Latest Xbox 360 Blu-ray Rumor Stinks

[admin]

If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. That’s what Microsoft might be saying after Toshiba sounded the death knell to HD DVD yesterday. Rumors are circulating about a possible Xbox 360 Blu-ray add-on, but don’t get your hopes up too soon. The rumor of a quick Blu-ray player coming from Microsoft has the peculiar odor of link-bait.

Discuss "Latest Xbox 360 Blu-ray Rumor Stinks" here. Read the article.

 

[smurphy522]

Ok, OK I think I said it already (on the 18th) in these forums, but really it was intended to mock MacroSoft's decision to add anything. Possibly if it was not an add on, but a built-in feature from the start, HD-DVD would have faired better.

I posted on 02-18-2008, 02:26 PM

"Maybe Microsoft will eventually offer up a Blu-ray add on (with PS3 emulation!)"

 

[Biggiesized]

A new internal optical drive is not happening at any point in the Xbox 360's lifetime. They've realized by now how much they segmented their own customer market just by choosing to have different SKUs at launch--one with a hard drive and one without.

 

[autoboy]

It doesn't seem far fetched to me at all that the xbox team would be experimenting with BluRay. They would be stupid not to. There is really no reason that microsoft couldn't release an xbox with internal BluRay as a premium offering, but the HD-DVD addon drive was too slow for games, so Microsoft went with DVD and that could be a problem with the lower cost BluRay drives as well. I would love to see a BluRay addon for my Xbox because my PS3 cannot be controlled with my universal remote. If they do release one, I want to see better DVD deinterlacing too. I don't care about scaling, any TV can do that pretty well.

BTW, this article criticizing the BluRay rumor is also nothing more than link bait, but anything HDM gets the comments flowing so whatever...

 

[Bluesmoke]

A new internal optical drive is not happening at any point in the Xbox 360's lifetime.

I agree. And I think the reason is actually quite obvious. It cannot be done on the 360, because the geniuses at Microsoft released several million bare bones "Arcade" 360s with no hard-drive. Blu-ray 2.0 Live (which the PS3 will get) requires 1gb or persistent memory. This is something the barebones "arcade" model cannot do. While Microsoft can always release a Blu-ray add-on with 1gb on storage, rather than use the 360's RAM for storage (like the HD DVD add-on did), it may be too expensive to implement. At this point, anything more than a $150 add-on will make people shun it.

 

[Audioholics]

The biggest reason is that Xbox 360 games aren't made on Blu-ray while PS3 discs are. As a result, Microsoft has no built-in need for changing the system. As for the reasons above, they are moot as an Xbox 360 system could come out that included a BD option and the required specs.

 

[koebner]

There won't be a 360 with Blu-Ray built in,nor will there be an add-on released.
MS was very disappointed with sales of the HDDVD add-on,and have no interest in boosting Blu at all.
They have made it clear that they don't consider either movie format central to their game strategy.

 

[Thunder18]

I agree. And I think the reason is actually quite obvious. It cannot be done on the 360, because the geniuses at Microsoft released several million bare bones "Arcade" 360s with no hard-drive. Blu-ray 2.0 Live (which the PS3 will get) requires 1gb or persistent memory. This is something the barebones "arcade" model cannot do. While Microsoft can always release a Blu-ray add-on with 1gb on storage, rather than use the 360's RAM for storage (like the HD DVD add-on did), it may be too expensive to implement. At this point, anything more than a $150 add-on will make people shun it.

Xbox360 has memory cards available right? Wouldn't they work for the 1 GB of persistent memory or are they too small? Also as Clint mentioned, couldn't they just include a GB of ram in the actual add-on drive?
To Koebner, this could be a big deal as there is a rumor floating around that Rockstar is having big issues with the fact that A: they're having trouble fitting Grand Theft Auto IV on a DVD and B: Since Microsoft saw fit to release the arcade model of the 360 with no hard drive, they are having some serious issues with making this game compatible with those hardware versions. Granted, this is a rumor, but it was answered by Rockstar Creative's VP Dan House when asked if the lack of a standard hard drive and Blu-Ray drive in the 360 created limitations so take from that what you will.
Also, as game developers created bigger and better games, I can only imagine this problem getting worse as the developers have to consider how many 360's out there are not equipped with hard drives.

 

[koebner]

There's little chance MS would have any success selling an add-on for memory storage to play certain games.Developers won't design games to utilize it,as not every console would have one,like the hard drive now.This shows the short sightedness on MS' part of even having the Arcade sku in the first place.
A more likely scenario is using Live marketplace to make DLC available to address content shortfall from storage issues.The possibility also exists that in the future, certain games would be gimped for the 360 version.

 

[Thunder18]

There's little chance MS would have any success selling an add-on for memory storage to play certain games.Developers won't design games to utilize it,as not every console would have one,like the hard drive now.This shows the short sightedness on MS' part of even having the Arcade sku in the first place.
A more likely scenario is using Live marketplace to make DLC available to address content shortfall from storage issues.The possibility also exists that in the future, certain games would be gimped for the 360 version.

All the different skus and hardware capability have probably driven developers batty. No guarantee that the 360's will all have a hard drive must make for some very tough decisions for all involved in the software development process. I think you're probably right about gimped versions for the 360 and with Sony including a hard drive in all their consoles I'd be surprised if we don't see this happening soon as we did with PS2 games vs. 360 games.