Microsoft To Drop HD DVD

HockeyPuck writes to let us know that Microsoft has decided to stop making HD DVD players for the Xbox 360. No word on supporting Blu-ray on the platform though. "Microsoft said Saturday it would continue to provide standard warranty support for its HD DVD players. Toshiba President Atsutoshi Nishida last week estimated about 300,000 people own the Microsoft video player, sold as a separate $130 add-on for the Xbox 360."

Comments

Now that that's over

[JackieBrown]

Will the new ones come with blueray?

Re:Now that that's over

[Anonymous Coward]

No, rather than give into the accepted winner of a de facto standard, MSFT will introduce their own proprietary HD disc that only plays on an XBOX360.

Re:Now that that's over

[Loadmaster]

Why would they? The old ones didn't come with HD-DVD. If you mean will MS make a Blu-Ray add on then maybe. They said back in 2006 they'd think about it if Blu-Ray won. I doubt it, though. MS said that before the Video Marketplace had much content. It's been speculated that MS adopted HD-DVD simply to confuse the market and indirectly push digital download services. Face it, MS wants DD to win because that's where they make the most money.

Re:Now that that's over

[Smoke2Joints]

No word on supporting Blu-ray on the platform though.

does noone even read the summary anymore?

Re:Now that that's over

[JackieBrown]

I know I don't

Re:Now that that's over

[jellomizer]

if the background isn't geen then it doesn't need to be read.

Re:Now that that's over

[spintriae]

This is where a "RTFA" would normally be appropriate, but in this case, the second sentence of the summary should suffice.

Re:Now that that's over

[vertinox]

Will the new ones come with blueray?

That depends on if the Microsoft Negotiator doesn't hang up on the Sony Rep when hears a maniacal laughter and "100 BILLION DOLLARS!" on discussing terms of the BluRay license.

Re:Now that that's over

[RalphSleigh]

Would be such a pity if say, you suddenly had to start paying retail prices for all the copies of vista you ship on those laptops..

Re:Now that that's over

[GigaplexNZ]

You mean like HD DVD?

Re:Now that that's over

[shades66]

Not a problem we will put Ubuntu on our laptops instead.. Now about that 100 Billion dollar blue-ray license you need for your entertainment system..

LOL

Re:Now that that's over

[DrXym]

A case could be made that Microsoft dreaded a dead video format stinking up their console. So they produced an add on that could be discarded if it came to it but never produced consoles with an internal HD DVD player. They didn't even stick an HD DVD player in the Elite where it would have made sense. Now that Blu Ray is the winner of this war, the concern of backing the wrong horse should no longer be an issue.

I think you are right about digital downloads though and they only saw HD DVD as a means to an end. They're probably in an interesting quandary right now - ignore Blu Ray and risk suffering by comparison to the PS3 (it's already happening) or embrace it and risk diluting their digital download message.

Re:Now that that's over

[alex4u2nv]

I don't know, but strangely enough my HD-DVD for the xbox malfunctioned the very same day Blueray won, and HD-DVD was dropped.!

Re:Now that that's over

[devman]

Good thing Sony doesn't control Blu-ray licenses.

Re:Now that that's over

[Brian Gordon]

Why would they be trying to confuse physical distribution? People will pay $10 or $20 more for a disc copy than the digital download because of the mindset that they're actually getting something tangible, archivable, and resellable.. it only costs someone a few cents to manufacture and press the disk and they're making obscene profits on top.

Re:Now that that's over

[aliquis]

I always thought they supported HD-DVD to hurt Sony and/or PS3 sales.

Re:Now that that's over

[SuperMonkeyCube]

They (Pick a they. I guess it depends on which tinfoil helmet you're wearing.) don't want physical distribution, because it's expensive, takes fuel, printing costs, and other indirect costs. Also, there's no hassle about commentary tracks or alternate endings or deleted scenes yet. Microsoft wins out because they could become a big player in the marketplace like Apple at the distribution end. The movie studios win out because you have nothing left after you've paid to watch a movie - it's harder to pirate a film when you're not in possession of the physical media and only have a narrow time frame in which to watch it. Comcast wins because they won't have to throttle so much BitTorrent traffic, and people will upgrade their internet to make it their video store.

For now, I still want physical media. Most families can get interrupted watching a movie at home, or have kids that rewatch the heck out of a couple of favorites. So there. :P

Re:Now that that's over

[petermgreen]

afaict the worst they could do is force them to start buying system builder packs like the whitebox vendors do. This is probablly more expensive than what the big brands pay but given the price of sonys laptops it probablly wouldn't be a significant part of the price. It would be a major incoviniance though having to enter a seperate key for every machine and activate it online.

Re:Now that that's over

[MrMickS]

For now, I still want physical media. Most families can get interrupted watching a movie at home, or have kids that rewatch the heck out of a couple of favorites. So there. :P What's required to support this is an option to allow you to 'rent' a movie forever. This would probably come in at a price above the current short term rentals but I can see it coming once competition in this market begins to hit and bandwidth gets cheaper. If MS/Apple could offer HD movies via DD at half the price of phyiscal media on a perpetual rental I'd take that.

Re:Now that that's over

[chrish]

They're doing it wrong then; aren't they still selling 360s without hard drives? Downloading movies onto Flash memory cards doesn't seem like a great business model.

Yeah, I know you can buy (overpriced) 360 hard drives to plug in, but still. If you want the box to be some sort of "home media hub" they should all have hard drives.

Can you plug USB mass storage devices into the 360 and have them "just work" as storage? I haven't tried plugging a USB hard drive into my Wii yet; you can plug Flash cards in though for expanded storage (currently you can't run games/"Channels" from it, but they may add that capability... I want to be able to buy Guitar Hero 3 tracks and store them there).

Re:Now that that's over

[elrous0]

Like UMD?

Re:Now that that's over

[The-Bus]

I've heard it mentioned before that Microsoft and Nintendo could make their next-gen consoles a bit less pirate-friendly if they adopt the HD DVD format for their media. It won't stop it (nothing stops it), but it could be a small roadblock.

I don't see the Xbox 360 coming out with a Blu-ray drive. There's maybe two or three years left in the 360, and by the time a Blu-ray drive comes out it will be too little, too late. What Microsoft can do is work on securing more rights to downloadable movies (i.e. other studios) and adding both movies-to-buy and movies-to-rent to their business model. I was under the impression that the PS3 would have something similar, but so far there's been nothing.

I'm not a huge fan of XBL's movies-are-rentals-only plan, but for something that is essentially free (requiring no incremental hardware or software purchase for me to watch movies on my TV, outside of the film itself), it's pretty convenient.

Re:Now that that's over

[squiggleslash]

Toshiba's talking about giving HD DVD one last push as a computer storage format, presumably on the basis that the media is relatively cheap to make. In some ways this would be the worst of all worlds - we get the inferior movie-disk format (Blu-ray) coupled with the inferior data storage format (HD DVD's one downside over BD was the lower capacity per layer.) But, certainly, if, for whatever reason, Toshiba is successful in pushing HD DVD as a data storage format, then Microsoft and Nintendo would be absolutely insane to adopt it as their game distribution format.

Personally though I doubt either would choose blue-laser technology for either. I think computer games lend themselves to online distribution even more so than movies. I think the games industry will jump away from hard media well before the movie industry.

anybody else notice

[Anonymous Coward]

how AC posts seem to have been disabled? this was posted as AC, yet it really wasn't now was it? i have no problem with Slash disabling AC posts, but to misrepresent them as enabled/available and then not actually do it is dishonest.

Re:anybody else notice

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong.

Re:anybody else notice

[Anonymous Coward]

perhaps, but on the preview it used to show an anonymous post as written by Anonymous Coward. without a word, they changed this so now, the preview of an anonymous post still shows your username and userid, with sig and everything. i wrote the GP as a test post to see if the resulting post would be true to the preview, as it has always been in the past. i am glad to see that it was not and did honor my choice to be anonymous, but I'd still like to know why this change was made and what the point was supposed to be of quietly fucking up the preview's ability to show you exactly how the resulting post will look. why "fix" what was never broken? and especially, why not openly announce "we changed this functionality because of XYZ"? something about this doesn't seem right to me.

I seriously hope the ability to post anonymously hasn't been compromised (in however subtle a way, to however small or great a degree) just because a few people like to use it to say the "n-word".

Re:anybody else notice

[Anonymous Coward]

When I hit reply it shows it looking anonymous except adding my signature. My guess is that it is a bug.

Re:anybody else notice

[Anonymous Coward]

the point is, there can't be a new bug recently introduced into that section of code unless someone was revising that section of code (or something related to it). so again I want to know, why fix what wasn't broken, especially in a way that appears to break it, and especially without saying one word about it? do you not see how that doesn't look right? i'm not asking what you want to believe or whether you trust slashdot staff, I'm asking whether this looks fishy to you as well when it is viewed with a critical eye.

Re:anybody else notice

[The End Of Days]

To me, it looks like someone else's site, and you're getting a mite bit uppity over it.

But if it's that important to you, go browse the source.

Re:anybody else notice

[Anonymous Coward]

The comment display or reply code could've been revised for any number of legitimate reasons such as adding new functionality or simply cleaning it up. Slashcode is public, so lots of people look at it, and I'm sure it'll be fixed in an upcoming version if it hasn't already. File a bug!

Re:anybody else notice

[Anonymous Coward]

Workaround: Log out, post as AC, then log back in again.

Worked for me.

Re:anybody else notice

[Anonymous Coward]

a site that would have never amounted to anything, would have never gotten off the ground, if not for the fact that people use and enjoy it. amazing how quickly people forget that when they decide who is "uppity". but then there are always myrmidons like you who pipe up when someone questions any organization, all the while never really addressing what was being questioned. if you actually read what I posted, you would know that I never once indicated that someone can't do whatever they wish to do with their own site. what I said was that if what they are doing is kosher, then they should do it openly and stand behind their decision. this is especially true of a site that generally favors openness.

my question had to do with the capacity to post anonymously; if the change to the site were cosmetic only then I would not have said anything, but that issue of whether anonymous is now less anonymous is an important one, particularly for those users who reside in countries that don't respect the basic rights of free speech. i notice you did not answer the question I posed, so I will assume you see exactly what I mean and don't like it or the possible implications and are deciding to play a little shoot-the-messenger. that is the hallmark of shallow people, by the way -- they can't handle and will not address anything they don't like. i'm glad that shortsighted fucks like you are always so eager to reveal their true nature, much like the fool whom everyone would assume to be average except that he insists on opening his mouth and proving that assumption wrong.

now, if you're man enough, try addressing what I actually said. tell me why you think I'm wrong. do something other than stating what was plainly obvious (that Slashdot is not my Web site) and trying to tell me what I should speak about (as though I would ever value your opinion of that - don't flatter yourself) while pretending that you've somehow done anything useful. really your attitude of "don't bother me with this" in response to something you had to go out of your way to read is childish and stupid, especially in response to a legitimate question.

Re:anybody else notice

[Anonymous Coward]

You're a fucking idiot.

Re:anybody else notice

[The End Of Days]

Okay, I'll address what you said - it's a bug that could have been caused by literally millions of things that I am not in a position to enumerate because I don't know the codebase.

Your reaction demonstrates a serious imbalance in your social understanding of other people, by the way. You aren't nearly as important as you seem to believe you are. You certainly aren't important enough to garner the sort of reaction from me that you seem to believe took place. All I was saying is: who knows? Slashdot is buggy, always has been, and the code is available to peruse. I don't care about you or your message.

Geez- They're not HD-DVD players anymore!

[THESuperShawn]

They are now called "Upconverting DVD players". And I hear they are all the rage these days. Didn't you read the fliers in todays paper?

Re:Geez- They're not HD-DVD players anymore!

[ucblockhead]

What I find frightening is that they are still on sale at Best Buy.

Re:Geez- They're not HD-DVD players anymore!

[madsenj37]

Although I do find your comment funny, in truth, HD-DVD players are not yet obsolete. Even if the HD-DVD format is dead, people are still buying DVDs and many have big collections.

Re:Geez- They're not HD-DVD players anymore!

[THESuperShawn]

Don't worry, I bought one too. And I will call it an "Upconverting DVD" player when people ask. And it really does help the picture of native DVD (not as much as a processor/scaler I use in the media room, but it does great directly tied to the LR TV).

I really thought it was the superior format. And that the general public (the non-tech general public) would see two terms they know, "HD" and "DVD" and think it was a natural progression.

Luckily, I had accidentally hedged my bets by purchasing a PS3. And if/when the masses catch up to BR (like they have a choice now?), I'll get a stand alone player as the prices come down.

Re:Geez- They're not HD-DVD players anymore!

[Malevolyn]

And that the general public (the non-tech general public) would see two terms they know, "HD" and "DVD" and think it was a natural progression. You're close. Consider this: the average consumer probably doesn't know the difference between an HD-DVD and playing a regular DVD on an HD television. While most of us see natural progression, your average Joe Bang-On-The-Monitor-When-The-Computer-Freezes just sees a new name for DVDs. It doesn't really suggest any new technology. Blu-ray, on the other hand, is very obviously something new. "You know it's new because 'blue' is misspelled and the term 'ray' was used," thinks Mr. BOTMWTCF. "HD-DVD... Why did they rename DVDs just because HD televisions are all the rage?" thinks Mr. BOTMWTCF.

Re:Geez- They're not HD-DVD players anymore!

