Should have been included with the xbox 360 instead of the drive already supplied. another Cash Cow for microsoft to sucker more cash out of you.

Microsoft is well ahead of the game and they know what they are doing. They make sure they are atleast one step ahead of everyone else. A lot of people think that blu-ray is better than HD-DVD but its not. My friend bought a Blu-ray player and an HD-DVD player and compared both of them. He said that HD-DVD showed a better picture quality and it was also a lot cheaper only half the price of the blu-ray. He said the only bad thing about HD-DVD was that the loading times was slower than Blu-ray. But for the money and everything else the HD-DVD wins. He also said that Blu-ray hasnt realeased the 50g one so when they realease that one Blu-ray might have a big step over HD-DVD. But for now HD-DVD is a good choice.

Issachar. It will be keeping your costs down in fact. Instead of buying a HD-DVD player (say a Toshiba branded one) along side your Xbox 360 and HDTV, you will simply be buying a drive that will utilize your existing hardware (Xbox 360), therefore eliminating the need for the player to process the image itself and display it on a television. This way is cheaper, keeping the consumer's costs down. Now, if you do not have a HDTV and an Xbox 360, this will in no way save you money. Pay a hundred or so dollars to allow your Xbox 360 to play HD-DVDs instead of buying a five hundred dollar player sounds fantastic to me, it just means if you want to move your HD-DVD player you'll have to move your Xbox 360 as well, and we all know how troublesome that is

One downside to this player is that you will only be able to output through component to a HDTV. A digital connection would make for a better quality signal. On top of this, if you buy a movie with copy protection, your video will be downscaled to a lower quality since analog can be pirated and studios want to make pirating less desirable by reducing the image quality through analog connections (you can read more of this on wikipedia). I don't exactly know how Microsoft will handle this.

It's just Microsoft trying to keep up with Sony PS3's built-in next-gen video reader (Blu-Ray)... but nonetheless, a smart move... keep on going, Microsoft!

that's great

hahaha keep cost down? so i gotta buy a $1000+ HDTV, a $500 XBox and then (im gonna guess) $100 for the HD DVD player and $30 per movie. How is this keeping my costs down? I havent ever heard a single person say 'Man this DVD's picture quality is so bad when are they going to come out with something else?' Blu-Ray and HD DVD are signs of corporate greed and are way out of line with what anyone is really asking for.

I believe that the hd dvd will eventually be built until the xbox 360. I think its more along the lines of the network adapter of the Playstation 2. Everyone was disappointed, but sony caved in a began bundling then built in with the slimline version. Just you wait.

"Its obvious blu-ray is winning the war, MS might as well scrap this HD-DVD and start investing into blu-ray "

Go read review on HD-DVD vs. Blu-ray on the net. You will find they most everyone agree's that HD-DVD is winning round 1. Cheaper price and superior Image quality. Warner brother has even released movies on both formats and reviews were done viewing the same movie on both format.

There are also several myths about blu-ray:

Myth #1: Blu-ray is 1080p and HD-DVD is not. This is wrong..both formats are encoded at 1080p. The Toshiba HD-DVD player does not currently support 1080p (rumored to be a firmware upgrade soon) and the Samsung Blu-ray player only does 1080p by an upconversion process (not true 1080p).

Myth #2: Blu-ray is 50gb. At this time Blu-ray only has 25gb disc (50gb is in developemet, but no where in site). HD-DVD is 30gb as for now! (45gb triple layer is in developement).

Sony has some pretty good marking since the majority of people out there belives that blu-ray is 50gb 1080p.

Will Microsoft be using HD-DVD as part of their gaming setup? Last I heard it would only be used to watch movies.

I'll admit that I'm a Sony fan, but I'm not a fanboy. I see things that both Microsoft and Sony are doing that make me concerned for their futures. It seems that Nintendo is the only company focused on games and games only.

Personally, I would like to see the Blu-Ray format win the next gen format war. It would help the price of the PS3 in the future and Microsoft has already said that they could make a Blu-Ray add-on if necessary.

so can we assume MS making games in HD-DVD format?

