halo 3, then again what is. Oh yeah lest us not forget Halo Wars, the new Banjo game, Beautiful Katamari, Lost Odysee, Age of Conan, and Huxley. I know there are more coming but I’m too tired to search for more.
Not that I particularly care what game comes out when and on what console, because I am fortunate enough to own all three of the major consoles, and I prefer PC to console anyway. Sure the PS3 has some good exclusives coming out, but when I really think about them, Killzone didn’t go over very well on the PS2 so I can’t Imagine how much hype could be built really, and MGS really hasn’t been a system seller, at least in the U.S. more of a Niche game. Though four looks to be the best of the bunch, I didn’t particularly enjoy 3 and 2 was kind of annoying, I played the hell out of the first one though. With all of it’s “Hype” heavenly sword was a heavenly flop, not a bad game but it was extremely short and the hair “effects” were just plain ugly. Lair was a big unconrolable turd that I am embarrassed to say that I paid full price for. Also if the Wii was flooded with any more shovel ware, I am personally going to go to each developers door and kick them in the junk. Every console has it’s crap games. Right now though. I will stick to games on the PC and 360 and silently wait for Little Big Planet.
I would also like to point out that paying 50 dollars for a service that offers me so much more and a far better selection of content. aswell as with all of the features and services the Live offers to me anyways, not a big deal. in fact, it is the smallest bill I have. I pay in january and forget about it until January. That being said though. I wouldn’t mind if it were free, because who doesn’t like free?
Xbox 360 offers plenty of games to play that are great. If you say that we only have Halo 3 then that’s fine cause I would much rather play a game that is fun and offers years of enjoyment (halo 2 and halo 3), then have a game that has 51GB of crap on it. Don’t get me wrong, PS3 is a monster system, but it’s over priced and it loses to Xbox 360 in the graphics department anyways. Look at the reviews for games that release on both consoles. Like 95% of people say the game looks better on the 360. The other 5% are reviews from PS Magazine. I work with a couple of people that have PS3 and they don’t share the same excitement about their console as I do for mine.
You say “Free online”. That’s fine if you want to look for games your self. I’ll certainly pay the $1 a week to have a ranking system with matchmaking, the friends list, and everything else that is Xbox live. Just face it, your beat.
Wow alot of you guys are stuped. Ps3 Is and will always be the best in every catagory. Ps2 had many titles that were good. Ratchet series. socom. Grand theft auto. grand tormismo ect. i can go on forever. What tells you Ps3 cant do the same. Right now xbox 360 will be in the lead but in the long run, every one will wish for a ps3. I cant lie i was a fan of 360 for a while. But microsoft just played with my mined. So i am going back to sony cuz i know they wont. Sony is a smarter company because of experece. They also took a over priced console and made it the same price as the xbox 360 priemum with a blu ray player built in. and a hd player add on for 200cdn. is some bullsh*t. alson the harddrive are way over prices. 20 gb should be 50 dallars US. i would rather have a harddrive of 100gb for under the price of 100 US. Xbox 360 has better grafics now cuz it been out for 2 yrs and a lil more. That xbox 360 failer rate is horrible. when u buy a 360 beaware your most likey to buy console that will fail. the falcon 360 s and jasper will cut that rate but do u want to wait the long. Ps3 failer rate is only 0.2. yup its a 0.2. HD drive will be nice buts it not posible unless they can fix there issues. Im not hating on xbox but it price to high. i wont lie i love there xbox live but i would rather stick to a system that i can enjoy now and 10yrs from now. mostion senser with rummble will be the bomb. So Ps3 is better and dont wait for a hd drive 360 so u can enjoy 50% of wat u could have enjoyed on a PS3.
Well, I guess the fact that the adult film industry decided Beta VS. VHS. We all know how that turned out…… and that the new Gen 3 HD DDVD addressing the storage issue (I believe now Gen 3 HDDVD will have a capacity of 50GB)…. and the fact that HDDVD players will support interactivity via an ethernet connection… And almost all of the movie companies using HDDVD…. Walmart having a sub $200 HDDVD player by Christmas…. And the fact that HDDVD software and hardware has outsold Blu-ray (Don’t tell sony this because their stats are scued by way of the PS3)…. And Oh yeah …. The fact that the largest sofware company in Microsft is behind HDDVD.
I think we know who will win the “War”
By the way… Blu-ray discs are a lot easier to “ruin” as a result of scratches. Mainly due to the size of the laser. And the average consumer prefers a more durable product.