[madsenj37]

I did not buy one, but came close. Someone gave me a BestBuy gift card and I decided to just buy an upconverting dvd player instead of a HD-DVD player simply because the cheap HD-DVD players only do 1080i. The reason I wanted a HD-DVD player was because of price and the fact that Netflix has HD-DVDs. Check Netflix for a possible HD-DVD firesale.

Re:Geez- They're not HD-DVD players anymore!

[mahlerfan999]

The funniest thing about that post, was that a few months ago that was exactly the justification that hd-dvd WOULD be adopted. When of course the name of either format had nothing to do with the war whatsoever. And the average consumer is NOT stupid, simply ignorant. There is a difference you know. The average consumer doesn't distinguish between the two formats because they simply do not care. They are not stupid cows, they are simply indifferent. And most, by far, still own crt sets as their primary tv, and do not need hd at all. Only on /. would it be acceptable to brand anyone that doesn't follow the latest technology trends as a moron.

Re:Geez- They're not HD-DVD players anymore!

[Malevolyn]

I wasn't branding the average consumer as a moron, I was simply pointing out that the cumbersome name "HD-DVD" compared to the name "Blu-ray" wasn't a great choice from a marketing standpoint. While it may have seemed a good idea to slap two buzzwords together at the time, the end result is that it just doesn't have the pizazz that "Blu-ray" suggests. Names go a long way because, well, a rose by any other name doesn't smell as sweet if you don't stop to smell it.

Re:Geez- They're not HD-DVD players anymore!

[harl]

Why wouldn't they be? You need to remember that being nice is not part of capitalism. Unless they can return those units for a full refund they will never consider stopping sale of them.

This won't help the xbox

[mgv]

I think that this isn't a good sign for the xbox either. Existing owners feeling that they have obsolete hardware, and a clear advantage to the playstation.

Microsoft has damaged its whole gaming platform by getting into a sparring match with Sony over video formats.

Michael

Re:This won't help the xbox

[Chabil Ha']

I don't know that they had a choice for the same reason.

Consumer: If I go with PS3, I get the next generation of digital video players as well.
Consumer: If I go with XBOX I get none.
MSFT: If we don't offer a solution to include consumers in the next generation of digital video players, they may go with our competition.
MSFT: If we go with Blu-Ray, we may give the impression that XBOX is somehow inferior to the PS3 which inherently comes Blu-Ray equipped. Thus, we will go with HD-DVD.

Re:This won't help the xbox

[longbot]

This of course in addition to the inherent hardware unreliability of the Xbox 360. I only know one person who hasn't had one give the red lights of death at least once, and one of them actually had their console die on them three times.

Much as we all love to hate on Sony for being evil, the PS3 has proven itself more reliable than the Xbox 360, and as such is an additional point as big as the choice of HD video format they picked to support.

Re:This won't help the xbox

[MBCook]

I have a 360. I couldn't care less. That was an add on who only served to play movies. It had no other function. The fact they will no longer sell it doesn't alter my opinion of the console.

My understand is that the DVD playback on the 360 is horrid. I've never used it for that, but I've read about it. You can find more than a few examples with a quick Google search. That has always made me weary of the HD-DVD playback the console would offer.

Re:This won't help the xbox

[ianare]

No one would pay extra for a player nobody makes content for. So it also goes something like this:

MSFT: "If HD-DVD wins then the PS3 is basically doomed to failure."

Re:This won't help the xbox

[gad_zuki!]

>Microsoft has damaged its whole gaming platform by getting into a sparring match with Sony over video formats.

First off, MS barely sold those add-ons. What exactly is wrong with add-ons? If anything, its Sony wh o took the bigger risk.

Hell, whats so wrong with hd-dvd. It was the superior format with no region encoding, PIP early on, cheaper production, etc. Gasp, cant we admit MS was on the right side for once. If there is such a thing as being on the right side when it comes to proprietary drm format wars.

Re:This won't help the xbox

[MrSteveSD]

If it was somehow possible for Sony to prevent Blu Ray working with the X-box 360, I wonder whether they would do it, to kill of their rival?

Re:This won't help the xbox

[Arancaytar]

Oh please. Betting on the losing format would hurt them much more than any perceived inferiority ever could, and they would know that. If they hadn't thought HD-DVD would be more likely to win, they wouldn't have picked it. They just guessed wrong - like all the people who bought a HD-DVD player.

Re:This won't help the xbox

[DeepZenPill]

Microsoft certainly did not damage its gaming platform by siding with HD-DVD. HD-DVD was always an add-on for the 360 and never a major selling point. This (along with questionable quality control) allowed Microsoft to release the 360 a year ahead of the PS3, gaining significant market share and pressuring developers to focus on creating games for the 360 rather than its competition. This strategy has paid off for Microsoft because those who wanted a gaming system got a gaming system as well as a large library of games. The attach rate for the 360 is currently the highest by far among the 3 consoles competing in this generation. As a gaming platform the 360 is doing pretty well for itself.

Sony, on the other hand, has been making progress in terms of consoles sold undoubtedly because of its blu-ray capabilities, but the slow start due to blue laser shortages and the high expense of blu-ray components has significantly hurt their sales. PS3 is still in 3rd place in terms of the attach rate and has suffered from developers supporting the 360 as the PS3's expense. In the end, these machines are primarily games consoles and their media playing capabilities are a secondary function. Microsoft focused on games as a selling point and has been the most successful in that respect while Sony focused on the media capability with Blu-Ray, but at significant expense. High manufacturing costs as well as studio support both took a toll on Sony's bottom line for a high-def disc market that is still in its infancy.

To the average Xbox 360 owner, the format war has been a non-issue because their console uses DVDs. Cross platform games still look equally good on both platforms, so the size constraints of DVDs is not yet apparent. This may change in the coming years, but for now DVD is still king in most living rooms.

Re:This won't help the xbox

[Anonymous Coward]

Except for the little tidbit that MS never really pushed the add-on drive as anything all that exciting. I doubt anyone at MS is losing sleep.

Moron.

Re:This won't help the xbox

[Admiral Ag]

Back before either console was released, assorted media aficionados were saying that the 360 was being released too early and that the lack of an integrated HD drive would hurt it in the long run. What they missed is that Microsoft had to do this in order to get a head start over Sony: it was the only way they would avoid taking another beating. Consumers paid for it with poor quality control.

The Blu Ray victory was the tipping point. Now the 360 is just a game console that plays pretty much the same games as Sony's, but which will probably break down, and costs quite a bit more when you include wireless and online gaming to bring it up to spec.

While the format war was still on, blu ray on the PS3 was a curiosity (I know I bought mine largely out of curiosity about it). Now you are basically getting a free next gen DVD player with every PS3 - that is not something Microsoft will be able to match in price any time soon.

Props to Sony. Whatever their other evils, they clearly kept their eye on the ball in this case.

Full disclosure: I own both consoles.

Re:This won't help the xbox

[Billly Gates]

Microsoft has lost over a 1 billion dollars on the Xbox360 and its a failure. This is despite the red ring of death from many people who just chose to repurchase a 360 when the original one dies.

People are choosing the wii mostly due to price besides a few cool new features like the wii mote. Parents like to save money and children is where the market is for most gamers.

MS can save a fortune by not including a HD-DVD player and could price more competively with the wii. So in essence this may help MS sales of the expensive xbox. I hope they dont make the mistake of including a blue-ray as its hurting Sony as well. Sony could have made more money selling it seperately. SOny tried this with success with the ps2.

Re:This won't help the xbox

[causality]

This is why I'd like to see all such format wars result in both sides losing a lot of money.

Really now, which of these two scenarios sounds better?


Scenario 1: a format war with two major camps. Camp A and Camp B duke it out in the marketplace until one side eventually loses. If Camp A wins out, all customers who went with Camp B lose because they invested in a now-obsolete standard and vice-versa. Meanwhile, the uptake of new technology suffers since the wiser, more patient customers prudently decide to wait it out until there is a clear winner before they purchase anything. Those customers who purchased early and happened to choose the one that eventually won still suffer because a slower uptake of new technology means that fewer titles are available and the cost per player is more expensive than it would have been since this scenario doesn't take full advantage of economy of scale (that is, if the companies involved could have sold 10x the number of players, the cost per unit could have been lower).

Scenario 2: all companies involved decide that no one really wins a format war (particularly the end-users) and come up with an open standard, like we had with DVDs and CDs. Customers can now be confident that they won't be left holding the bag, so they more rapidly adopt the new technology. Customers get to choose based on things like which company/brand they prefer and who offers superior price/performance. More rapid uptake of the new format means more titles available.


Now, someone tell me why companies who decide to participate in Scenario 1 deserve to have that decision rewarded in any way? I wish we could send a clear message to all corporations that engaging in silly format wars like this is financial suicide, since that seems to be about the only way to discourage this kind of bullshit.

Re:This won't help the xbox

[Anonymous Coward]

Since all the movies in the future are being released on BlueRay it means all your bought movies have a price increase of $160 divided by number_of_movies_bought, *just to play the movie*.

So say you have 16 movies, you paid $10 extra just for the player.
This extra price per disk does not decrease anymore since no movies will be released.

This is called 'pure profit', and guess what, it is not going into your pocket.
Wrong bet, no pay.

Re:This won't help the xbox

[Anonymous Coward]

MSFT: "If HD-DVD wins then the PS3 is basically doomed to failure." It suprises me that M$ didn't throw their weight into trying to crush Blu-Ray... maybe they were worried about the monopoly implications? hahaha, yeah right....

Re:This won't help the xbox

[Izabael_DaJinn]

I have a 360. Why would I feel it is obsolete? It plays games as well as a PS3 (more so because as of this writing it still has way more cool games.)

(But I also have a Wii, and when we play it on our HDTV and I get sick of shaking my arms around like an r-tard, I DO feel like I bought obsolete hardware!)

PS3's are still over-priced for a game system as far as I am concerned.

Xbox 360 will most likely drop it's price another $50 bucks this year too. A $299 price point is very tantalizing for people. It sounds a lot better than $399 esp. if one is buying it as a game machine.

Also a recession year isn't the best year for a $399 game system either. I would say the 360 vs. PS3 war is just getting underway. Sony will have a good year, but will it be enough? Everyone I know who owns a PS3 also owns an Xbox360 anyway.

As far as cinema, we get most of our movies off of a.b.hdtv.x264 (spare me the "Fight Club" rules, please), so I don't have a rush to buy an over-priced standalone Blu-ray player either. When they drop to $200 I will most likely grab one.

xoxo
*iza

Re:This won't help the xbox

[CSMatt]

Actually I'd say that Sony would be in even deeper shit if Blu-Ray lost, because Blu-Ray is also the format for PS3 games. Microsoft using HD-DVD in the same manner would have quickly spelled death to the Xbox, but at least in this case the only ones screwed are the few Xbox owners who purchased the add-on, and even then it's not as bad as if they had invested in a standalone HD-DVD player instead.

Re:This won't help the xbox

[CSMatt]

If you really think that Microsoft had that much faith in HD-DVD, then why didn't they integrate it into the Xbox 360?

Re:This won't help the xbox

[pizzach]

What exactly is wrong with add-ons?

The stigma of addons is that they split the console base into the haves and the have nots. If you develop game requiring the addon, you are limiting your audience and therefor limiting your profits.

But the HD-DVD addon wasn't used for games so I agree with you that it was not a bad thing.

Re:This won't help the xbox

[Anonymous Coward]

Scenario 3: China comes with Camp C, which is better and cheaper and all the other loose!

Re:This won't help the xbox

[CSMatt]

The BDA and the DVD Forum knew full well that it would be financial suicide, and they did try to avoid a format war. It was mounting pressure from Sun and Microsoft on both sides over which interactivity layer to use that ultimately caused the negotiations to fall through.

Re:This won't help the xbox

[Cokeisbomb]

I think that the biggest difference maker for the ps3 will be that all games will now come on BD, while 360 games are on DVD (dual layer). I don't know how the developers don't use this to their advantage. How long will it take for developers to really utilize all the space on the BD?

Re:This won't help the xbox

[Anonymous Coward]

I dunno, I think it's pretty good. I just use my 360 now for DVD's and to play back my iPod, plugged into my Sony amp. It's only bitchy if the disc is dirty. I rather like using the controllers, too.

Re:This won't help the xbox

[AmigaMMC]

I don't think you have a clue, M$ has never included the HD-DVD with the XBOX and I'm not sure where you got the $1 Billion from but M$ makes tons of money from game licensing BECAUSE the user base is so large so what you call a LOSS someone else calls it an INVESTMENT.

Re:This won't help the xbox

[r_jensen11]

Now the 360 is just a game console that plays pretty much the same games as Sony's.... But only for the first two generations or so. Then PS3 games will likely come on BluRay discs, taking advantage of double-digit GB storage capacity while the 360 is still stuck at about 7GB. Now, although the dreamcast had other faults, one of the main reasons why it died was because it only had a CD-ROM drive. Had the system come equipped with a DVD-ROM drive, perhaps it would've lasted longer. Nobody likes popping discs in and out when they're supposed to have an immersive experience. This goes for music, movies, and games alike.

