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

[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

[jellomizer]

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

Re:Now that that's over

[GigaplexNZ]

You mean like HD DVD?

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

[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.

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?

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

[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

[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

[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

[fangorious]

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

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

[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

[zbaron]

Sony developed a scratch resistant layer ...

It was TDK that developed the scratch resistant coating.

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

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.

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: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.

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: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: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: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.

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.