X-Box 360 to have Blu-ray drive by September

[cactusmaac]

http://whathifi.co.uk/home-cinema/archive/2008/05/02/news-x-box-360-to-have-blu-ray-drive-by-september.aspx




May 02, 2008


New X-Box 360 consoles will be shipping with integrated Blu-ray drives during the third quarter of 2008, writes Dominic Dawes.

There is no announcement from Microsoft as of yet, but reports suggest a company called Pegatron has secured orders from the software giant to manufacture new Blu-ray-equipped 360 consoles, to be shipped by September.

Microsoft, of course, is denying everything. At the beginning of this month the company went out of its way to try and quash the latest raft of persistent 'Xbox goes Blu-ray' rumors.

But having had enough time to get the whole HD DVD/format war debacle out of its system, surely it will surprise nobody to see Microsoft embrace Blu-ray with a vengence.

The best part of all this is the accompanying rumours that have also been doing the rounds – namely, that once the 360 is fully Blu-ray'd up, Microsoft will spark a price war with Sony, leading to cheaper consoles for consumers on both sides of the fence. Sounds good to me.

[Lester C.]

I hope they sell an add on for those of us that already have the system as I have a 360 but no Blue Ray player.

[Agent Helix]

I'm suspicious of this unsourced article that has absolutely no corroboration anywhere else for what should be a fairly big tech story.

[BlueThunderArmy]

What would be the advantage of having a (presumably more expensive) X-Box 360 with Blu-ray, rather than a separate player? The games won't be Blu-ray discs, else they wouldn't work on older systems.

This has always been the problem with add-on equipment for home consoles, going back to things like the Sega 32X and Sega CD: the appeal and opportunities for developers are limited since only a portion of all users will buy the additional equipment.

[Lester C.]

I'm suspicious of this unsourced article that has absolutely no corroboration anywhere else for what should be a fairly big tech story.

Unless Microsoft want to market the 360 as a pure gaming machine, ala the WII, then they need to make their make their machines Blue Ray compatable as HDD or whatever is called is dead in the water.

[Agent Helix]

Unless Microsoft want to market the 360 as a pure gaming machine, ala the WII, then they need to make their make their machines Blue Ray compatable as HDD or whatever is called is dead in the water.

I'm not saying it's a bad idea, I'm saying I don't buy this rumor, coming from only one site with no sources, no corroboration, and less than a month after Microsoft shot down previous rumors of a Blu-Ray add-on or new model. Sure, it may be true, but until I hear more than "this one guy", I'm not going to hold my breath on it.

[BlueThunderArmy]

Unless Microsoft want to market the 360 as a pure gaming machine, ala the WII, then they need to make their make their machines Blue Ray compatable as HDD or whatever is called is dead in the water.

Maybe I'm just old, but I don't see the problem with having the 360 be primarily a game machine, and simply adding Blu-ray capability to whatever comes next. If the first batch of 360s had shipped with HDD, that might have driven the format, much as the Playstation 2 helped make DVDs popular. But to add equipment after the fact, IMO, serves no real purpose.

I have a Playstation 3, and while it gives me the option of buying Blu-ray movies that certainly wasn't a factor in my deciding to pick up the system. If it had originally been offered as a DVD-based platform, I would have no interest in a Blu-ray add-on, and if I hadn't bought one yet I would certainly prefer the cheaper DVD model over the Blu-ray upgraded version, assuming they played the same games.

[StoneGold]

Unless Microsoft want to market the 360 as a pure gaming machine, ala the WII, then they need to make their make their machines Blue Ray compatable as HDD or whatever is called is dead in the water.

No they don't. Because Blu Ray is still a marginal format. DVD is still by far the dominant force in the physical marketplace. And from all reports, Microsoft is doing incredible with their digital download service.

Just because Blu Ray beat out HDDVD doesn't mean it is a success. Blu Ray is still a tiny, tiny portion of the market, and mostly made up of PS3 owners.

[StoneGold]

If the first batch of 360s had shipped with HDD, that might have driven the format, much as the Playstation 2 helped make DVDs popular. But to add equipment after the fact, IMO, serves no real purpose.


While it probably didn't hurt, I think it was less the PS2 that made the DVD popular, and more that it was a small, high quality format that could be purchased for dirt cheap, in comparison to VHS. It was less the hardware, more the $9.99 sale table. It used to be, a VHS tape was not even close to affordable until many months after the tape was released, so that studios could make their money on the backs of rental stores, and even then, tapes could cost upwards of $30-40 new. Now, you can buy a new DVD for $10-$20 on Day One. But Blu Ray is still closer to $25-30. You do the math.