Re:This won't help the xbox

[CSMatt]

While this is a factor, I think the main reason Sony is in 3rd place is because it hasn't produced any killer games, which admittedly is partially due to Microsoft's early start (much like how the PS2's early start aligned even more developers with Sony by the time the Xbox came out)*. A rare kudos to Sony for finally taking the time to make a decent console (you can defend Sony's game lineup, but I think we are mostly in agreement that the first two PlayStations were crap hardware-wise), but their earlier consoles have proven that is games that sell the console. Even the Xbox 360 wasn't really worth getting until around Fall of 2006 when Gears of War was released.

They made the same mistake with the PSP: touting its media features but mostly not offering anything in terms of games other than a ported back-catalog. Meanwhile the DS was porting games and offering a significant amount of new material. The few people I've come across who own PSPs say they bought them mainly for the now-portable back-catalog or for the media capabilities. That's fine if that's the market you're targeting, but based on the first two PlayStation franchises I would have thought that Sony would have wanted to continue to attract the same audience.

*Disclaimer: I've pretty much stopped playing video games for about a year now and no longer follow game-related news, so this could very well have happened already. If so, I apologize.

Re:This won't help the xbox

[DrEldarion]

Why would it be doomed to failure?

The PS3's duty is to play games. Even if Blu-ray completely failed, the PS3 would still play games, and the Blu-ray drive is still worthwhile to have in it because of its huge capacity. There are already some 360 games that come on 4 DVDs, and as the years go by, space is going to be in more and more demand.

Microsoft should have put an HD-DVD drive standard on the 360 for that reason alone.

Re:This won't help the xbox

[DrEldarion]

Lack of a built-in high-capacity storage medium is already hurting the 360. I bought Lost Odyssey last week (which, incidentally, is an amazing game), and it came on four DVDs. If that same game were released for PS3, it would be on one disc.

Re:This won't help the xbox

[DrEldarion]

It was the superior format with no region encoding, PIP early on, cheaper production, etc. Compared to Blu-ray's higher capacity, unscratchable coating, and higher data read rates. Each format had their benefits.

Re:This won't help the xbox

[suckmysav]

Ummm, because it would have made the xbox cost a lot more perhaps?

Sony, being the primary driver for BD, had a vested interest in leveraging their expected sales in PS/3 units to build support for BD.

Microsoft had far less vested in HD-DVD (They were not its primary backer) and were more interested in competing with Sony in the console wars as opposed to the HD format wars.

Re:This won't help the xbox

[Dogtanian]

If you really think that Microsoft had that much faith in HD-DVD, then why didn't they integrate it into the Xbox 360? Uh, because it would have made the XBox 360 much more expensive?

Yeah, I know Sony included a Blu-Ray drive in the PS3... which is one reason that it cost an arm and a leg. Sony made the decision to risk that, and it may well have paid off, but it's a trade-off, and one that was equally valid for MS to reject at the time.

Re:This won't help the xbox

[Anonymous Coward]

I bought Lost Odyssey last week (which, incidentally, is an amazing game), and it came on four DVDs. If that same game were released for PS3, it would be on one disc. Heresy! Good RPG's are supposed to come on multiple disks. It's just the way things are.

Besides, having to switch disks 3 times over the course of 50 hours is nothing worth complaining about. When a game gets released that requires switching disks multiple times just to switch between areas, then I'll start getting pissed off (anyone who played Monkey Island 2 on an amiga without a harddrive knows that this sucks - 11 floppies that contantly had to be swapped for travelling to different areas).

Re:This won't help the xbox

[CSMatt]

That doesn't mean that they couldn't have made it a higher-end model.

They might as well have put it in the Elite, since the down-conversion of ICT would have made a component-based HD DVD player almost worthless by the end of the decade.

Re:This won't help the xbox

[aliquis]

.. or they could have gone with blu-ray ;D

Re:This won't help the xbox

[Blkdeath]

PS3's are still over-priced for a game system as far as I am concerned.

What are the relative prices where you are? To get a console unit with an integrated hard drive and a bundled game I'm looking at $399 for either system at Future Shop in Ontario, Canada. Sure, to get an "Arcade" XBox 360 without a hard drive and with no games will only cost me $279.99, but hell, I don't want to start buying memory cards! These new consoles are supposed to be about rich multimedia experience, not about slow antique technology that's easy to lose/damage.

Moreover, the PS3 gives me integrated WiFi Internet access and an integrated BluRay player which means at the very least I won't have to deal with games spread across multiple discs but it can also double as a free high definition movie player.

Not only that, but Sony's SIXAXIS controllers actually change the way you game which is a far cry above 'XBox with better graphics and sound'.

I've evaluated all three consoles (Wii, XBox 360 and PS3) and have decided that the best bang for my dollar hands down is the PS3. I really and truly felt that the XBox 360 was nothing more than a polish to the original XBox and therefore not worth another investment. My comparison was based solely on technical merits and improvements relative to previous generation of consoles but it doesn't help Microsoft's case when I'm constantly hearing of 360s heating up to absurd levels (including my friends' which felt damn close to scalding levels) and the dreaded red rings of death that are prevalent enough that MS were forced to extend their console's warranty coverage.

Note that I fully understand that both represent evil conglomerates, but by the same token my computer runs Windows XP and displays on my Sony HD television set so developer bias didn't enter into my decision in the slightest. Also, I do own an original XBox in the special translucent green colouring along with about 30-odd games.

Re:This won't help the xbox

[fangorious]

Movie studios dropping support for UMD didn't kill the PSP.

Re:This won't help the xbox

[Cokeisbomb]

I was thinking more in terms of sports games (perhaps thats the heresy). More teams, more uniforms, more everything could really help EA (or is it EA Take-Two Now) get in the game.

Re:This won't help the xbox

[fermion]

The average games may not be concerned about the format war, but MS was, since this is all about how we will pay for entertainment, and who will profit. In this way the format war was simply a skirmish in the larger "battle for the living room". MS has put a lot of money into winning the living room, most especially in selling MP3 players and game consoles at prices that are arguable below cost, and arguably at a loss that cannot reasonably be made up by secondary licensed sales.

If MS did not concern itself with a HD format, why did it not give users a choice of an add on player? Because Blu Ray does not include the features it MS wanted, features that could have been potentially used to tie content to a platform, not to mention long term royalties for MS, something no sane person wants, other than Apple and MS. In the end HP was used a proxy for the MS camp, HP was rejected, and Sony was able to use the broad based coalition to defeat the unilaterally supported HD-DVD.

XBox consoles have sold because MS has sold them cheap. They have a good market share right now because you can't get a better console for less. But the market share right now is meaningless, except to the average game player. What MS has to do is regroup and decide it the current strategy is going to win the living room, or if the battle is won but the victory will go to Sony and Apple. If MS does feel that new direction is needed, vis a vis Vista, then the average games may care very much, because they may be paying more for a console that is much less user centered.

Re:This won't help the xbox

[Gulthek]

Because so many, like myself, only bought a PS3 to play movies.

The thing even comes with a movie as a pack-in now. Its priorities are clear.

Re:This won't help the xbox

[irby0]

I find no issue with DVD playback on my 360- it is the main DVD player (I use the HD-DVD drive so my internal drive only sees gaming use) for my LCD HDTV.

Re:This won't help the xbox

[Concern]

Actually, Dreamcast used a proprietary "GD-ROM" with a storage capacity of 1.2GB. You're still right in your main point, although I would have put it differently. It's highly unlikely that game disc swapping had much to do with Dreamcast's end. Sega had had a run of failures, culminating in Saturn, that cost them the confidence of partners and consumers alike. That made them vulnerable to Sony at the outset (with major players like EA publicly stating they would not develop for another Sega platform), but the PS2's capability as an extremely cheap DVD player (not much difference in price to buy a DVD-player or a PS2, in 2000, 2001) was thought by many to be a major factor in its success.

Dreamcast _could_ play games on CD-ROM. Though I'm sure by the end, Sega wished it couldn't. Mid-way through the system's life, crackers discovered a ROM exploit that allowed burned discs to boot in the Dreamcast. CD images were soon all over the net, and playable without a mod-chip. Amusingly, the crackers compensated for the loss of headroom on the 700GB CD-ROMs (from the 1.2GB GD-ROM originals) without too much trouble; in many cases, all the space hadn't been used. In others, they simply downsampled sounds and textures; the results were usually unnoticeable. All but a few games ended up online that way.

As time passes and media decays, this will probably ensure the survival of the Dreamcast catalog for future generations to enjoy. So it goes with all platforms.

Dreamcast was a pretty awesome console for the interregnum between PS/N64 and PS2/XBox. They had about a year of being the best thing on the market in terms of graphics, network connectivity, etc. and sported neat ideas i.e. "tamagotchi" memory cards. They had a few of the best titles of the time as exclusives.

Although it was tragic for Sega and for gamers (I recall in 2001 watching the Jet Grind Radio team bursting into tears on the stage at GDC while accepting an award), its failure did at least put an amazing game system in the hands of many who otherwise couldn't have afforded it. I still recall $50 dreamcasts (the cost of a new PS2 game got you a whole system!) and $5 games... there haven't been many deals like that before or since.

Re:This won't help the xbox

[mahlerfan999]

I have trouble seeing Sony winning the console war. The lack of good ps3 exclusive games and the higher price tag (which yes is pretty much fixed now) has really hurt the console. The winner of the console war, the Wii, doesn't offer either hd-dvd or blu-ray playback. Do you really think that the format war had anything to do with the console war? No, Sony has already lost the console war, there is very little chance that they can close the gap with the other two, what with the 360 being older and the Wii being cheaper and all. I'm sorry but most gamers don't even care about Blu-Ray. The internet has amplified the voices of a few to make the ps3 Blu-Ray abilities sound like the must have buy, but it also made it sound like Ron Paul had a grass roots movement that was going to lead him straight into the oval office.

Re:This won't help the xbox

[powerlord]

Then PS3 games will likely come on BluRay discs,

Umm ... PS3 games already come on Blu-Ray disks.

Some games, such as "Heavenly Sword" are using the space to handle lots of uncompressed audio.

Re:This won't help the xbox

[Cheapy]

We don't have a DVD player in my dorm room, so we just use the 360 whenever we want to watch a movie. The only problem we've had is the fact that xbox live isn't automatically signed out when a movie is put in, which just seems silly not to do.

Re:This won't help the xbox

[mahlerfan999]

Yes the dvd playback on the 360 is really terrible. I have a flimsy, cheap, plastic Magnavox that seems like high end in comparison. I am talking about terrible color saturation, noise, jaggies, I've never seen such terrible playback in my life. It makes vhs look good! haha!

Re:This won't help the xbox

[Anonymous Coward]

A useful commentary on that review from

http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/home-entertainment/xbox-360s-dvd-playback-stunningly-bad-233490.php

"The interlacing problem was caused by the use of a DVD known to be defectively encoded - The Meaning of Life. He used component cables to get 480p out of the Xbox and compared it to an upscaled output from the Denon.

He could have used VGA or turned off the upscaling on the $800 Denon player, but he didn't. He also apparently used a monitor that didn't try to upscale the 480p output. In the real world, the Xbox is a pretty good DVD player, but probably not as good as the $800 Denon. The review is lame. There are more accurate reviews out there."

Re:This won't help the xbox

[devman]

No they can't, Sony doesn't control the Blu-ray spec nor can they stop MS from licensing it.

Re:This won't help the xbox

[gad_zuki!]

>Compared to Blu-ray's higher capacity, unscratchable coating, and higher data read rates. Each format had their benefits.

Understood. But the data layer on a bluray disc is .1mm from the surface. On HD (or on regular DVDs) its .6mm. Sony developed a scratch resistant layer and I dont doubt their effectiveness with modern materials, but we sure as heck havent seen this battle tested yet in the homes of average americans, especially those with netflix accounts or *gasp* kids.

HDDVD also was moving towards a triple-layer disc at the time of its demise.

I still think that the worse format won. Now consumers are going to pay for the manufacturing premium and perhaps even lots of replacements as scratches a DVD could handle might destroy a blu-ray disc.

Here's hoping the scratch resistant layer is pretty damn tough!

Re:This won't help the xbox

[Admiral Ag]

Sony is already "winning" the console war (at least the part they are in). I was in a hurry before, but what I should have mentioned is that both Sony and Nintendo played it smarter than Microsoft. The PS3 and the Wii are competitors, but not direct competitors in the same way that the 360 and PS3 are. Nintendo knew that competing with Sony and Microsoft directly was not a good bet, so they made a much cheaper console sans HD, but gave a lot of people who don't usually buy games a reason to buy a Wii. This was an extremely smart move and Nintendo deserves every bit of the success they have had for being so bold.

Sony aimed at a different segment of the market by creating a hi tech gaming media centre. Microsoft did the same and, as I said above, had to release first, or they would have been buried by Sony. They bet on lower tech (DVD) and an early release to try to create such momentum that the contest would be over by the time the price of a PS3 came down. Initially it seemed as if they were right: the PS3 was extremely expensive and there were hardly any games for it compared to the 360 (even though there weren't that many great games for the 360 until Oblivion and GOW came out). That's over. The PS3 is now the better deal.

For Microsoft to be successful they would have to sell 360s at a much faster rate from launch than the PS3 sold from launch. If Sony kept pace and Blu Ray won, then the PS3 would eventually overhaul the 360 because it is better hardware. The longer the PS3 keeps pace in sales from launch, it becomes more attractive, because once both are discounted to the sweet spot for consoles, the PS3 is better value (you get the winning HD optical format, integrated wireless, etc.). In other words, it's the tortoise and the hare. The 360 really had to sell at Wii like rates in order to inflict a crushing win over Sony.

