360 w/Internal HD-DVD, XFire Denied

More clarifications and rumours on the next-gen front today. Eurogamer is reporting that a new version of the 360 may have an internal HD-DVD drive, despite protestations they're doing no such thing from Microsoft. Supposedly Taiwanese manufacturers are being selected for the new version of the console. On the Sony front, they deny that XFire will play an integral role in the PS3's online strategy. Despite the report at 1up yesterday, Sony Online Entertainment is claiming XFire will only be used in some of their titles in a deal separate from the PlayStation Network. From that article: "'We can confirm that Sony Online Entertainment is in talks with Viacom and Xfire for a single, specific PS3 game,' said a spokesperson for Sony in a statement to 1Up. 'However, there are no announcements at this time regarding any discussions between SCEA, Viacom and Xfire,' continued the statement." Which is to say, there may be in the future but they don't want to talk about it now.

Comments

Xbox 360

[AcidLacedPenguiN]

With the news about the HD/DVD hybrid discs from yesterday, it might not be such a bad idea to do the internal HD-DVD drive. They could then leave it up to game devs to support HD, Non-HD, or both. Assuming that most game devs aren't handicapped, they'll probably opt for using that DVD/HD combo so that those of us with regular DVD drives, can play the same games as those with the HD-DVD drives (and maybe those of us with non-HD will also be allowed to read the text in their games too!)