Microsoft rejects Xbox 360 Blu-ray idea

[Shrygue]

via Games Industry (http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=34073)


Microsoft's Xbox 360 group product manager Aaron Greenberg has rejected recent speculation that the company was looking into adding a Blu-ray peripheral to its console following the demise of HD DVD.

Instead the corporation would continue to invest in digital distribution via the Xbox Live service, he told Reuters.

"Xbox is not currently in talks with Sony or the Blu-ray Association to integrate Blu-ray into the Xbox experience," he said. "We're the only console offering digital distribution of entertainment content."

The HD DVD attachment for the Xbox 360 is no longer in production following Toshiba's withdrawal from the next-generation race.

The news comes just one week after Microsoft's chief executive, Steve Ballmer, told the Mix08 conference that the company was in talks over possible moves for supporting Blu-ray in Windows.

"We've already been working on, for example, in Windows, device driver support for Blu-ray drives and the like, and I think the world moves on," he said then.

"Toshiba has moved on. We've moved on, and we'll support Blu-ray in ways that make sense," he added, statements which led many to believe that a peripheral similar to the Xbox 360's HD DVD drive could be released later in the year.

However, Greenberg's comments appear to clarify Ballmer's original statements as focusing purely on the Windows environment.

Xbox Live Video Store is Microsoft's bid to distance itself from the need for physical media by offering titles for rental via download, and the company's head of Xbox gaming and entertainment in the UK, Stephen McGill, told GamesIndustry.biz at the launch of the service last year that it was about customer choice.

"For the Xbox 360, from design all the way upwards, it's about consumer choice, what the consumer wants to do," he said last December. "Some will want to do it differently, about personalisation, the user interface, and how they access entertainment."

"HDTVs are phenomenally well-priced at the moment, and a lot will sell over Christmas, so we'll see many more people jumping in the high definition world.

"But then some people don't want to go out and buy a disc or anything, so download rental is more their cup of tea. So it's about choice, whatever you want to do, however you want to get your content."

Meanwhile Sony's PlayStation 3 has jumped in popularity following a price cut last year, and its victory in the Blu-ray stakes could lead to a further 10 per cent jump in sales, according to Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter.

This week Microsoft confirmed a price cut for the Xbox 360 in response to Sony's recent upturn in sales, making the Arcade model cheaper than the Nintendo Wii.

[JKKDARK]

Xbox 360 don't need the crappy Blu-ray for winning over the PlayStation 3 on this generation.

[DCergo]

Xbox 360 don't need the crappy Blu-ray for winning over the PlayStation 3 on this generation.

Just the same, we don't need the crappy 14-year-old-angry-baby fanboy commentary either. Is it possible to for you to post anything with some intellectual merit? :rolleyes:

[JKKDARK]

Just the same, we don't need the crappy 14-year-old-angry-baby fanboy commentary either. Is it possible to for you to post anything with some intellectual merit? :rolleyes:

Why I would be angry if my favorite seventh generation system sold more than the PS3? :rolleyes:

[DCergo]

Why I would be angry if my favorite seventh generation system sold more than the PS3? :rolleyes:

Poor diversion, angry baby.

I should hope that the 360 would be selling more, with the head start it has. But it seems the PS3 sold 10 million units 4 months faster than the 360 did. This is troubling considering the 360 doesn't have a strong lineup in 2008, and the PS3 is only closing the gap and has a nice round of games this year.

All those nice 360 sales, I wonder how many are repeat RRoD customers tho.

[JKKDARK]

Poor diversion, angry baby.

I should hope that the 360 would be selling more, with the head start it has. But it seems the PS3 sold 10 million units 4 months faster than the 360 did. This is troubling considering the 360 doesn't have a strong lineup in 2008, and the PS3 is only closing the gap and has a nice round of games this year.

All those nice 360 sales, I wonder how many are repeat RRoD customers tho.

Nice round of games? :rofl: Where are the marvelous Square-Enix RPGs? :rofl:

Not only that, but also MGS34 and FF13 are the only big titles being exclusives on PS3 (haha)

[Baboon]

Not only that, but also MGS34 and FF13 are the only big titles being exclusives on PS3 (haha)


You forgot Gran Turismo5, Drakes Fortune, Ratchet & Skank, Tekken6...

[Shadowblind]

Poor diversion, angry baby.

I should hope that the 360 would be selling more, with the head start it has. But it seems the PS3 sold 10 million units 4 months faster than the 360 did. This is troubling considering the 360 doesn't have a strong lineup in 2008, and the PS3 is only closing the gap and has a nice round of games this year.

All those nice 360 sales, I wonder how many are repeat RRoD customers tho.

