Xbox 360 games MAY require HD-DVD drive in the future

Original URL http://www.xboxic.com/news/1437

Article:
So yes, we still remember Microsoft executives saying “Xbox 360 gamers will never require a hard drive to play games”, only to be shocked by the Football Manager packshot stating that the game did require the HD after all. Similarly, the Xbox guys were even more adamant about that the games would never require a larger disc than the current dual layer DVD, and that HD-DVD would only ever be used for displaying HD movies through your 360. Will that turn out to be “slightly off the truth” as well?

Click the image to the right for one page of what Warren News published in their Consumer Electronics Daily newsletter today. Some spicy quotes about HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray, sure that’s a hot topic. The nasty one is at the bottom though:

Microsoft hasn’t determined yet whether to do Xbox 360 games in blue-laser HD DVD, but has ruled it out for “this holiday” when it ships its HD DVD drive for movie playback through the Xbox 360, said Dave Luehmann, gen. mgr. - Microsoft Games Studios. “Speed of loading” is Microsoft’s big concern about HD DVD games on the Xbox 360, Luehmann said.

OUCH. Let’s all hope this is a wildly inaccurate misquotation and that the HD-DVD promises don’t go down the same drain as those stating the Core Pack will play all 360 games. Something tells me we’ll be seeing some damage control press releases soon.

Wow. They're going to make people pay an extra $200 to play games. That's weak.

Hella weak,thats as bad as sony if not worse

Seriously, if MS ever forces me to buy that big, ugly add-on to play one game--just one game--I'm abandoning the 360 and Microsoft as a gaming company forever. They'll be dead in my eyes.

I won't be punished for being an early adopter.

I know Nintendo can be annoying by releasing better versions of their handhelds, but at least the original GBA can play EVERY GBA game ever released. You never had to upgrade to an SP because a game wouldn't work on the original GBA.

This decision would be disastrous for the 360.

I for one will be happy to have my games on HD DVD! It will happen sooner or later anyway, why not just get the addon anyway. I know I will be getting it for the movie playback. Using it for games will just be a bonus. You can pack so much more game on a 45 GB disc than you can on a 9 gig one
:-). Not to mention at least microsoft let's are wallets catch up before they suck us dry. I mean for the 360 I paid $300 and then when I had enough money I bought the HD and when I get enough for HD DVD I will buy it. Do you see my point. Sony wants your money now while microsoft is willing to wait. Also they wont use the disc for games until they find out who is winning the format war. Them or blu ray :-)

It's impossible since the add on drive won't be plugged in straight to the motherboard. So if they did try doing so, it would probably go really slow.