[Lester C.]

Maybe I'm just old, but I don't see the problem with having the 360 be primarily a game machine, and simply adding Blu-ray capability to whatever comes next. If the first batch of 360s had shipped with HDD, that might have driven the format, much as the Playstation 2 helped make DVDs popular. But to add equipment after the fact, IMO, serves no real purpose.

I have a Playstation 3, and while it gives me the option of buying Blu-ray movies that certainly wasn't a factor in my deciding to pick up the system. If it had originally been offered as a DVD-based platform, I would have no interest in a Blu-ray add-on, and if I hadn't bought one yet I would certainly prefer the cheaper DVD model over the Blu-ray upgraded version, assuming they played the same games.

With my computers and gaming machines I have something like 6 DVD players. It would be nice to experience the next generation of DVDS but I'm not willing to buy a Blue Ray machine until I know that both Final Fantasy 13 and Metal Gear four are going to remain exclusive to the PS3.

[BlueThunderArmy]

While it probably didn't hurt, I think it was less the PS2 that made the DVD popular, and more that it was a small, high quality format that could be purchased for dirt cheap, in comparison to VHS. It was less the hardware, more the $9.99 sale table. It used to be, a VHS tape was not even close to affordable until many months after the tape was released, so that studios could make their money on the backs of rental stores, and even then, tapes could cost upwards of $30-40 new. Now, you can buy a new DVD for $10-$20 on Day One. But Blu Ray is still closer to $25-30. You do the math.

I don't dispute that DVDs are a much more appealing format than VHS (and that Blu-ray has a much less obvious advantage over DVD), but I'm pretty sure PS2 had a significant role in the popularity of the format hitting when it did.

I was an early adopter of DVDs--had a lot of disposable income as a teenager, still not sure how that worked--and before the PS2 came out it was still very rare to see anybody who had a DVD player. The players were expensive ($250-400), discs were not cheap ($20-30, compared to a standard $20 new VHS release), and the only "sale table" movies were old Laurel and Hardy films and the like. The PS2, mainly purchased for the gaming, also served to bring a DVD player into more homes--which made it profitable for studios to bring out films on DVD more than just the new releases, which increased volume of sales, which brought prices down, which made the format popular, which led to cheaper players, etc. Many of these things were happening concurrently, but I'm still inclined to believe PS2 had a significant role.

PS3 might do the same thing for Blu-ray, but as we've both noted, the advantages over DVD aren't nearly as revolutionary as the advance between DVD and VHS.

[Bruceleehulk]

some of the bluray movies are now in the 20$ range or lower on walmart's site

titles in the 19$ , 20$ and 21$ ranges( 19.88)