Dude...not a strong lineup? I hardly call Fable 2, Left for Dead, Ninja Gaiden 2, Tales of vesperia, Too Human, Gears of War 2, Dark Sector, Alone in the dark, R6V2 and countless other games a "weak lineup". Your just as bad as JKK. Until I hear otherwise, the 360 still has the best lineup of this year.

Don't say things without research.

[Baboon]

Dude...not a strong lineup? I hardly call Fable 2, Left for Dead, Ninja Gaiden 2, Tales of vesperia, Too Human, Gears of War 2, Dark Sector, Alone in the dark, R6V2 and countless other games a "weak lineup". Your just as bad as JKK. Until I hear otherwise, the 360 still has the best lineup of this year.

Don't say things without research.

You forgot GTA IV! ...this is without a doubt the biggest game of the year and will be the killer game on the 360 with all the 'exclusive' MS content! :thumbup:

I'm personally looking forward to what Capcom are bringing out (I know they are not all exclusives but we all know that nothing can yet rival Xbox Live's online gaming): Street Fighter IV, SF2HD remix, Commando 3, 1942: Joint Strike, Bionic Commando etc. :D


Truly good times ahead!

[NoQuarter]

Sorry, the 360 sux!
I know people who have had 3 RRoD,WTF!
Who has to buy a sytem like that tree times?
360 owners ....
Microsoft has failed on so many levels,not to mention they're IP theives...

Ya know, last gen xbox was a beast,what happened!?
It was fairly reliable hardware and was certainly tougher than the phat PS2,hasty releases may be they're downfall.

Really stupid of them not to accept blue-ray,it's better and sucessfull.What do they want everything digital downloads?
Not a bad direction just bad execution and management.
I personally don't like spinning disks for storage but am a realist,we need them at our current state.Why not go with the better solution?

[Cloudhunter]

Now now. JKKDark's flaming really annoys me too, but never argue with an idiot. They bring you down to their level then beat you with experience.

Just do what I do. Ignore him - the mods are blind when it comes to him.

Cloudy

[Baboon]

I’d agree that the 360’s machine reliability has been completely terrible (mine has just come back from repair for the second time). :(

The problem is all the good games worth owning right now are out on the 360 - not the PS3! The bulk of the PS3’s games so far have been shoddy ports from the 360, plus the machines been dogged with poor frame rate issues, a lack of any decent first party exclusives etc.

Xbox Live is highly regarded as being second to none... if you want to experience the best in online gaming, with all the additional content and exclusive’s then MS is simply kicking the competitions ass! Sony has got a long way to go to rival what Live has to offer, the only plus I’d say for the PS3 is that you currently don’t have to pay for the privilege. I’ve read on forums that apparently even Nintendo are going to start charging for online play... which I think is a disgrace as there’s only a few games that even support online games (plus theres all that fookin about with friends codes etc). lol

I’ve got a few mates with PS3’s and a quite a few of them have sold all of there games and instead just bought bluray movies due to the lack of anything quality for the system. They are currently just using it as a high end media player and not a games console. lol

MS have got some major issues though. They keep suggesting that this is the last generation of disc based consoles, and that digital distribution is the future. Yet Its funny how they are the ones shooting themselves in the foot with the limited sized xbox live arcade downloads, while Sony allows for full-game downloads on the PS3?! lol

Does the 360 need a bluray player though? ...well it doesn’t effect my gaming experience one little bit from not having one, so I’d say the answer is No.

For Noquater to say “Sorry, the 360 sux!” I think is a tad unfair.

Each to their own though.





Now now. JKKDark's flaming really annoys me too, but never argue with an idiot. They bring you down to their level then beat you with experience.

Just do what I do. Ignore him - the mods are blind when it comes to him.


lol ...how true is that!

[NoQuarter]

much respect Baboon.

Nothing personal (unless your name is microsoft) but I justify my statement that the 360 sux with this:

Any hardware someone has to return 3 times or maybe more sux, period!


If they fix the probs I'll change my tune.
I can't lie the 360 has nice specs, and honestly I'd like it more if I could install linux.In fact if I could (install linux on it) I'd buy one but it's a real pain to hack a 360 and I don't need home console backups so much,lol.

Alot of times I end up buying all of the big console systems,I just don't want to waste my money.
I am a serious (budding) game collector.

Many people will disagree that all of the good games are on 360, heck I DON'T PLAY FPS GAMES BECAUSE I SUCK.

I play fighting games,adventure games and emu's so 360 will never be my main system(Very partial to sony's controller design although I prefer an arcade stick cause I'm true old school)Tekken.Tekken.Tekken.Tekken.Tekken.Tekken. PS3 exclusive...