MSG-Deathscythe
to those who still can't see that this is just another Bill Gates ploy to keep him as the richest man alive ... good luck to you all and enjoy an addition to your collection of paper weights. his plan was simple and if you have half a brain you would have figured it out: sell x360 with inferior 2nd gen dvd drive; "support" HD-DVD and CHARGE EXTRA for it even 'though they know it is doomed to fail; when Blu-Ray is finally crowned as the dominant format, they will CHARGE THEN AGAIN for an external Blu-Ray drive. after all has been said and done, they made money out of ignorant fanboys by selling them 3 different drives, even though they knew from the beginning that having blu-ray pre-loaded in their consoles would have been best for the consumers. to all the fanboys, grow up and make your purchasing decisions by researching for facts.
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I actually think it's a good idea. The early adopters will buy a PS3 and an Xbox 360 and the HD-DVD drive anyway, but Microsoft is at least giving you the option of either buying the drive or not. Sony tacks on a higher price for the Blu-ray drive and does not give you a choice in the matter. They say it is a better deal, which it probably is, hardware wise, but it's a much worse deal if you don't care about watching High Definition movies. I certainly don't care one way or the other, so the Xbox 360 makes more sense to me. If they release both an HD-DVD drive and a Blu-ray drive later, that's fine, because I'll just wait until DVDs become obsolete before buying either type of player anyway. By that time, we should know which format will be prevalent.

Speaking of fanboys... MSG-Deathscythe

Speaking of fanboys... MSG-Deathscythe

[This message was deleted at the request of a moderator or administrator]

to those who still can't see that this is just another Bill Gates ploy to keep him as the richest man alive ... good luck to you all and enjoy an addition to your collection of paper weights. his plan was simple and if you have half a brain you would have figured it out: sell x360 with inferior 2nd gen dvd drive; "support" HD-DVD and CHARGE EXTRA for it even 'though they know it is doomed to fail; when Blu-Ray is finally crowned as the dominant format, they will CHARGE THEN AGAIN for an external Blu-Ray drive. after all has been said and done, they made money out of ignorant fanboys by selling them 3 different drives, even though they knew from the beginning that having blu-ray pre-loaded in their consoles would have been best for the consumers. to all the fanboys, grow up and make your purchasing decisions by researching for facts.

pff consoles

this is an excuse to make the xbox 260 seem worthy

"How would the add-on make the Xbox 360 look stupid? The thing connects through a USB port, so you don't even have to have them next to each other!"

If it's basically *just* an external drive, I wonder how much work needs to be done by its host. If it can be done in software, then it might be a nice add-on for personal computers (Windows and Mac, at that!) as well. If its affordable, has decent software support, etc, then I could easily see this getting added onto home theater PCs that are already out there...

are you crasy nobody want hd format ,maybe some geek .i will not change my tv set for a little more dot on the screen its ridiculous. the vast majority of people just starting of changing their old vhs for a dvd burner .tv channel dont feel the need for hd yet,in fact only hollywood want it and you know what a bad movies even in hd is a bad movies sony you dont listen to your consumer give us good movies and a great video games console at a good price and i will buy it but for now microsoft you have my vote.

How would the add-on make the Xbox 360 look stupid? The thing connects through a USB port, so you don't even have to have them next to each other!

i will say this, the design of the 360 is pretty cool i like it, but add on makes it look stupid

I'd like to take a brief pause here in the new System Wars forum and offer my opinion.

This move by MS will not sell anymore 360 units at all. It will probably generate some goodwill towards itself from the people who already own a 360 though. No one who doesn't own a 360 will want to spend $300 on the core unit and however much for the HD DVD add on because if they just want to watch movies and not play games, then there will be cheaper alternatives out there.

Sony on the other hand, will sell many consoles for the sole reason of being the cheapest Blu ray machine on the market whether it plays games or not. Gamers, on the other hand, will buy the PS3 for the games first and foremost and movies secondly. Sony has a vested interest in which format wins this war as opposed to Microsoft who, as a company, doesn't really care which side wins except that in the end it would like Sony to suffer as much as possible. So MS will offer lukewarm support for HD DVD now but may pull a John Kerry and flip-flop over to Blu ray if it prevails.

And finally, to those of you saying that you don't want to have to buy your entire DVD collection over again, well then don't. Both formats are backwards compatible with DVDs. Whichever way I go in the future I will not buy the DVDs I currently own again, just the movies I will get in the future.

Soniqstylz...