There's one way to tell if Microsoft's strategy worked: is PS3 adoption slower than 360 adoption? The answer is no. PS3 adoption is slightly faster than 360 adoption, even though you would expect 360 adoption to be better because of the advantage of more games. Unless the 360 can pull away at a fast rate, the tortoise will eventually catch the hare, and once that happens the hare is fucked.

Why did this happen? Well, Blu Ray was always the stronger format, so the PS3 was eventually going to get a big boost from that, but the main reason in my view is that Nintendo undercut Microsoft in a big way. Like I said, the 360 would have had to sell at Wii like rates in order to win, but unfortunately for Microsoft the Wii ended up selling at Wii like rates (bad joke, I know). Nintendo ate up the lower end of the market. Microsoft has ended up in the middle with a console that is more expensive than the Wii (and thus lost the cheap end of the market) and which has less features than the PS3 (which beats them at the high end). It's the red headed stepchild of consoles.

In 2006 Microsoft shipped over 10 million consoles. In 2007 they shipped about 7 1/2 million. That means that 360 appears to have peaked back in 2006. All the press about cumulative sales from launch is meant to hide that inconvenient truth (and the other inconvenient truth that the PS3 is winning outside North America).

Re:This won't help the xbox

[DrEldarion]

Here's hoping the scratch resistant layer is pretty damn tough! It is. I can't find the article, tragically, but someone took the Talladega Nights blu-ray that came with their PS3 and put it through a torture test, and it performed amazingly.

Re:This won't help the xbox

[Alcoholic Synonymous]

The thing is, if MSFT had included a HD-DVD player with the XBox 360, then HD would have had a significant head start (a couple of years). Everyone buying the 360 would effectively have had a free HD-DVD player with it and would already be watching movies on it. Instead, it was an expensive addon which left more people saying "Fuck that, I paid too much for this already. I got to pay how much for the WiFi adapter!!!"

Now people who did shell out for the cheaper 40GB PS3 are buying Blu-Ray discs because they already have the player.

I'm not saying that 400 million dollar payouts didn't influence the matter, but Microsoft's failure to bundle the player ensured that PS3+Blu-Ray would outpace HD-DVD players in sales.

Full disclosure: I own neither system, but I work in retail selling the damned things.

Re:This won't help the xbox

[Macrat]

Scenario 2: all companies involved decide that no one really wins a format war (particularly the end-users) and come up with an open standard, like we had with DVDs and CDs.

Except that Japan didn't want to wait on DVD and created VCD.

Re:This won't help the xbox

[LoudMusic]

"I couldn't care less."

I don't have mod points, but if I did I throw one your way simply for the proper use of this phrase. (:

Re:This won't help the xbox

[rtb61]

Most likely because the XBox sold at a loss and the HD-DVD expansion sold at a profit. M$ is very much into not selling the full kit, just look at the Vista (P)OS, even if you buy the sold called 'full' retail version, you still do not get a full manual or a complete help file, as well as of course no free service and support.

Re:This won't help the xbox

[CSMatt]

Free service and support == Microsoft.com

Re:This won't help the xbox

[beemishboy]

Check back one year from now and then see how both are doing. I suspect that the features that Bluray will get with version 2.0, the addition of games, a strong Christmas season as it has matured and as people want a future proof Blueray player will change things considerably. I don't know if the PS3 will be the leader in monthly sales a year from now, but the picture seems a lot brighter looking forward.
Beyond this, compare what can happen in 50 GB versus what can happen in 9 GB. True, the Wii has changed a lot of perceptions, but with the abilities of the hardware coupled with lots and lots and lots of space, the PS3 has the most potential.

Re:This won't help the xbox

[phillips321]

I more or less agree. If HD-DVD licensing company had been wise enough to allow microsoft to add a HD-DVD as standard to the xbox then i'm pretty sure the 2 years head start would have allowed HD-DVD to win. Thus, by allowing microsoft to implement HD-DVD tech for free/cheap would have benefited HD-DVD in the long run.
Giving things away for free is not allways a bad business idea...
Microsoft turn a blind eye to the Windows XP/Vista piracy in 3rd world countries as it's just another way to stop the end user for taking up *nix.

Re:This won't help the xbox

[zbaron]

Sony developed a scratch resistant layer ...

It was TDK that developed the scratch resistant coating.

Re:This won't help the xbox

[LarsWestergren]

Gasp, cant we admit MS was on the right side for once.

Well, I doubt they supported HDDVD because of any techical superiority, they just wanted a monopoly on home entertainment just like they have over operating systems and office documents today.

It was the superior format with no region encoding

Many Blu-ray discs are sold without region encoding...though I admit I would rather have seen a standard completely without it.

Re:This won't help the xbox

[donaldm]

Except that Japan didn't want to wait on DVD and created VCD. Actually the VCD is still doing well in SE Asian countries as well as the Philippines. In fact movies on VCD's are normally 30% to 50% cheaper than the same movie on DVD.

Re:This won't help the xbox

[feepness]

Kudos on an excellent post. I made this exact point to a friend of mine in 2006.

When there is a clear choice at the low-end and the high-end, the middle choice dies even if it is at a middle price point.

BluRay "losing" could have tilted things but it wasn't going to. They only sold 30K players in Japan for chrissakes!

Re:This won't help the xbox

[donaldm]

The thing is, if MSFT had included a HD-DVD player with the XBox 360, then HD would have had a significant head start (a couple of years) This kind of "what if" never ceases to amaze me.

Ok some facts:

1. The Xbox360 was released on November 22, 2005, in the United States and Canada; December 2, 2005, in Europe and December 10, 2005, in Japan. See here for more details.
2. On August 22, 2005, the Blu-ray Disc Association and DVD Forum announced that the negotiations to unify their standards had failed, then on March 31, 2006, Toshiba released their first consumer-based HD DVD player in Japan. See here for more details.

If Microsoft had even been contemplating putting a HD-DVD player they would have had only 3 months between the time the Blu-ray HD-DVD talks broke down to actually putting one in their Xbox360. Considering Toshiba actually released a player four months after the Xbox360 launch it is very unlikely Microsoft even thought about putting any HD media player in their Xbox360 until after the first HD-DVD player was released. In fact Microsoft released their HD-DVD add-on to their Xbox360 at the end of November 2006.

I think the bottom line is an Xbox360 with a HD-DVD built in drive was never going to happen and even on an extremely remote chance in an alternate universe it did the Xbox360 only had a 12 month lead on the PS3.

Re:This won't help the xbox

[rtb61]

Odd, last time I bothered to ring M$ for service and support the very first thing they wanted before they even asked what the problem was, my credit card details == no, none, nulla nil, free service and support. Oh, they did say I would get a refund, refund mind you, they still would charge me first, if it was a fault in the program.

Re:This won't help the xbox

[TheThiefMaster]

In others, they simply downsampled sounds and textures; the results were usually unnoticeable. All but a few games ended up online that way. Or downsampled video.
I also heard that in one case the crackers patched support for a better video codec in to the game, allowing them to recode the video to a size that would fit on 700MB cds without compromising the quality (and also allowing it to play without skipping, as a CD has a slower read-rate than a GD in the Dreamcast).

Re:This won't help the xbox

[mwvdlee]

As somebody who doesn't have any of the current gen consoles yet, if I were, the X360 has dropped to the least likely candidate due to this topic.
I could go for the Wii, which (in my opinion) has the best games (the once I'd like most), the PS3 has a blu-ray built in. What reason is there to prefer X360 over PS3 now?

Re:This won't help the xbox

[mahlerfan999]

Most of the ps3 games are bad ports of 360 games with performance issues (just to give an example Orange Box is probably the worst offender). On top of that the 360 has better hardware that outperforms the ps3 in terms of framerate and loading times. Graphically the two consoles look the same since nearly all games are developed for 720p. It will still probably be another year before the ps3 has a long line of interesting games that are not just crappy ports from the 360.

If you actually care about gaming, then simply choose the console based on content. The real reason that the xbox looks like garbage on this thread is because the thread is on slashdot. The anti-MS fud knows no bounds here. I do get tired of it, very tired of it. Face reality: this is not the year of the linux desktop, and this is not the year of the ps3. Maybe next year, we'll see.

And that doesn't make me an MS fanboy either. I want to enjoy the ps3, I am waiting patiently for good games to be released on it to justify buying it. For those that feel it's a must have for a media center (not unlike the reason people buy those overpriced iphones) I have a "media center" too-- it's called a computer. I mean how many people at the local walmart say "awesome I bet it plays Blu-Ray!" or even better "fantastic, I always wanted a media center!" No, the reason to buy a ps3 is to play games on it. The rest are supposed to be perks, and not the main reason to buy the console.

Re:This won't help the xbox

[xhrit]

I agree with you about the dreamcast. and considering the similarities between the dreamcast and teh 360, I think the 360 is about to get raped by sony. http://www.1up.com/do/feature?cId=3145154

Re:This won't help the xbox

[xhrit]

I think you are all missing a point - the 360 was not ment to compete with the ps3 - it was ment to compete with the ps2. In 2 years, MS will unviel the xbox 3 and have a 2 year head start on the ps4.

Re:This won't help the xbox

[xhrit]

You are forgetting that microsoft has a monopoly on evil.

Sony tried to be evil, but microsoft sued them for patent infringement.

Re:This won't help the xbox

[Alcoholic Synonymous]

It would have been trivial for them to have released an "Xbox 360 HD" edition that was bundled with it as soon as the talks broke down, and still commanding a significant market lead by the time it hit the shelves. One way or another, amazed as you will be, Microsoft dropped the ball here by not using the bundling tactic their competitor did.

Keep in mind, so far the biggest threat to HD/BR adoption has been that noone thinks it's worth it. But... if you already have it.. why not?

HD/BR players are too expensive to just watch movies with, 360/PS3 are too expensive for just gaming. But if you got the 1080p TV and get a PS3, then you get the best of "bleeding edge" hi-def gaming and can watch "bleeding edge" hi-def movies... win/win, sale!

Like I said, I do this for a living.

Re:This won't help the xbox

[jonesy16]

It's clear that you're a fan of the Sony platform. As a long time Sony hardware fan I can't criticize you for that, but I think you underestimate the momentum that the XBox 360 still has moving forward. I don't care to look up numbers so yell at me for speculation if you want, but I went out looking to get a PS3/XBOX360 for Christmas and there were fortifications in the Best Buy stores made out of piles of PS3's. I was lucky to find an XBox 360 (other than the Arcade version) at any store. The DVD drive ended up going out on me in a couple of weeks (fulfilling my fear that the hardware would be crap), but I searched in vain for a replacement anyway. Every store in my state was out of stock on 360's other than the arcade version. I'm talking every Target, Gamestop, Best Buy, Walmart, EB Games, and Circuit City. I finally got one off of Amazon and they were out of stock the very next day.

I truly think that all 3 consoles will be around for a good while because I think all 3 of them are fulfilling their own niches. The Wii for the casual SD gamer, the PS3 for the bleeding tech PSP integrating HD gamer, and the 360 for the online multiplaying HD gamer who also likes being able to play media from computers/internet/removable USB drives. The 360's catalogue of games is far too large for it to disappear quietly, and with a 3 year hardware warranty against the RROD problem I don't think people are going to give up on them entirely. I chose them merely because they had the best online system. I could have gotten a PS3 but I don't know anyone else that has one and don't even know what game I would play online with it. With the 360 I have at least a half dozen friends with Halo 3 alone. But I digress.

I think Microsoft did fine in choosing to offer the HD-DVD route. It was cheap, had a decent initial industry backing, and allowed you to buy it when you were ready. Now they're in a position to transition to Blu-Ray if it seems prudent. I couldn't really care less.

Re:This won't help the xbox

[Gldm]

Sony is winning what now? Since when?

Last time I checked the PS3 was still trailing. In terms of sales since launch it's been roughly on the same level as the 360, until recently when there was an upswing (coincidentally just when they finally realized nobody will pay $600 for the PS3 and cut it). Check vgchartz.com if you don't believe me.

Microsoft aimed at the gaming market. Sony aimed at the gaming and home theater market, which drove their price up. That's been hurting them enough to nullify a lot of their previous brand loyalty and install base advantages. They should be selling faster than the 360 but they're barely keeping pace if you line up the launch timelines. Funny you should mention Oblivion as being one of the good games for the 360, since the PS3 version is inferior due to memory constraints. I could cite many more examples of inferior graphical quality, framerate, or features in the PS3 version of a game vs the 360 version. Even when the game released later on PS3 (Skate anyone?).

Now let's move on to the "PS3 is better hardware". Yeah except for their GPU, which is a generation behind (see unified shaders). And their split memory architecture, which causes space headaches (See Oblivion). And Cell, which is a real bitch to write efficient code for (ask any developer). And their slow ass drive access times, which require 20 minute pre-installs that don't make the game load noticeably faster (Devil May Cry 4). And their badly designed rumble-less controllers (oh wait they've reversed their position and are now making one with the "obsolete" feature back again). Let's not even start on the 2nd generation Xbox Live vs the still closed beta Sony Home.

Nothing but the Wii has ever sold at Wii-like rates. Its sales are absolutely phenominal. It's selling roughly double the rate the PS2 did at the same time since launch. Also, anyone with half a brain can see that consoles normally sell less each successive year. It's called market saturation. Price drops and killer games can help but in general the machines sell less year on year. So saying "360 appears to have peaked back in 2006" is pretty worthless. Even the PS2 sold less year on year, doesn't that mean it "peaked" in 2000?