Back on the subject though:

Blue ray holds much more data than DVD,Dual-layer or HD-DVD(talk about waste of money).
If I owned a HD-DVD player I'd be pissed and happy at the same time, you guys are about to get some great discounts on HD films but also will have no products available soon.

Just look at the storage capacity.

[Baboon]

Any hardware someone has to return 3 times or maybe more sux, period!


Fair comment. lol

I've still got a few of my older consoles (Snes, Saturn, Dreamcast etc) and they all work fine still with no problems at all ...its just sad that this current xbox generation hardware is so crap. :(


If you want a machine for modding then nothing comes close to an xbox 1 anyway. ;)

[NoQuarter]

Fair comment. lol

I've still got a few of my older consoles (Snes, Saturn, Dreamcast etc) and they all work fine still with no problems at all ...its just sad that this current xbox generation hardware is so crap. :(


If you want a machine for modding then nothing comes close to an xbox 1 anyway. ;)


So true,so true.

I have a stack of XBOX 1's...

Nothing was worse than the piece of crap PS2 phat, I had to buy 4 or five of those things.During that time period my favorite system was a gamecube but I still owned a PS2.
I personally will buy a system I don't like for a game I do.If tekken was on 360 I'd probably have two.I'd still talk trash about the system though.Eh, I'm a bit of a hypocrite but aren't most of us,lol.


I could be wrong in my support for blue-ray but that's the risk we all take by supporting this or that format with our money.It'd be much nicer without an proprietary formats, all open source.
I'd really like to throw a blue-ray drive into my macbook,they're what up to 50 Gigabyte disks!

[JKKDARK]

You forgot Gran Turismo5, Drakes Fortune, Ratchet & Skank, Tekken6...

Gran Turismo is a serie developed by a Sony studio, obviously it will be PS3 exclusive.

You are very intelligent, my friend.

[Baboon]

I went through about 5 PS1's! ...for a few of them this was probably due to me chipping them. It would only work in the end (when it felt like it) if I put it on a 60 degree angle and propped it up behind a pillow. lol



Nothing was worse than the piece of crap PS2 phat, I had to buy 4 or five of those things.During that time period my favorite system was a gamecube but I still owned a PS2.
QUOTE]

I also had a couple phat PS2's. I was one of the idiots who pre-ordered the machine to get it first (and paid a silly amount for the privilage too). I found the lasers on the phat PS2's to be terrible .

It was my poor history with Sony (well apart from my trusty phat psp) that was one of the reasons that helped me decide on what system to get this 'generation'. ...I guess only time will tell if I backed the right horse or not?



[QUOTE=JKKDARK;2148033768]You are very intelligent, my friend.


Thanks very much. I like to think so.

[Shadowblind]

I'm still on my 2nd box. Thing is, the fact that the 360 has done so amazingly well even WITH the RRoDs proves that it is an absolutely amazing console. I would never have went back for seconds if the 360 didn't have such amazing games. But your right in that there isn't much excuse for these hardware failures.

And please, for goodness sake try to find something ELSE to bicker about? One issue doesn't make something terrible. Most of the time anyway.

[Elven6]

I knew the 360 would not have a Blu Ray add on since Micheal Bay's prophecy came true in January of 08, Im commenting on Bill Gate's remark regarding the Warner switch.

Jeez you guys hate the 360 yet you post in its threads?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/30/Itagaki_Thumbs_Up_MNT.jpg

As Itagaki-san said not to long ago "Tekken fu**in sucks!

[Eviltaco64]

I heard that the PS3 just recently started outselling the 360.
And right now DS and PSP are neck-to-neck in Japan (with PSP currently in the lead in terms of weekly sales)

[JKKDARK]

I heard that the PS3 just recently started outselling the 360.
And right now DS and PSP are neck-to-neck in Japan (with PSP currently in the lead in terms of weekly sales)

It's easy to win 1 or 2 weeks. But the only important thing is overall sales.

[Shadowblind]

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/30/Itagaki_Thumbs_Up_MNT.jpg

As Itagaki-san said not to long ago "Tekken fu**in sucks!

Very true. I think I'll stick to DBZ budokai, Virtua Fighter or Dead or Alive.

Pst: Overall sales Wii is winning. Just a note. So don't count on 360 or PS3 winning console wars.

[Eviltaco64]

It's easy to win 1 or 2 weeks. But the only important thing is overall sales.

That's like saying the Genesis sucked because the SNES outsold it.

I could see you in the "safety cupboard" in a fetal position if Playstation 3 outsells Xbox 360.

[Elven6]

In the end its about good games, the original Xbox didn't sell well but it had a great line up of quality titles.