Sony & Philips did help invent the CD format -- in fact they should get most the credit...

BUT... they had to abandon their MMCD format when DVD's came around... that's right the industry ended up going with the "SD" format that was pioneered by Toshiba.

It will be the studios who will make the choice.

nice

I support MS approach to give us a choice. If, once again IF, I did not want to pay money for an HD-DVD drive, but it was built into the 360, I would be paying extra money for something I didn't want, like Sony makes us do with PS3. Even though I will be getting this anyway.

"SilV3RSix

Now, that being said, Sony is not alone in the Blu Ray arena, and because of the number of companies supporting it I'd give it an 60% chance of catching on somewhere. However, whats the market? We still use CDs for songs, DVDs have done fine with movies so far, and games are expensive enough without filling up all that content. The odds of Blu Ray penetrating the market as the supreme data format is zilch, squadoosh."

BTW, Philips is another major player in Blu-Ray.

Guess what else Sony and Philips developed: CD and DVD.

Thanks for making my point for me.

hehe i still have an MD player its awsome

This discussion has gotten way off topic. Well here is my two cents. I agree with gphillipsden, I think the market is pushing for blue-ray to win. I haven't seen any HD-DVD films on display but a few Blue-ray movies. The blue-ray I have seen have been crap. If you ask me, both HD-DVD and Blue-ray will loose, at least in the fact that they will just be luxury sales for the next 3-4yrs. DVD's on progressive scan player and regular tv's just look to good. The difference is not enough yet to get people rushing to replace their old movies.
As for the MS add on. I dont think it will do that well. Only a small percent of 360 owners will get it. Im not. But, you got to give it to them for giving us a choice in the manner.

Why do people think 720p is so bad, it literally is just penetrating the market. In addition, why is it so hard to understand that if the player costs $1000 that will directly effect the sales of movies and if the movie companies aren't seeing any sales from their Blu-Ray format, why would it be so hard to switch to a cheaper format or even perhaps both. For awhile companies still produced both VHS and DVD, it IS possible for them to support both formats equally. Just because they support Blu-Ray now doesn't mean they are bound to that one and only format. This is really just turning into a name calling match which leads me to believe that half of you "informed" users really are just kids who are misinformed.

I went around town to try and see for myself what the differences were between HD DVD and Blueray. Retailers have definitely taken sides and are pushing Blueray and hiding HD DVD in the back of the store. Worse they hook it up improperly or not at all to give the impression of lesser picture quality to the casual onlooker. They certainly aren’t displaying them side by side for comparison. Several salesmen flat out lied to me about Blueray’s capabilities.
My impression was that they don’t want to put a clearly superior product right next to an inferior one that you are asking twice as much for.

That settles it for me.

"ALL of Sony's proprietary formats thusfar have FAILED, despite being technically superior. Betamax had a better picture quality than VHS and was smaller. MD was the first recordable optical disc format. Blu-Ray is more info-dense and has more features. Try finding a Betamax player, or an MD player.

I hate to say it, but HD-DVD is probably going to take over as the format of choice--because A: it's cheaper and B: has more widespread market support."

Apparently, you don't hate to say it, because you did; moron. And i'm not sure what retarded kintergardner you're getting your information from, but the HD DVD does NOT have more widespread support. So far, there are only three companies that plan to develop HD-dvd players. Nine companies (plus dell and HP, so eleven) plan to have bluray players. Approximately 60% of the movie industry will support the HD-DV D format. EVERY SINGLE COMPANY except Warner Bros. is supporting bluray (and even WB's subsidaries are supporting bluray). Get your facts straight.

"Master_Chief423
...First of all, to all the idiots who claim that Blu-Ray was developped or that it's somehow Sony's proprietary format are wrong. It was developed by an entirely different place. Sony is just a company that supports the Blu-Ray. So therefore you can't say it fails because Sony is the sole owner or the only backer. It is backed by a lot of companies that think Blu-Ray is the format of the future. Comon man, get with the program."

Oh.MY.GOD. You just said six different kinds of stupid and YOU'RE patronizing other people. Next time you have a thought and you want to say something: don't.

Microsoft is stupid if they think an external add on will be popular They've never worked, and never will be popular. My main question is this: if the signal and video is THROUGH the 360, does that mean that the video quality is limited to 720p, the 360's resolution, or does it somehow portray it at 1080p. Because if it only runs at 720p, forget that; the add on would officially be a piece of crap.