Re:This won't help the xbox

[yodleboy]

absolutely. I sat out the format war until there was a clear winner even though it meant delaying a game system purchase. I got a PS3 a few days after Toshiba pulled out. Unfortunately for Microsoft, in my mind they tied the game system to the video format. had they not, i might have gotten a 360 a year ago. Once the format was decided, 360 was perceived as "damaged goods" to me.

A friend of mine had 4 consoles with red rings of death before giving up and getting a PS3. He commented today that until the toshiba decision, he didnt have any friends with a PS3. Now he has 5 of us in a matter of weeks.

Re:This won't help the xbox

[elrous0]

Let me know when the tortoise actually releases some GAMES, instead of just making promises. So far, all the best titles are, and have been, either exclusive to the 360 (Mass Effect, Bioshock, Halo 3, etc.) or available for both consoles (Call of Duty 4, Oblivion, etc.). Anyone looking just to buy a game console would be crazy to buy a PS3 at this point. And the people looking to buy a blu-ray player may be buying it, but this won't make for better games (since it won't improve game sales unless blu-ray fans also become gamers), and it won't even have that advantange for long (as stand-alone blu-ray players start to come down in price).

Considering that the 360 is still the reigning god of game sales (outselling PS3 titles by as much as 8:1 and Wii titles buy 3:1), I think it's WAY premature to be declaring the Ps3 the winner of anything.

And note that I say this as someone who owns BOTH consoles myself. My 360 plays my HD-DVD's and games, and my PS3 plays my blu-rays. But, as a game machine, the PS3 is little more than a doorstop (Uncharted and Warhawk are the only decent games on the thing, and they still pale in comparison to the best 360 games).

Re:This won't help the xbox

[SuiteSisterMary]

The stated reason for not going with an integrated HD DVD, amoung others, is that at the time, no HD DVD drive had a read rate of anywhere near a standard DVD drive. Hence, it made more sense for them, especially having dropped the hard drive, to have a faster optical drive that could stream data in a more useful way.

Re:This won't help the xbox

[elrous0]

I've own one since April 2006 and no RROD yet (used for both gaming and HD-DVD's). And I work with two guys who also own 360's and neither has had any RROD. Yes, RROD is a problem, but to suggest that it happens to everyone (or anywhere even close to everyone) is ludicrous.

Re:This won't help the xbox

[longbot]

Do you/they use it more or less than 10hrs/week? That seems to be the threshold amount of use that typically sees issues. Not that that's the only problem. Another friend had his simply fail to power on one day. MS's QA has gone straight to hell these days... not that it was ever that great.

I'm not suggesting that it's inevitable, just that for something that costs $350 (and a lot of people I know that are having problems bought at launch... when they were $500 or more) I think that a 60% or so chance of failure is unacceptable. And that it's the only next-gen console to have well-know reliability issues is one more reason people have to favor the PS3.

Re:This won't help the xbox

[elrous0]

I have both HD-DVD and blu-ray and haven't had any scratching problems with either to date (and I abuse my discs pretty badly). As far as I can tell, they both seem to hold up at least as good as DVD--making it a wash either way.

As for the silly blu-ray "scratch-proof" claim, I take that with a HUGE grain of salt. There is no such thing as "scratch-proof" (any more than there is any such thing as "water-proof"). Anyone who thinks they've invented something that can't be scratched has never had anyone take some sandpaper to it (much less a grinder). It reminds me of an eyeglass store that I went into one time. They had a big display for some new "scratch-proof" lens with a demo lens in the display, challenging you to scratch it. Of course, I picked it up and looked at it and saw that it was scratched all to hell (NEVER challenge people).

Re:This won't help the xbox

[metamatic]

Microsoft chose HD-DVD because Blu-ray requires Java.

Re:This won't help the xbox

[DrEldarion]

Perhaps not completely scratchproof, but it'll stand up to things far, far, far more than other discs: Video.

Re:This won't help the xbox

[jalm111]

Microsoft barely broke even on the 360 console mainly because of the $1 billion they had to dish out to extend warranties and etc for the ring of death issue (at least they recognize their fault and did the right thing). If not for this they would have turned a huge profit on the 360.

I own a 360 and never even thought about buying the HD DVD add on, I was actually very happy that it was just an add on and didn't force me to choose sides like the PS3 did (which is also the reason I bought a 360 instead of the PS3).

MS backed HD DVD because it uses VB scripting versus Blu Ray uses Java scripting, I'm fairly sure that competing with Sony/Blu Ray was not that high of a priority.

HD DVD loosing is definitley not a good thing for MS, but it is not by any means a 'nail in the coffin', making the HD DVD an add-on actually saved them.

Re:This won't help the xbox

[RoverDaddy]

someone took the Talladega Nights blu-ray that came with their PS3 and put it through a torture test Do you mean they watched it? I'd call that a torture.

Sorry. I mean man, it was just lying there...

Re:This won't help the xbox

[squiggleslash]

This strategy would have left their existing customers in the cold, who had no idea an HD DVD version of the X-Box 360 was around the corner, and who would have been locked out of playing games distributed on HD DVD, which in time would probably have been all of them. And, as others keep pointing out, it would have added a fair amount to the cost of the '360. Like around $2-300.

Microsoft doesn't always do things right, but I can't fault them for most of what they did in the HD wars. They didn't force their customers to buy something they were pushing. They added excellent technologies to HD DVD. The one major screw over they did that impacted us as consumers was adding the "Secure Path" crap to Windows.

Re:This won't help the xbox

[ivan256]

Last time I checked the PS3 was still trailing. In terms of sales since launch it's been roughly on the same level as the 360, until recently when there was an upswing (coincidentally just when they finally realized nobody will pay $600 for the PS3 and cut it). Check vgchartz.com if you don't believe me.

When is the last time you've been to VGChartz?

The PS3 has been outselling the 360 for months worldwide, and as of January it's outselling the 360 in the US too. (Data from your own sited source)

You're also wrong about the PS2. Sales didn't peak until it had been on the market for over two years (peaked at christmas 2002). It was all uphill until then, and it stayed high and flat for a while. (Again, data from your own source)

Re:This won't help the xbox

[ivan256]

the PS3 for the bleeding tech PSP integrating HD gamer, and the 360 for the online multiplaying HD gamer who also likes being able to play media from computers/internet/removable USB drives.

You've never used a PS3, have you?

It puts the 360 to shame in that last category. It's not even close. More formats supported, standard ports, standard protocols, memory card readers, arbitrary data discs full of media, 1080p upscaling, a quality remote, practically silent operation... It's really no contest. The 360 is like a joke of a media center box in comparison.

Re:This won't help the xbox

[Alcoholic Synonymous]

But a point to consider is that the PS3 did force the high dollar crap on its customers which stagnated BR adoption and PS3 sales for a year. HD-DVD adoption was on the rise prior to Xmas due to falling player prices. During the Xmas buying spree, people bought the now-significantly-reduced PS3, and those PS3 owners are the ones buying the BR discs. Again, I will point out, my job is selling all of the above, I see the people come back through to buy the BR movies for the PS3 they bought the week before.

If MS had released a "HD" edition it would have been the "must have" much like the Elite is now. Customers would not be in the cold, because they could still buy the addon separately, just like you can turn an Arcade into an Elite with separate addons. And the 360 would not be tied to a failed technology, because the bundling would have ensured broad HD adoption, exactly as the PS3 has done for BR, a year and a half before the PS3 did it. It's not exclusively MS's fault, but when you take a stand to support a technology, you actually have to take a stand and support that technology. They did not.

I would like to know what math you use that says a $100 addon will cost 3 times more when fabricated and bundled with something en masse. Typically the economics work the other way. Anyway...

Re:This won't help the xbox

[squiggleslash]

I would like to know what math you use that says a $100 addon will cost 3 times more when fabricated and bundled with something en masse.

The HD DVD add-on was never $100, and I strongly suspect early $200 add-ons were heavily subsidized given they came out at the time that Toshiba and LG were selling their HD DVD players for a minimum of $500.

Re:This won't help the xbox

[Admiral Ag]

Your tastes are different than mine. I'd rate Uncharted, R&C, Resistance and Warhawk as excellent PS3 exclusives. The only 360 game I would rate as clearly better would be Bioshock. Mass Effect I got tired of, and Halo 3 turned out to be quickly overrun by COD4. I'd add Forza 2 for the 360 as being a pretty decent exclusive. The PS3 exclusives for this year will even that up and put it in the PS3s favour. MGS4 looks excellent, as do RFOM 2 and Motorstorm 3, and whenever they get around to releasing GT5 I will stop playing Forza. Killzone 2, Haze, etc.

But that's all a bit silly and largely down to personal tastes. Most games will be released for both platforms. If you don't buy both, you will miss out on some exclusives, but that's life. By the end of the year the games will be six of one and half a dozen of the other. The 360s advantage is that it has had an extra year of releases. But, as the facts demonstrated, this did not stop the PS3 from selling faster even when its prime competitor had many more games than it did. What won't change is the lack of Blu Ray and the RROD crap. 360 owners, including myself, are stuck with that.

I like both consoles and exclusive titles for both, but that doesn't stop the figures demonstrating that the 360 has peaked and that the PS3 is eating it up outside the US (and recently inside the US). Sony won. Time to move on.

Re:This won't help the xbox

[Wolvey]

Gasp, cant we admit MS was on the right side for once

If by the "right side" you mean the "losing side", then yes.

Can't wait to hear the PS3 fanboys when

[The Analog Kid]

Microsoft comes out with an external Blu-Ray player. According to people's comments on various forums I read through, the end of the Blu-Ray vs HD-DVD war was not only suppose to kill HD-DVD but the 360 as well. (as if everyone who bought a 360 bought it for the HD-DVD capabilities)

Re:Can't wait to hear the PS3 fanboys when

[nagora]

Microsoft comes out with an external Blu-Ray player.

They'll probably be too busy laughing to say anything.

TWW

Re:Can't wait to hear the PS3 fanboys when

[spirit of reason]

as if everyone who bought a 360 bought it for the HD-DVD capabilities I know I didn't. I bought the 360 for the exclusive RPGs and better price. The draw of Final Fantasy seemed to leave with Sakaguchi-san for me (dunno why, exactly; was he really that important to the series? But the feel of it has changed for the worse, I think.). On the other hand, Lost Odyssey has been awesome so far (though it has some bugs, so save often, lol), and I'm looking forward to Fable 2.

Re:Can't wait to hear the PS3 fanboys when

[morari]

All of those Playstation fanboys, who did purchase a console largely for video playback, might just think such...

In all fairness though, at least the few decent games on the PS3 aren't all eventually released for the PC as well like anything on the 360 is. Wii FTW!

Microsoft To Drop HD DVD....

[Anonymous Coward]

.... so will it bounce and if not who is going to pick up the pieces!?!? ;)

Re:1st post

[Anonymous Coward]

you're actually the second post. HAH!

Announcement: MSOpenDVD

[Anonymous Coward]

Redmond 24th Feb 2008 (for the beast works Sundays)

Microsoft today announced a new High Definition DVD format they have labeled MSOpenDVD. Microsoft chairthrower Steve Ballmer said, "this is a very exciting project by combining MSOpenDRM with our SilverLight technology and embedding the DVD data in XML we have created an open extensible platform that will confound anti-trust regulators for decades - Muhahahaha".

The MSOpenDVD format will be publicly released under the Microsoft patent promise next quarter.

Re:Announcement: MSOpenDVD

[tristian_was_here]

Does this mean MSOpenDVD will become a standard and compatible with Linux?

Re:Announcement: MSOpenDVD

[Anonymous Coward]

Does this mean MSOpenDVD will become a standard and compatible with Linux?

Absolutely -- under Microsoft's patent promise as part of their continuing efforts at interoperability. Speaking of Linux, it contains so much Microsoft "eye-pee" that they've decided to rename it "MSOpenLinux" and relicense to allow proprietary modules, especially DRM. Users and developers can get a patent license covering usage for $699 a seat. The license also transfers ownership of said seat to Microsoft (chairs are expensive and the CEO has a thing for them).

Re:Announcement: MSOpenDVD

[Joe The Dragon]

Next Circuit city will come out with HD divx and it will fail like the old divx and they will just fire and rehire all of there works at min wage.

I'm still hoping for...

[AugustZephyr]

... the cartridge to make a comeback.

Re:I'm still hoping for...

[PhrostyMcByte]

ffFFWwFFFWWWW FFWwwfWWWWf fWffFwWwwW

What? I'm sorry, I couldn't here you over cleaning my SNES cartridge.

Re:I'm still hoping for...

[MrSteveSD]

Packed with 50GB of Flash memory :)

Re:I'm still hoping for...

[glitch23]

What? I'm sorry, I couldn't here you over cleaning my SNES cartridge.

Actually, I only had trouble with the NES cartridges. The SNES ones were fine but maybe others had trouble with both. And Iu would think if either of those consoles would have trouble it would have been the SNES since its cartridge slot was on top of the system even though it did have a cover.

Re:I'm still hoping for...

