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360 HD-DVD Add-on Dropped to $179
Joystiq reports that the HD-DVD add-on for the 360 has been permanently dropped in price to $179. Additionally, Bob Barker style, you get five free movies too: "Appearing at Comic-Con in San Diego, the announcement was made amidst promotion for the HD-DVD releases of the film 300 and the cheerleader epic, Heroes. Not content with just a twenty dollar dip, Microsoft has extended Toshiba's 'Perfect Offer' promotion to Xbox 360 owners, awarding five free movies with purchase. The hard part now is choosing between Casablanca and The Dukes of Hazzard. Naturally, the Xbox Live Marketplace wasn't left out in all this news as 300 will be making its way to the service in HD on August 14th, while free content for Heroes will arrive sometime before its HD-DVD release."
$20 got them 3 days of coverage from all the major news outlets... It's been on the front page of Google news for days. Tiny price-cut, tons of press. Geniuses. They really are amazing.
Since most of these HD-DVD / Blu-Ray topics as of late are all flamewars akin to ps3 vs. 360. I thought I'd jump in and try to add some reason.
I bought the 360 hddvd add-on because I wanted to see what some of these movies were like in 720p (I don't own a 1080p tv). I found a great deal on craigslist and that was really the only reason I bought one. The movies look fantastic; much better than upconverted dvds, and noticeably better than movies on HD channels over Dish Network (from the compression I assume). In addition to the higher quality the way the menu works while watching a dvd is much friendlier (something that always annoyed me about dvds) and they have a new way of presenting some of the extras. NetFlix rents both hd-dvds and Blu-Rays now, so for that and the $100 or so i paid for it, it was a decent buy.
Obviously there are downsides. I hate playing it through the 360. The fans are noisy (not initially but eventually) and the start-up is a mild annoyance. I don't want to speak out of turn, but I assume I'd have the same problems playing blu-rays through the ps3. Theres just nothing as convenient as a stand-alone player... but theres something to be said for saving $300 when buying into unproven technology.
There are no "winners/losers" here yet, anyone claiming so is a fan-boi or uninformed. There are still some great movies you can only get on HD-DVD (and vice-versa with Blu-Ray) so people who are fans of those will still gravitate towards their respective studios and what format that studio supports.
Now with hybrid players appearing I wouldn't be surprised if we see a dual format thats basically invisible to the consumer. In 10 years (or whatever, i'm making an example) the majority of people will own a hybrid player, you'd head to BB or CC and pick up the latest release not even really paying attention to whether it has a Red case or a Blue case.
Not really sure where I'm going with this. Heh. I'd say if you own a 360, a hd tv and you're into the hd craze. Its only a couple of hundred dollars, its been fun for me and I've probably gotten that much enjoyment out of it. If you don't have an hd-tv, you don't really care about the hd craziness thats been going on, or you don't have $200 to blow on tech that you'll throw away in a few years, I wouldn't even worry about it. You're missing out on a few lines of resolution but nothing you should kick yourself over.
I'd agree if the porn industry wasn't backing HDDVD.
Both the 360 and PS3 upconvert DVD's (if your system has the latest updates) but only over VGA or HDMI. Upconverters (of any kind) aren't allowed to use component video due to a licencing restriction on the DVD format.