"Master_Chief423
...First of all, to all the idiots who claim that Blu-Ray was developped or that it's somehow Sony's proprietary format are wrong. It was developed by an entirely different place. Sony is just a company that supports the Blu-Ray. So therefore you can't say it fails because Sony is the sole owner or the only backer. It is backed by a lot of companies that think Blu-Ray is the format of the future. Comon man, get with the program."

Blu-Ray was made by SONY and Philips. It is their format. Just like how HD-DVD is Toshibas. Why don't you get with literacy and read!?!

"NinjaFoot
The one thing that will decide the winner in this format war will be the porn industry. The porn industry backed VHS and thus buried betamax."

That is so true. No one else will realize this though.

That means it could cost up to $998 x_X

SilV3RSix
Sigh...... dude, we all know what you said. And we all know you are an idiot for saying it. So I'm done.----------------------------------------------------------------------So Im an idiot for slamming your accusations on how I never said people will throw away their DVD players, stop embarrassing yourself making youself believe your proving a point when all this time you been flapping your teeth about nothing

People really need to read some tech info and get their facts straight before they go opening their mouth with some ridiculous banter. The "war" as many people call it, will be nothing of the sort. Instead each format will be fighting one another and honestly will have no victor. Perhaps a better seller, but are they really victorious for selling more? The fact that each side was not able to meet halfway on a single format is detrimental to the industry because now they've set up sides and supporters of each so usually it boils down to, said brand supports this, etc. When it comes down to it, Blu-Ray holds more, HD-DVD holds less. Blu-Ray is expensive while HD-DVD isn't quite as much. BR players are extremely pricey at the moment while HDDVD are about half. While many consumers are just now starting to get HD sets many of them I assume will not also want to dish out $1000 for a HD player as well. Most TV's out now do not support 1080p but most support 720p and 1080i. With HD programming, 720p or 1080i is standard most of the time and to most consumers the need to spend an extra $1000-$1500 on a 1080p set just doesn't make sense unless you absolutely want BR technology. While BR may be great in 5-6 years, the technology seems to over the top for the consumer market as it stands and I could see consumers choosing HDDVD as their choice. Only time will tell.

I've been curious about seeing example of BR and HD-DVD at retails stores. Strangely at Best Buy and Circuit City nearby, I'm only seeing BR being demonstrated. (Which did not really impress me from what I have seen so far but I shoudl next time check out what kind of connection was being used). Store reps did not have good explanation why I'm not seeing example of HD-DVD. Is there still shortage of the HD-DVD units? Are other seeing only BR being demo'ed at these retail stores?

I appreciate the fact that the adult film industry played a major role in deciding the winner in the VHS vs Betamax war. I don't doubt that they will play some role in the upcoming high-def war but I question if it will have just as much impact. Moving to VHS or Betamax was big for the adult film business because it moved the movies from the theater to the privacy of people's home. So the switch was inevitable and one format won. However, this time around their move to high def may not be that profound. This time we have the Internet where they have the convenience of getting adult films thru the Internet. In fact that may be more convenient than going to a video store or buying discs via mail. There are already ways to get DVD quality adult films thru the net. DVD level video quality or even lesser quality available via Internet may already be enough for most customers. And also is adult films in high def really that desirable? I doubt the adult film industry is interested in doing much post processing of their video to take out blemishes,wrinkles, etc from their videos. I don't doubt there will be some demand for high def version but will majority of the customers get the video thru the Internet or high def discs?

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Consumer awareness is driven by the way the stores advertise. I must say that I went into Fry's and found their HDDVD setup wasnt working (so i was told by an employee) and they couldn't figure it out. There was a Samsung BD player hooked up to a big 52" Sony HDTV playing 50 first dates. Right next to it was an equally impressive big JVC with the Toshiba HDDVD player. It wasn't playing anything and so I did a little looking in the back. First, they had RCA cables connected from the hd to the hdtv. Not a good sign if you want to show off what it can do. So I noticed there was an HDMI cable in the back. I proceeded to plug it all in (while being watched by their staff) and selected the proper input and whalla. It was working at 1080i and the Sa,sumg was 1080p.