[timeOday]

I guess that was a joke, but I absolutely want solid state to take over optical media. Of my kids' DVDs, and the ones we get from the library, hardly any actually work. I would much rather have their movies on GBA-like cartriges. I think flash capacities will catch up with DVD in just a few years, but now Blu-Ray has raised the bar that much more.

Re:I'm still hoping for...

[failedlogic]

I would agree. So little of the overall cost and price at the cast register of a movie or music recording on DVD or CD pays for the actual disc. Even if the media were slightly more expensive, it should not add to the cost at the cash. I think it would therefore be much better to buy a Read-only Flash or cartridge based system so long as the life-span and durability of the product are the same, with no DRM so that I can copy on my computer and music players.

Re:I'm still hoping for...

[DrEldarion]

You're in luck, then - Blu-ray is nearly unscratchable due to the protective coating they put on the discs.

Re:I'm still hoping for...

[Anonymous Coward]

... the cartridge to make a comeback.

You must be OLD here!

Re:I'm still hoping for...

[Frogbert]

You know as silly as it sounds the price of flash drives today means a flash cartridge could at least be feasible. 8gb of flash is pretty cheap and can store a fairly decent game.

Re:I'm still hoping for...

[Anonymous Coward]

The kids today have it too easy.

*goes back to re-aligning the drive heads on his 1541*

Re:I'm still hoping for...

[GWBasic]

... the cartridge to make a comeback.

There are movies for the Game Boy. One of the kids in my apartment complex showed me Shrek 3 on his Game Boy. The video quality is very low bit rate.

But will Blu-ray win?

[Tancred]

Or will online distribution overtake it? I don't buy physical CDs anymore and would like to buy video content online as well.

Re:But will Blu-ray win?

[fyrie]

My gut says that online distribution can't win in the movie *purchase* market until DRM is made more consumer friendly. People are starting to clue into the fact that they may be S.O.L. if they buy a movie download and their computer/device dies or the service goes out of business (like the Wallmart movie service). DRM has to become user friendly in the sense that a user can keep the license beyond the life of the service and that the media can be moved to another device. I don't think 1 purchase per device is going to fly for anything that isn't sold dirt cheap. Maybe the answer is a license dongle like iLok with online license storage in case the dongle dies.

All that being said, digital downloads could really take off in the rental market if services can deliver the same audio and visual experience as physical media (including extras, commentaries etc...). From what I have read, apple TV has pretty darn good quality, but the rental fee is still too high IMHO. It's gotta be as cheap as Netflix or cheaper.

Re:But will Blu-ray win?

[Jugalator]

Or will online distribution overtake it? Granted, I've seen ~5 GB HD movies spread on The Pirate Bay, and they seem to be of good enough quality, despite being much more heavily compressed than their 25 GB variants. But I don't think I'd want to go much lower if this is still about 1080p movies. And then, the question becomes how much of a hassle downloading a 5 GB movie might be? For me on a 100 Mbps connection, not so much in theory, but it's 1) still very common with much slower DSL lines, and 2) the problem with centralized bogged down servers probably not reaching your full capacity. Especially not if downloading internationally. And I wouldn't really bet on these companies daring to move to P2P technologies... That probably comes off as too scary for them, still. :-p

Re:But will Blu-ray win?

[R3d M3rcury]

Depends on the content.

I could see online distribution taking over the rental market, but I don't necessarily see it overtaking the purchase market.

"Huh?" I hear you ask.

Consider the content of Amazon's current top selling DVD, American Gangster. It has the original movie, as seen in theaters. It has a new "extended version." It has commentary, and a couple of documentaries on the subject matter and the making of the film. Almost 7.5 hours of video!

That's a lot of stuff.

Conversely, if I go to, say, an online distributor such as iTunes Store or Amazon Unbox, I get the original movie, as seen in theaters. About 2 hours and 37 minutes worth of video. But if I really love the movie and think it's great and awesome and fantastic and all, I'm going to want the rest of that content. But to download 7.5 hours worth of video is going to take a long time. I'm pretty sure I could drive to the mall, buy it, and come home before it finished downloading all that content.

That's why I'm not convinced that online distribution is going to kill Blu-Ray. Garbage expands to fill the space allotted and there's alot more room for garbage to expand on a Blu-Ray disk than online distribution is going to be able to conveniently handle.

Royalties

[MrKaos]

Won't Microsoft have to pay Sony royalties on blu-ray players if they were installed into 360's?

Re:Royalties

[Anonymous Coward]

As opposed to Sony having to pay MS royalties for using the VC-1 codec on blu-ray discs?

Re:Royalties

[pddo]

Not too sure if they'll have to pay Sony (I think yes) but they'll have to pay Sun as all blueray menu's are now j2me driven... But i guess they are used to paying SUN.

Re:Royalties

[Rudolf]

Won't Microsoft have to pay Sony royalties on blu-ray players if they were installed into 360's?

Maybe. Did they have to pay Toshiba for HD-DVD?

Re:Royalties

[News for nerds]

Sony doesn't have to do that since no Sony Pictures movies are encoded in VC-1.

Re:Royalties

[pavon]

Is MS only charging licensing fees for encoders and not decoders (ie PS3)?

Re:Royalties

[babaloo]

More importantly, they will now have to support Java. I'm sure that they're loving that as it was one of the deciding factors in choosing HD-DVD.

Re:Royalties

[Anonymous Coward]

Won't Microsoft have to pay Sony royalties on blu-ray players if they were installed into 360's? Blu-ray != Sony bla bla bla...

Blu-ray was developed by the Blu-ray Disc Association whose board of directors include Hitachi, LG, Mitsubishi, Panasonic, Pioneer, Philips, Samsung, Sharp, Sony, TDK, bla bla bla...

Re:Royalties

[abigor]

Why do people have the idea that Sony somehow has exclusive rights to Blu-Ray? The Blu-Ray Disc Association is a collection of a whole bunch of companies, many of whom were involved in the format's development. Sony is just one of these companies. Some others are Apple, HP, Sun, Matsushita, etc. etc.

Re:Royalties

[Anonymous Coward]

Right! Sony doesn't have to pay royalties to Sony, they could pay them to Apple, Sun or HP instead.

I think I'll consider this a late holiday present. :)

Whack, Whack, Whack...

[Nom du Keyboard]

Whack, whack, whack, the sound of the last nail in the coffin of HD-DVD. I'm glad it's dying earlier, rather than later.

Re:don't buy into formats backed by microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

What do I do with my FAT32-using USB mass storage mp3 player?

Re:don't buy into formats backed by microsoft

[causality]

As the saying goes, "if you get into bed with Microsoft, you're going to get fucked."

Online distribution of HD content take too much bw

[SpecialAgentXXX]

From some of the forums I've read, Blueray rips can be up to 27GB. Even with high-speed broadband, that's still several hours or more to legally download a movie. All that bandwidth will cost the distributer a lot of money. So I'm assuming they will compress the hell out of it (like HD-lite) and you'll see artifacts. Then what's the point of HD if there's a bunch of macroblocking, etc.? Plus, legal downloads are DRM'd to your PC. What if I want to transfer it to my media PC in the living room? Or if I want to watch a late night movie in my room? No, I don't think online disto can compete with the quality and "freedom" of a physical disc.

Umm? This supposed to be news?

[ShadowFalls]

Ofcourse these players will stop being made, Microsoft doesn't make them, Toshiba does. Though the price mentioned is only the current price, not the original...

duh!

[frovingslosh]

Given that Microsoft didn't really make these but just bought other HD drive production, and that these will no longer be produced, there was no other option but to stop selling them.

This won't help the xbox?

[BigDork1001]

I own a 360, I don't feel it's obsolete. I bought it to play games, not watch movies. I don't own a HD-DVD add-on and never planned on buying one. If I did own a PS3 I doubt I'd own Blu movies. I buy game consoles to play games, not watch movies.

Why is it so hard for people to grasp this simple concept? My Wii doesn't play movies at all and yet it still sells well. If people really cared that much then I would say that yes Microsoft is in trouble. But no, you can't say that this is a nail in the coffin of the 360.

Re:This won't help the xbox?

[Anonymous Coward]

If people really cared that much then I would say that yes Microsoft is in trouble. But no, you can't say that this is a nail in the coffin of the 360.

So, it IS a nail in the coffin of the XBox, just not "the FINAL nail."

Microsoft lost this one

[gilesjuk]

Microsoft should be publicly humiliated for taking sides in the first place. It's not for them to take sides in terms of media.

Would they (for example) not support MemoryStick but choose to support SecureDigital? of course not. People want to just use their computer and have the freedom to choose, not have the decision made for them because the alternative media is made by a rival in another market.

This is what's wrong with Microsoft (and Apple to a degree too), they're way too involved in the media business to be objective in making decisions about new technology.

Re:Online distribution of HD content take too much

[Tancred]

So I'm hearing a few arguments. Let me rebut them one at a time.

- Time to download too great. Compare that with going to a video store, and even today in the relative bandwidth backwater of the U.S. it's not such a big difference. And speeds will of course increase over the next few years that Blu-ray is trying to build its distribution monopoly.

- Bandwidth costs. I contend that online distribution is already *much* cheaper than by disc. My back of the envelope calculation gives a bandwidth cost of $.10-.20 for that 27GB file.

- Compression. Obviously, content providers don't have to compress their content, but I can certainly it happening at first. It could be a differentiator for a while. But again, more bandwidth would likely change that.

- Freedom of discs. You need a Blu-ray player in the other room to play that disc. Or you can move your player around. But the same goes for your digital media player - have two or move it around.

- DRM. I hope the anti-DRM trend we're seeing in music repeats in video. I don't think it necessarily has to be a big problem in the shorter term either.

It wont hinder it either.

[Xest]

I don't really see how it can make a difference, although I'm not sure if you're under the impression the 360 has an HD-DVD drive built in? It doesn't.

Anyone who bought the HD-DVD addon already has a 360, by their HD-DVD drive becoming useless it's not going to somehow un-sell the console and reduce adoption and it's unlikely to stop people buying games for the 360. Chances are if people weren't fussed about the games they'd have bought the much cheaper Toshiba EP30/A30 HD-DVD player.

If anything I'd say it's a burden of Microsoft and the 360's back, they've basically had to support HD-DVD up until now due to their initial decision to do so yet it's not been a real bonus for the console for a long while now as a result of HD-DVDs decline. Now they're free of HD-DVD they can take the option of supporting Bluray and remove one of the PS3's major advantages over their system. 360 owners with the HD-DVD addon at least have the option of running both formats on their same system that way so they're not totally screwed over by the whole format war thing and it'll likely be cheaper to buy any Bluray addon drive that might be released than to ditch the system and buy a Bluray player or PS3 instead.

It's going to be a hard decision for Sony however, do they attempt to sabotage Microsoft's attempts at adding Bluray to the 360 if MS chooses to do so and in the process risk Microsoft sabotaging Bluray on the Windows platform as a result or do they take the hit on PS3 console sales by allowing the 360 to also play Bluray movies but gain Microsoft's support for Bluray in the grander scheme of things?

Re:Online distribution of HD content take too much

[xtracto]

From some of the forums I've read, Blueray rips can be up to 27GB. Even with high-speed broadband, that's still several hours or more to legally download a movie

Bah, kids these days. You should have been about fifteen years ago. I left my 56k (which was really about 33600) connection up more than two continuous days (re-dialing every 8 hours which was the limit before prodigy disconnected you) to download some mp3s.

And yeah, the senile posters who are going to talk about the dinosaur era in BBSs can refrain from doing so ;-)

Microsoft couldn't care less that Blu-ray "won"

[SnprBoB86]

Microsoft was originally backing HD-DVD because it had their VC1 codec on it. Microsoft made a few pennies for licensing fees on the codec for each HD-DVD sold. Sony's codec was inferior, so image quality tests were showing HD-DVD to beat Blu-ray early. Sony quickly adopted VC1, so Microsoft makes a few pennies sold on every Blu-ray also. Hence, they no longer cared who wins. The Xbox player was just a side effect of their early support for HD-DVD.

Re:Microsoft couldn't care less that Blu-ray "won"

[pizzach]

You're pretty close, but your argument is a bit slanted pro Microsoft. The reason why the quality of early Blu-ray discs suffered was not because of lack of VC1. It was because studios were using MPEG-2...the exact same codec as used by good old DVDs. Bluray also supports MPEG-4 AVC (H.264) which is actually modern and comparable to VC1.

Re:Microsoft couldn't care less that Blu-ray "won"

[Anonymous Coward]

Right on. And Microsoft will lose less money by not selling xbox 360 consoles.

format wars

[Comboman]

Scenario 2: all companies involved decide that no one really wins a format war (particularly the end-users) and come up with an open standard, like we had with DVDs and CDs.

Perhaps you don't remember the DVD / DIVX war or the CD / DAT war. There's always a format war, it's just that sometimes the winner is more obvious and the war doesn't last as long.

Re:format wars

[causality]

Thank you for pointing that out, it helps me to put the current format war in perspective. I do remember that these occurred but for some reason (I'm open to this being a "grass is greener" fallacy on my part) they seem to have been relatively minor squabbles compared to the current HD-DVD v. Blu-Ray deal. For example, DivX had a built-in time-limit (a rather short one, too) that effectively "expired" any discs rented in that format which made it rather unpopular; it also required that the player had a phone line so it could literally phone-home and approve many actions. For these and other reasons I don't remember it having ever been a serious contender for DVD. The last such format war I remember seeing or hearing about that was on the scale of the current one was VHS v. Betamax.