1 Into The Blue

2 Kung Fu hustle

3 Blazing Saddles

4 Training Day

5 Gattaca

6 The Last Waltz

7 Sleath

8 Resident Evil: Apocalypse

9 Good Night, And, Good Luck

10 Swat

11 House Of Flying Daggers

12 Tears of the Sun

13 XXX

14 Htich

15 memento

16 Speices

17 Annapolis

18 Sahara

19 Aeon Flux

20 Saw

21 I am Legend ( 18.87)

22 Before The Devil Knows

23 Omega Man

24 Unforgiven

25 Rambo 3 ( 13.87)

26 National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation

27 King Arthur ( 15.87)

28 Pearl Harbor 60th Anniversary Commemorative Edition

29 Hidalgo

30 Million Dollar Baby

31 Reign of Fire

32 Gone in sixty seconds

33 Rio Bravo

34 Great Raid

35 Rambo First blood part 2 ( 13.87)

36 Phantom Of The Opera

37 Rookie

38 Ocean's eleven

39 6th Day

40 unbreakable

41 Clockwork Orange

42 Scanner Darkly

43 Goodfellas

44 Under Seige

45 G.I Jane

46 Enter The Dragon

47 Invincible

48 Flatliners

49 Cowboys

50 Scooby-Doo: The Movie

51 Basic Instict

52 Guardian

53 Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy

54 Dirty Dancing 20th Anniversary Edition

55 Dinosaur

56 Brothers Grimm

57 Day of the Dead

58 Searchers

59 Hollow Man

60 Beowulf & Grendel

61 Adventures Of Baron Munchausen 20th Anniversary Edition

62 Run Lola Run

63 Blood diamond

64 Remember The Titans

65 Last Samurai

66 First Knight

67 Jay and slient bob strike back ( 15.87)

68 Full metal Jacket

69 2001: space Oddyess

70 Halloween

71 Vertical Limit

72 Getaway

73 Layer Cake

74 Memoirs Of A Geisha

75 Coyote Ugly

76 Chicago

77 Alexander

78 Dawn of the Dead

79 Revenge

80 Sharkwater

81 Sentinel

82 Dog Day Afternoon

83 Battle of the Bluge

84 Bulitt

85 Trailor of Panma

86 Secret Window

87 Seven years in tibet

88 Twilight zone: the movie

89 Donnie Brasco

90 Cruse of the Golden flower

91 Manchurain Candidate

92 Dragon Wars

93 King of Califorina

94 Warriors of Heaven and Earth

95 Aviator

96 Road Warrior

97 Cruel Intentions

98 Payback

99 Closer

100 Trading Places

101 Coming to America

102 Untouchables

103 Warriors

104 Devil's Own

105 Ocean's Twelve

106 Dirty Dozen

[Sabrina_Fried]

I automatically question any piece of "news" based on information that cannot be verified independent of whatever "secret source" the publication supposedly has. Especially when the artcle says something along the lines of:

"Microsoft, of course, is denying everything. "

It's like they are bragging that they caught M$ with their hand in the cookie jar.

Now I wouldn't be surprised in the least if the XBOX did eventually get Blu-Ray compatability one way or another, but, and someone correct me if I am wrong, if M$ or another company were to design a Blu-Ray player for the XBOX, wouldn't they have to pay massive royalties to Sony to license the technology? And isn't Sony their biggest competitor in the console market right now?

Companies typically do not willingly give huge sums of money to their biggest competitors if they can avoid it.

Sabrina

[2-4-5_Trioxin]

Well article itself says microsoft denies this. Microsoft already denied bluray support when this same rumor circulated a month after toshiba threw in the towel for HD dvd.

Id say its highly unlikely MS will go for this, there is no huge demand for it from consumers not to mention bluray is owned by sony so MS would be paying money to its direct compeitition and we all know how MS feels about competition.

Id never even heard of that site before it lends nothing to being credible, not to mention this is how rumors get started, alot of the replies to that are full of people who think its actually going to happen and now they will run around telling others its going to happen and they will spread it further like a virus of ignorant knowledge. When you use words like "rumors" and "suggests" in a article its hard to believe anything, I say its just crap like it was last time and the time before that.

Until microsoft themsevles say so officially then its not true.

[Lester C.]

Well article itself says microsoft denies this. Microsoft already denied bluray support when this same rumor circulated a month after toshiba threw in the towel for HD dvd.

Id say its highly unlikely MS will go for this, there is no huge demand for it from consumers not to mention bluray is owned by sony so MS would be paying money to its direct compeitition and we all know how MS feels about competition.

Id never even heard of that site before it lends nothing to being credible, not to mention this is how rumors get started, alot of the replies to that are full of people who think its actually going to happen and now they will run around telling others its going to happen and they will spread it further like a virus of ignorant knowledge. When you use words like "rumors" and "suggests" in a article its hard to believe anything, I say its just crap like it was last time and the time before that.

Until microsoft themsevles say so officially then its not true.

Companies pay their competitors royalties all the time. For instance, whenever Sony sells a desktop/laptop computer Microsoft gets a piece of the sale since the operating system is Windows.

[StreetFighterRyu]

I already have a Blue Ray from my PS3 so I don't care much for this.

[Lester C.]

I already have a Blue Ray from my PS3 so I don't care much for this.

Is Blue Ray a marked impovement over DVD? I know the disk has much more space, so if you're into special features it pwns all but just what is it about Blue Ray that's a must have?

[StreetFighterRyu]

Is Blue Ray a marked impovement over DVD? I know the disk has much more space, so if you're into special features it pwns all but just what is it about Blue Ray that's a must have?

I think Blue Ray is supposed to have better visuals. Brighter, prettier, you get the idea. Basically High Def. Honestly though, I don't own any Blue Ray movies 'cause I don't really see a point to it. That, and not many people have blue ray, (or do but don't have HDTV) so I buy regular DVD in case they want to borrow it. Though I am planning to buy a Blue Ray DVD just to see the difference. 300 will be my first choice.