After months of rumors and denials, the XBOX 360 with a Blu-ray disc drive is due to be manufactured soon and shipped in Q3 of 2008. Pegatron Technology, an OEM subsidiary of Asustek Computer, is reported to have received the winning order from Microsoft for a Blu-ray equipped XBOX 360.
Earlier reports cited Lite-On as the company with the privilege of building the new console for Microsoft. Lite-On is also currently one of the suppliers of the internal DVD drive fro the XBOX 360.
One of the strong points for Sony’s Playstation 3 has been the integrated Blu-ray player. The PS3 had the ability to draw both gamers and audio/video enthusiast, and this was proving to be a major advantage over its XBOX rival. It is estimated that 85% of Blu-ray players in use are PS3s. Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer had admitted that Microsoft had been working on support for Blu-ray under Windows during this year’s Mix08 conference. Rumors began to swirl and many began to expect Microsoft to announce a Blu-ray peripheral for the XBOX 360.
However, Microsoft came out and denied all rumors, stating that they were not exploring any kind of Blu-ray add-on or in talks with Sony about integrating Blu-ray into the XBOX experience. The software giant stated they would continue to invest in its XBOX Live online service as the means of high-definition content delivery. Toshiba received a crushing blow earlier this year at CES that Warner Brothers would be Blu-ray exclusive. This eventually led to Toshiba withdrawing from the HD format war and the demise of the XBOX 360’s HD-DVD add-on. It is interesting to note that sales of the XBOX 360 lagged behind Sony’s PS3 in the month of February, the same month Toshiba withdrew.
Many expected the death of HD-DVD would trigger a growth in Blu-ray hardware sales. However, to the dismay of the industry, acceptance and adoption of Blu-ray has been dismal.
The PS3 is one of the cheapest (relatively speaking) Blu-ray players available — and you get the console thrown in for good measure.
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cant sony do anything about it? it might kill ps3s sales unless there at the same price range.
I believe that in the future discs will no longer be neccessary, downloadable content will rule the day. Why clutter my small apartment with discs and boxes when I could just fill up a hard drive.
I have both, so I'm not worried.I believe that in the future discs will no longer be neccessary, downloadable content will rule the day. Why clutter my small apartment with discs and boxes when I could just fill up a hard drive.
Downloadable content is the way Microsoft wants to go, and I will fight it all the way. They would love downloadable content, no longer giving a person a hard copy. Hey I haven't seen that movie can I borrow it? Nope it on my hard drive, so you'll have to watch it here and only on this t.v. Oh wait, my hard drive crashed last week so I'll have to buy it again before you can see it. People are idiots if they buy into downloadable content. It's not meant to improve your experience, it's to increase profits. Any small benefit to the end user is negated by its drawbacks.
Personally, I have NEVER, EVER had a hard drive crash. Not even the 10 year old one in my 1992 Packard Bell computer.
People who have hard drives crashes are an infinitesimal amount of people, and frankly.... I thought Microsoft allowed you to redownload things if you have bought them as long as you are using the same console. It was supposed to be locked to the CONSOLE, not the hard drive because Microsoft knew that people would have catastrophic failures of them sooner or later.
Don't ever trust a hard drive with critical data, but with game consoles it's not a major concern, you can re-download any purchased content on both boxes.
If you own a computer long enough you WILL experience HDD failure. I have gone through maybe 8-10 in the last 15 years across all the systems I've owned or bought for use at work (20 or more). Most recently I had a terrabyte hdd fail after 3 months... luckily it was in a raid0 configuration so no data was lost. Don't ever trust a hard drive with critical data, but with game consoles it's not a major concern, you can re-download any purchased content on both boxes.
duh... raid1 (mirroring) not raid0. If I'd been using r0 I'd have lost the data on that drive AND the other one too.
Downloadable content is the way Microsoft wants to go, and I will fight it all the way. They would love downloadable content, no longer giving a person a hard copy. Hey I haven't seen that movie can I borrow it? Nope it on my hard drive, so you'll have to watch it here and only on this t.v. Oh wait, my hard drive crashed last week so I'll have to buy it again before you can see it. People are idiots if they buy into downloadable content. It's not meant to improve your experience, it's to increase profits. Any small benefit to the end user is negated by its drawbacks.
This is not true I share files (movies, pictures, etc.)
Well downloadable games vs downloadable content are two big different things. Content usually isn't that big, biggest DLC i ever downloaded off Live was 500MB or so. Now if Microsoft and Sony enter the age of giving players the option to download games from them direct then that'll take alot of effort plus it'll kill stores like Best Buy and EB Games. Why pre-order when you can just download the game from home. Good for us yes, bad for them. Also unless MS and Sony decide to increase the storage space of thier game consoles, downloading whole games from them is pointless. 40 to 80GB offered by sony and 20 and 120GB (120GB on the Xbox Elite) is very little especially when games these days are 8GB to 40GB big (MGS4 for instance). So if the average game is 8GB big on a 20GB drive you can only fit 2 games on your HDD. PC games can get away with it with services Direct2Drive or Steam, but consoles games are far far away from offering whole games to be downloaded directly from the console makers.
Well personally I do not care about GIANT CORPORATIONS like Bestbuy, GameStop. I plan on downloading Age Of Conan before it release and before I the box and disc. Hence I pre-ordered it and will be able to play 3 days before the retail release. Download WINS...
it might kill ps3 sales? HA sony did that all by themselfs LOL
If Microsoft build a 360 with an integrated blu-ray it may dent sales of the PS3 but Sony will be getting a share of the sale of 360. You don't think people can just start building blu-ray drives and shipping them without some kind of licensing agreement from Sony (LOL). I would love to see the faces of the chief's at Microsoft though for getting it all wrong and knowing that in the future everytime someone buys a 360 a percentage goes to their bitter rivals. If they had shipped the 360 with an integrated HD drive to start with I doubt Sony would have won. Just think how many people would have a HD drive and would therefore be buying the HD disks.
Sorry to say it but no, downlaoded content will enver fully take over, that would shut out a lot of retailers, also you can't share. Try and download a game on a Wii and transfer it to anohter Wii, it doesn't work because why would they let you download it if you can just take it wherever and make copies? I still see music CDs around and people thought downloading music was going to take over. Sorry but it won't happen. XBOX might do it but it will be a draw back. Also you mean Solid State Drives?
I didn't mean share a game but share movies and music. Every month CD sales are droping and more and more people are downloading music. Yes there are still some people without MP3 players and a decent PC or internet connection. Movie downloads are slowly catching on but in the future your computer will be much more apart of your tv hence more movie downloads. Well, as for games everything can be shared with the right tools...
If Microsoft build a 360 with an integrated blu-ray it may dent sales of the PS3 but Sony will be getting a share of the sale of 360. You don't think people can just start building blu-ray drives and shipping them without some kind of licensing agreement from Sony (LOL). I would love to see the faces of the chief's at Microsoft though for getting it all wrong and knowing that in the future everytime someone buys a 360 a percentage goes to their bitter rivals. If they had shipped the 360 with an integrated HD drive to start with I doubt Sony would have won. Just think how many people would have a HD drive and would therefore be buying the HD disks.
Except that Sony doesn't own Blueray, its a conglomerate of 9 hardware vendors.
Except that Sony doesn't own Blueray, its a conglomerate of 9 hardware vendors.
What the hell difference does that make to my point. The point is you can only build/sell blu-ray drives with the consent of whoever owns the licensing rights. If you ask any normal person they will say blu-ray is a Sony product anyway.