Either way, I am grateful to see someone use genuinely constructive criticism. It's great when someone can make me go back and question what I said, since I usually learn something from that. Congratulations for having the class to do that without a single insult or ad-hominem attack.

Re:format wars

[samkass]

Ironically, DivX was at least as forgiving as any of the digital movie download DRM systems everyone is touting as the obvious technology that Blu-ray will lose to.

Re:format wars

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps you don't remember the DVD / DIVX war or the CD / DAT war.

Because no such "wars" ever existed? DVD and DIVX were not competing formats. DIVX discs were DVDs, albeit with proprietary extensions, and all DIVX players would play DVDs. DIVX was an add on feature marketed as an alternative to video store rental.

As for CD and DAT, while I'm sure that was the original vision for DAT, there was never any "war". Prerecorded DATs were never sold to my knowledge, I certainly never heard of or saw any. DAT was intended as the replacement for audiotape, and it was successful for a while for high end amateur recording. DAT never competed in the same space as CDs, it had fallen out of favor long before recordable CDs went mainstream.

Re:Online distribution of HD content take too much

[Kjella]

No, rips (not encodes) can be up to 50GB because the disc is 50GB, I don't know anyone who'd make a 27GB encode. Maybe you're confused with HDDVD rips that usually is close to 30GB? Encodes usually go for DVD5/720p and DVD9/1080p sizes, 1080p is 6x the pixels of 480p so roughly the same quality per pixel as a 2CD rip but with each pixel only being 1/6th the size in the total picture.

Remember there's a lot more headroom in the Blu-Ray standard, a regular DVD9 only in HD resolution would be 6xDVD9 = 54GB in MPEG2 but H264/VC-1 compresses a lot better so in reality you have more bandwidth per pixel on top of having a much higher resolution. Given the number of people that must be blind or something and can't tell HD from 480p, only a very small minority would be able to tell these rips from the real Blu-Ray disc. I'd say they're better than any HDTV you can get over the air in the states (ATSC is MPEG2 at 15-20GB/movie).

Re:Online distribution of HD content take too much

[Clover_Kicker]

- Time to download too great. Compare that with going to a video store, and even today in the relative bandwidth backwater of the U.S. it's not such a big difference. And speeds will of course increase over the next few years that Blu-ray is trying to build its distribution monopoly. Geez, how far do you live from your video store? And don't you have to brave the Big Blue Room to stock up on beer and Doritos anyway?

one - two punch

[Anonymous Coward]

Now let's hope Microsoft succeedes with the purchase of Yahoo.

Re:Online distribution of HD content take too much

[mr_matticus]

Time to download too great. Compare that with going to a video store, and even today in the relative bandwidth backwater of the U.S. it's not such a big difference. How, exactly, does a 15 minute trip to the video store (or a 30 second trip to the mailbox) compare to the 12-14 hours it would take to download a full quality BD file?

Bandwidth costs. I contend that online distribution is already *much* cheaper than by disc. I doubt it. Blu-ray discs won't end up costing more than DVDs once the market hits its stride. It's not just the bandwidth costs (which I think you're lowballing anyway), but the hardware necessary to have file storage and availability to millions of customers and be able to push out the astronomical volumes of data that would be requested. In the end, the disc will be cheaper.

Compression. BD is already highly, highly compressed. There's not really any way to compress it further without giving up significant quality, at which point, it's no longer a replacement for BD.

Freedom of discs. You need a Blu-ray player in the other room to play that disc. Or you can move your player around. But the same goes for your digital media player - have two or move it around. So that's not much of a rebuttal. The benefit of discs is that they contain their own storage and don't require network access. You can watch them in places without high-speed networks, such as while traveling, on players that don't need hard drives. They are just as portable as files within their scope of use; you can bring them to a friend's house. There's also the psychological element of having the box and the disc; some people enjoy that physical connection. Discs will also have the special features, additional audio tracks, and other bonus content that downloads won't; again, some people don't care about those things, but many do.

The short answer is that by the time Blu-ray can be delivered digitally without any quality loss and without serious drawbacks in delivery time, something better than Blu-ray will be on the market. This BD replacement will outstrip our Internet connections, too. We'll be right back at physical media for the optimum quality. We're many, many years from networks that can completely outpace that.

300,000? That's nothing

[Ice Station Zebra]

Look at the millions who were ripped of buying Vista.

Then the Xbox would cost MORE than a PS3

[gelfling]

Adding a BR player at this point has GOT to cost well north of $250 minimum perhaps more than $300. Are you willing to add $300 to the cost of an Xbox? I'm not. I'll just get a Wal*Mart Sony BDP-S300 $370 BR standalone player.

Re:Then the Xbox would cost MORE than a PS3

[theeddie55]

$250 minimum??? i'd love to know where you got that cost from especially as i can pick up a PC Blu-Ray drive for $180 retail.

Re:Then the Xbox would cost MORE than a PS3

[MikeBabcock]

Or for that matter, a $399 PS3 that plays BD movies and also plays all but the exclusive 360 games on the market.

Of course, according to Microsoft, people don't care if their game system can play high definition content (ditto to Nintendo, who actually publishes and encourages unique games).

Microsoft's ONLY gimmick (and I don't use that word negatively) is their online Live feature. Sure the system has a few exclusives, and will surely have more, but the Playstation 3 also has exclusives, and a motion-sensitive controller, and free online gaming. The Wii has an even more motion-based control system and some unique games as a result.

In my opinion (which hasn't changed since the PS3 was released) is that Microsoft will be bringing out a third XBox much sooner than you'd expect to try and leapfrog the PS3's technology advantages. Microsoft HAS historically "got it right" (or at least sunk its competitors) with version 3 products, and we'll have to wait and see if that happens again with the next Xbox, but this one isn't it.

Re:Then the Xbox would cost MORE than a PS3

[gelfling]

It may well bring out a new Gen Xbox but given the overheating problems of the current box this new gen box will have to be essentially a full blown computer with something approaching a closed loop liquid cooling system aka, a 'Gamerz' PC.

Re:Then the Xbox would cost MORE than a PS3

[powerlord]

Microsoft HAS historically "got it right" (or at least sunk its competitors) with version 3 products

Yes, but how many people are going to wonder about purchasing the "NextBox" in one or two years, when the PS2 is still selling, let alone the PS3 still getting up to speed?

MS took a lot of flak when they came out with the 360 and killed support for the original XBox after only a very short amount of time, if they do the same thing again, trying to get people onto the "upgrade bandwagon", then they run into people looking at alternatives. In the case of OS, people didn't see they had a choice (until recently with the rise of OS X), but in the console arena, Nintendo is already dominating the low end market, and the PS3 makes a compelling alternative to "constant upgrades".

Sony has been saying since day one that they were bundling in the things they needed to make sure the console had a 10 year life. Yeah, the price started out higher than a lot of people would have liked, but the price has been steadily dropping.

Re:Then the Xbox would cost MORE than a PS3

[Anonymous Coward]

It may well bring out a new Gen Xbox but given the overheating problems of the current box this new gen box will have to be essentially a full blown computer with something approaching a closed loop liquid cooling system aka, a 'Gamerz' PC.

Sounds like MS is trying to beat their competitors on something else: First Console to Spontaneously Combust!

LOLZ!

Re:Then the Xbox would cost MORE than a PS3

[MikeBabcock]

Sony has been saying since day one that they were bundling in the things they needed to make sure the console had a 10 year life. Yeah, the price started out higher than a lot of people would have liked, but the price has been steadily dropping.

And yet people didn't listen on Day 1 and mostly bought 360s, not PS3s. Sony got lambasted by geeks and reviewers alike for making a system that's too expensive with too many "useless" features and without a real competitive advantage to the 360.

If they didn't listen then, why would they start tomorrow? People who bought a 360 on Day 1 have had it for over two years. Many of those with the disposable income for a "NeXTBox" (sorry Jobs) who don't buy them are the PC game players who are already buying new parts every 6 months or more to keep up. I'm not sure Microsoft realizes that the game industry profits come from making your hardware last 10 years or being very unique and cheap, not from being expensive with a short shelf-life and high defect rates.

Maybe they'll clue in, but again, they haven't yet.

Not always

[Anonymous Coward]

if you develop game requiring the addon, you are limiting your audience

That didn't seem to hurt Guitar Hero or Rock Band any.

Re:Not always

[Grench]

Guitar Hero does not require the guitar controller - it will play just fine using the regular control pad.

It's just not as much fun.

Dunno about Rock Band though.

Re:don't buy into formats backed by microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

any questions? Yes- where do babies come from?

Not quite

[Namarrgon]

• MS were pushing their VC-1 codec, but that's available on both formats, not just HD-DVD.
• MS also licenced their HDi interactivity platform and authoring tools to HD-DVD.
• Initial BD discs didn't have high-quality authoring tools available, so they had to use MPEG-2 instead. As a result, quality suffered.
• Most BD discs now use H.264/AVC, not VC-1. H.264 is also available for HD-DVD.

MS initially adopted a neutral approach to format support. They changed to supporting HD-DVD, citing its greater consumer friendlyness (lack of region coding, and mandatory support for managed copy). The Xbox player was clearly a response to the PS3's built-in player, while still hedging their bets as to which format might win eventually.

My wii is a winner

[Crazy Taco]

Props to Sony. Whatever their other evils, they clearly kept their eye on the ball.

Lol... they didn't keep their eye on the ball. They missed the entire Nintendo blue ocean revolution. Going with the baseball analogy, it's like they missed the Roger Clemens fastball, but were able to hit granny's consolation toss at the end of the game. My Wii beats both consoles in sales and overall fun, and it did it without having a next gen player.

The appropriate response to Microsoft and Sony is not good job or tsk tsk depending on which player they picked. The response for both should be, "Good try guys, but you both sucked it up. Better luck next time around."

Re:My wii is a winner

[Malevolyn]

I'd have to disagree, actually. I'm largely disappointed with my Wii, which I eagerly purchased for pickup at 12:01AM release day. Nintendo most certainly is winning in sales, but they're essentially shooting themselves in the foot when they release ports of previous generation games (Brothers in Arms, Okami), the Virtual Console won't be Nintendo's saving grace, and there's simply too much focus on innovation. No company is willing to make a Wii game without motion control except for Nintendo. Meanwhile, the 360 and the PS3 are getting all the original games and the Wii owners are stuff with, frankly, a horrific lineup. Unlike other consoles, recent Nintendo consoles have relied mainly on sequels. Near the end of the Gamecube's lifespan, I'd venture to guess that 95% of them were used simply to play Smash Bros. Melee and maybe Wind Waker and Double Dash. And coming this year is Smash Bros. Brawl and Mario Kart Wii, the games that will be played over and over until the next Nintendo console.

For now we're stuck with Professional Bull Riding, Bob Ross: The Joy of Painting, and any number of games featuring "kid(s|z)" or "Wii" in the title, which I've noticed generally suggests low quality and a complete lack of creativity or suggestion of new content (it's just Mario Kart again, but on the Wii). It's not like the Wii can't and won't have good games, they just push the wrong ones.

But I'll admit I could be wrong. Maybe Nintendo will do something surprising. Personally, I hope they do. I hate feeling like I wasted money.

Re:Now that that's over - well sort of

[ancientt]

To quote a friend, "Meanwhile Microsoft has been quietly building one of the largest digital distributions systems in the world."

Remember, the reason that MS is where it is today is because Mr. Gates saw the opportunity when it came time to sell software rather than including it with the computer. Now that time has come again, not to just sell software, but to leave behind the idea of selling the media it comes on and selling it as a download service.

Consider that they can undercut Sony like nobody else. Want to get the latest game? Sure, download it for $2.00. Profit: $1.98, cost to Sony: $50.00. Multiply by 2,000,000. Who laughs last?

hmmm microsoft and br

[Nocturnal Deviant]

i cant see them OPENLY supporting blue ray for a while, for Microsoft its pretty much admitting that they lost, and as everyone knows Microsoft is a VERY sore loser...

HD-dvd could have survived

[grilled-cheese]

If Microsoft had fully embraced hd-dvd into the xbox360, instead as an add-on, the format would have survived as a gaming format.

Although maybe it could still live on. Anyone else remember the SegaCD?

Lets get some crunchy facts together

[pizzach]

Arg! Not enough substantial info to crunch my teeth into! A very important thing to note is 8GB is the size of an XBox 360 DVD. Therefore 8GB is more than fairly decent game storage.

On ebay, an 8GB Sony USB flash stick can be bought for about $30. The average cost of N64 cartridges are 25 dollars according to Wikipedia. So yeah, cartridges would actually be very feasible. It's even more feasable when you realize that Xbox 360 games average at about 4.5GB in size.

BUT third party games would jump by 10 to 20 dollars just like they did in the N64 days.

Re:Poop

[Daniel Phillips]

Considering it's Sony and Blu-Ray that won, I think at least one person should have the stones to mod the parent +1 insightful. You mean the Sony that went with all standard interfaces on the PS3 and supports Linux on it?

Personally, I like BluRay's higher density and I like the fact that Microsoft had nothing to do with it.

Re:Poop

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean the Sony that went with all standard interfaces on the PS3 and supports Linux on it?

Sure they did. You keep telling yourself that those crumbs they threw you constitutes "support".

Re:Poop

[ibbie]

You mean the Sony that went with all standard interfaces on the PS3 and supports Linux on it?

Personally, I like BluRay's higher density and I like the fact that Microsoft had nothing to do with it. Yes, it's great that they have *limited* support for Linux on the PS3. Now, if only they'd allow GPU access. I remember reading that someone had unofficially figured out a way around being blocked out of it - anyone have any updates on this? I would be installing Linux on my PS3 right now, if not for this fact.

Re:Now that that's over - well sort of

[the eric conspiracy]

Sony will laugh long and hard at that one, because MS isn't going to make a profit selling games at $2.00.

Re:Poop

[DanFluidMind]

Not necessarily.
It depends on what kind of FUD you eat.

Online distribution of HD - available now

[ancientt]

I live ten minutes from two video rental places and five minutes from a video rental machine. If I want to rent a movie tonight, I can in twenty minutes or less, and a download would take the night. On the other hand, I can be streaming video, watch cable, or rent a movie electronically from my cable company without dressing for public, and the time to exercise those options is measured in seconds.

Re:Online distribution of HD - available now

[mr_matticus]

You can't stream Blu-ray quality. You just can't.

I agree that On Demand content and AppleTV rentals are here now and HD, but that's not the sentiment expressed higher in the thread. These are not replacements for BD. They are perfectly adequate replacements for DVD.

Re:Online distribution of HD content take too much

[vux984]

The short answer is that by the time Blu-ray can be delivered digitally without any quality loss and without serious drawbacks in delivery time, something better than Blu-ray will be on the market. This BD replacement will outstrip our Internet connections, too. We'll be right back at physical media for the optimum quality. We're many, many years from networks that can completely outpace that.

Will anybody care? The HD formats (blueray/HDDVD) already really aren't overwhelmingly compelling vs an upconverting dvd to a lot of people. Yes you can see the difference but its not 'omg that's amazing am I'm going to rush out to buy Zoolander and Disney's Cars *again* just to see it like this...

Now, how much better is the *next* thing going to be?? 2160p? with 11.2 audio? Is the public going to care? Or is it going to be like DVD-audio, a format that only the 'philes masturbate about in there perfectly constructed home theatres.

Consider music. CD is good enough; DVD audio is getting almost nowhere after 10 years. At some point this happens to video... I think HD is already pushing it as far as mainstream adoption. HD^2? I'm not sure I would bet on that horse.

Why say exactly the same as the guy before you?

[x_MeRLiN_x]

[redundant]

Re:Online distribution of HD content take too much

[vux984]

How, exactly, does a 15 minute trip to the video store (or a 30 second trip to the mailbox) compare to the 12-14 hours it would take to download a full quality BD file?

The 30 second trip to the mail box presumes you ordered the movie a couple days ago if not MUCH longer ago. A D/L service beats the likes of netflix hands down. Its faster, AND its not going to delay your selection for weeks on end due to supply issues.

As for vs a video store... its a tradeoff... D/L service can win on selection and availability. Video store currently wins on speed... but really... if I can get a D/L in 2 hrs, and start watching it after 15 minutes buffering D/L is good to go. And for that we only need to improve speeds around 6x. That's not far fetched at all.

And see my other post about the issues with assuming that by the time the network catches up, we'll have an even fatter format on disc...

Re:Poop

[Daniel Phillips]

Yes, it's great that they have *limited* support for Linux on the PS3. Now, if only they'd allow GPU access. I remember reading that someone had unofficially figured out a way around being blocked out of it - anyone have any updates on this? I would be installing Linux on my PS3 right now, if not for this fact. Even without access to the GPU, the PS3 makes a powerful Linux compute node and an inexpensive platform for cell development.

I too hope that Sony will drop the other shoe and open access to the GPU. And while they're at it, NVidia should open their chip specs as well. Maybe Sony will do the right thing a littler closer to the end of the product cycle. One factor in favor: Sony is going to have to answer Microsoft's opening up the XBox last week. Actually, this is competition working properly, Microsoft is doing some good by applying pressure to Sony over the current development restrictions that in practice gain Sony nothing, and which if removed could gain them a lot of mind share, never mind bringing in a new wave of cell engine programmers.

Re:Online distribution of HD content take too much

[mr_matticus]

The 30 second trip to the mail box presumes you ordered the movie a couple days ago if not MUCH longer ago. A D/L service beats the likes of netflix hands down. Its faster, AND its not going to delay your selection for weeks on end due to supply issues. I take it you've never used Netflix.

if I can get a D/L in 2 hrs, and start watching it after 15 minutes buffering D/L is good to go. You can't, so it's not.

And see my other post about the issues with assuming that by the time the network catches up, we'll have an even fatter format on disc... A comment which entirely misses the point. Blu-ray is overkill for most families and most televisions as it is. There's no question that most homes won't be seeing anything better than 1080p in the next decade. The problem is that the download services you refer to are not Blu-ray competitors. Anyone who wants a BD film over an upconverted DVD or over what is available from their cable company's HD selections isn't going to be swayed by an equally inferior download.

Digital distribution is not a replacement for physical media, because physical media still delivers superior quality and content. Digital distribution is a perfectly reasonable replacement for last-generation content. Online distribution isn't a Blu-ray competitor, and that's the whole point. It's a DVD competitor, and a great one.

Re:Poop

[Anonymous Coward]

Personally, I like BluRay's higher density and I like the fact that Microsoft had nothing to do with it. Except for Microsoft's VC-1 codec and mandatory managed copy.

Re:Poop

[petermgreen]

the current development restrictions that in practice gain Sony nothing
Games consoles are generally sold on a similar principle to inkjets and cartridges or razors and blades. The console is sold cheap (sometimes at a loss sometimes at a small profit) and the real money is made from the games.

That afaict is why the linux system is locked out of the 3D graphics. If it wasn't locked out people would be able to develop and market games without going through the official channels. That would be bad for the game revenue stream.

Re:Online distribution of HD content take too much

[devman]

Sony doesn't solely control the Blu-ray spec (its the most vocal member of the consortium), so they can't sabotage it or stop MS form licensing it.

Strawman

[Anonymous Coward]

Dick head

The 360 is already a DVD-Upscaler

[erexx23]

The 360 is already a DVD-Upscaler

They could easily add a Blu-Ray player.
Thats been confirmed.

Get rid of that HD-DVD before it starts gathering dust in the closet with that old laser disk player and beta-max porn.

Re:Now that that's over - well sort of

[Brian Gordon]

They can afford to sell games at $2.00 for a few years until everyone's got a digital library of 20 or 30 games and they're used to the service.. as sony loses massive money too

Re:Poop

[Daniel Phillips]

Games consoles are generally sold on a similar principle to inkjets and cartridges or razors and blades. The console is sold cheap (sometimes at a loss sometimes at a small profit) and the real money is made from the games. That afaict is why the linux system is locked out of the 3D graphics. If it wasn't locked out people would be able to develop and market games without going through the official channels. That would be bad for the game revenue stream. So why is Microsoft doing it? Oh right, they need more content for the box, fast. And if that works for Microsoft then Sony has to respond.

It would be easy for Sony to keep control of the content distribution just as they do now while opening the hardware entirely. Just license the keys needed to unlock the GPU. Give away keys for non commercial use, and continue to make the usual deal with anybody who wants to do a release. Voila, nothing changes for commercial releases, but gadget hackers get to have fun with the toy and probably create a lot of value for Sony in the process.

How is this a story?

[Eskarel]

Toshiba has canned HD-DVD, there was even an article on it on Slashdot. Toshiba make HD-DVD, why in the name of god would Microsoft continue to sell a product based on a technolgy that the company that owns the technology has given up on.

If this had happened before Toshiba caved it'd have been different, but it didn't. Microsoft got stuck with a loser(pause for the cheers, vista jokes, general fanboism), and they've ditched it and are moving on.

I'm sick of this story, it's all over the news everywhere and it's not news. If Microsoft had decided to keep going on HD-DVD after Toshiba had given up that'd be news(and idiocy).

It's about the games...

[Joseph Hayes]

Having been a console and pc gamer all my life (28 years) I have seen all the consoles come and go over the years. What it's really about is sitting down, chilling and gaming. Whether that is with your family, your best friend, or by yourself... it has to be fun. We'll see how the PS Home thing works out, but for now the 360 is king when it comes to playing while at home by yourself, because you aren't "by yourself", the whole world is waiting to play you. Hardware is only a tool. If you buy a game console for the optical drive then you are buying the product for a reason secondary to gaming.

Being a former Wii owner and current 360 owner I can impart this into the conversation: My mom and dad got me a Wii because they remembered when they bought me a NES back in 1986 with zelda and excitebike. So they did a 20 years later kinda thing and it was great. I played through Zelda :TP and it was great, Ocarina of Time great. But I ended up hocking it on eBay this last Thanksgiving for $400 and bought a 360. Why? because the games just weren't what I was after. I hate to say it because Nintendo go this wrap back when the Genesis came out, but the games seem kiddish, plus it's nice to just kick back and play instead of standing and flailing about.

The 360 and PS3 are a little premature in the "HD Generation" of gaming. HDTV's are just now becoming affordable at 1080p. I would hate to be someone who bought a 720p native resolution TV, but it's not that big a deal when it comes to watching TV, GAMING however is a whole different story. 1920x1080 is a beefy resolution for even the latest PC's to to handle at a playable framerate. PC gamers have been playing in HD for years now, ever since games were playable in 1024x768 on their monitors. But HD is the buzzword for the new tv market, and they have to give it name. I guess HD sounds cooler than HR (High Resolution).

I for one look forward to the NEXT generation of consoles. 1080p Big HDTV's will be even more affordable, The format war is over, and consoles will have to huddle up with a company to come up with some really impressive hardware to ensure their console has a 4-5 year minimum lifespan. In that respect, Sony has delivered on with it's last two consoles with DVD, and now with the Cell and Blu-Ray. I am a fanboy of neither Microsoft or Sony, I am a gamer and I just want a way to play good games at a reasonable price. My opinion on this generation at this time, Microsoft wins.

Re:It's about the games...

[xhrit]

if microsoft is winning, then why are they selling less consoles?

Re:It's about the games...

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, what they lack in volume, they make up for in price ... oh ... they're loosing money also? ... never mind.

Re:Online distribution of HD content take too much

[draxredd]

My feeling is that Downloadable movies will actually HELP bluray adoption. why, you ask ?
Downloadable content will soon reach a point where it will compete with standard DVDs for quality and ease of use... killing the need for the support, and leaving Bluray as the "natural" physical support for movies.

Re:Poop

[mweather]

So you're pissed they're not forgoing game license fees by allowing developers to program Linux games that run on the PS3?

Re:Poop

[mweather]

Microsoft ISN'T doing it. XNA games could be played on the Cell with Vesa drivers.

good move

[Anonymous Coward]

Now we see the wisdom in not integrating an inferior nextgen media format into our consoles. Good thing the drive was external. I mean, how dated would you feel if your gaming console played movies in an abandoned format. Very dated. Dated like last years calendar.

death of hd-dvd

[kevgaxxana]

now betamax, vhs, and dvd(regular) have a new buddy to join them in eternal forgottenness. as for microsoft, they will just get some first-party developers (crappy ones at that) to make a new alternative to blu-ray (cause they will never support an opponent). personally, i think it will happen sooner than the redmont giant accepting linux as a legit os.

Downloads prevent LEGAL sharing

[MDMurphy]

Copy protection can be done to both files though downloaded versions can even have player or user specific protection.

What lack of physical media really does is prevent you from legally sharing your movie. No DVD to hand from friend to friend after you've watched your special edition with all the extras. No disc on the shelf of your library. No disc for Blockbuster or Netflix to rent out over and over again.

Unlike CDs that people listen to over and over again, many many movies are watched just once or twice. That makes DVDs even more attractive to loan out, give away, or sell used. If you disregard illegal extraction and copying DVDs are more attractive for buying and selling used or loaning out than CDs. People can get all the use they would have got out of a purchased copy from a borrowed, rented or purchased used copy.

All those easy abilities to rent, borrow and sell discs legally are killed by downloads. There may be legal ways to share, but that's up to the entity that's providing the downloads, like burning a CD from iTunes.

Re:Poop

[ratboy666]

You mean the Blu Ray VC1 encoder that Microsoft make money from? Thats really hands off.

Yes, Blu Ray has additional space, *but* it has region codes. And, with BD+ key revocations and player bricking are now easy.

On another note:

HD DVD compliance means DVD5/DVD9 HD DVD (3XDVD) support as well. (a standard way to have high def content in on regular DVDs). Which makes it easy to "roll your own", without an HD DVD burner. Now, supposedly, the BD-S300 player (the BD player from WalMart) will play BD9 (the Blu Ray player equivalent), but I don't think anyone has it working yet (the drive continues 1x operation rather than going into 3x mode). The cheap Toshibas play 3XDVD just fine (from any cheap DVD-R media).

*IF* anyone has the BD-S300 and has generated and sucessfully played a BD9 on it, let me know -- I am very curious. I am thinking of stockpiling a few A3 (or A30) players for this reason.

Re:Online distribution of HD content take too much

[iONiUM]

So where's the fiber optic? I don't see why people just innately accept our current internet speeds as "acceptable", when clearly media size is increasing, along with all digital content. Japan has fiber, so why don't we? I know the arguments about the infrastructure, but at the very least "we" (the slashdot crowd) should be trying to get better internet than the current slow-ass capped ADSL/Cable crap available to the masses.