It is the crap like that which makes consumers tend to not know what is going on. It used to be said a brand will do better if the store that is promoting it gets something out of it. I believe that to be true with Fry's. You can only read so much for consumer awareness. Once this was all running (Appollo 13 for HDDVD) I had shoppes coming up and asking about the differences between the two. I sure wish they had a true cross platform movie to show off DVD, DVD w/HDMI, HDDVD and BlueRay. Can anyone tell me of a movie that is on HD and BR?

Oh and last thing is I see there are HDDVD movies which include a regular dvd version on the flip side. One disc with both formats. so it plays in regular players as well as HD DVD players. Got to love that!

A HUGE factor in VHS vs Betamax was price. price of players, price of blank tapes. Also storage size. VHS had cheaper players, cheaper tapes, and the tapes held more. HD-DVD is cheaper right now by quite a bit for the players, the movies are SUPPOSEDLY going to be cheaper. Blu-ray is specced to have more space, but I read a report recently about problems with blu-ray reaching their spec size--and HD-DVD right now actually holding more (take that part with a grain of salt).

If Blu-ray players stay at $1000 (ok--$500 for PS3) and HD-DVD players are $100, guess who wins. Cheap moves units. I think whoever hits $100 for a stand-alone player will be the winner unless the other comes out with a similar priced model VERY soon afterwards.

SilV3RSix
Both of you are thinking Im bashing Sony... which is wrong. Im bashing Grnidbandit because hes an idiot.... Go back to what he originally said.

'Blu Ray is clearly winning this war..'

And he asks ME for facts. Yeah ok, so a ton of studios are making Blu Ray disks. And... everyone is switching? The entire world is just throwing away their DVD players? No, theres no clear leader yet. And hes an idiot for saying otherwise. Period. ___________________________________________________________
Ummm did I say everyone will throw away their DVD players??? Stop putting words into my mouth, im talking about Blu-ray and HD-DVD you moron, learn how to read, thats why you always get owned silvr, you never read what people write, you just come out bashing because your a narrow minded fanboy

Both of you are thinking Im bashing Sony... which is wrong. Im bashing Grnidbandit because hes an idiot.... Go back to what he originally said.

'Blu Ray is clearly winning this war..'

And he asks ME for facts. Yeah ok, so a ton of studios are making Blu Ray disks. And... everyone is switching? The entire world is just throwing away their DVD players? No, theres no clear leader yet. And hes an idiot for saying otherwise. Period.

SilV3RSix
read slowly as well. i am not putting down your opinion and giving it an opportunity that you might be right. In giving the betamax vs vhs is exactly the point about how betamax lost to vhs because how the demand of market and what drove it. Sony is not the best I agree with you their if that's what you think too. I will be the first to advocate that. It's not about who made it. I am not a sony nor xbox fan. I am a fan of what is the best and what will work with what i will buy. In the end, we don't know until down the road. To add, UMD has done alright for Sony since it is purely designed for the PSP the overhead cost vs their sales, sales being in the positive.

The first HD DVD titles released on April 18, 2006 were The Last Samurai, Million Dollar Baby, The Phantom of the Opera by Warner Home Video; and Serenity by Universal Studios

Compare that what Blu-ray already has

this may have already been asked or answered... but how are they going to make use of the HD-DVD which is supposedly content protected and needs to use the HDMI interface....

willkirkland - read slowly... Sony developed Betamax. Betamax was also considered to be better quality format. But it flopped horribly. Why? Because people don't like to be force fed a format. RCA developed VHS and allowed everyone to use it. Sony locked down Betamax and tried to make money off of it.

Ummm betamax failed because it did not support porn, as VHS did, and they could still get their hollywood movies on all the same format

willkirkland - read slowly... Sony developed Betamax. Betamax was also considered to be better quality format. But it flopped horribly. Why? Because people don't like to be force fed a format. RCA developed VHS and allowed everyone to use it. Sony locked down Betamax and tried to make money off of it.

Now, that being said, Sony is not alone in the Blu Ray arena, and because of the number of companies supporting it I'd give it an 60% chance of catching on somewhere. However, whats the market? We still use CDs for songs, DVDs have done fine with movies so far, and games are expensive enough without filling up all that content. The odds of Blu Ray penetrating the market as the supreme data format is zilch, squadoosh.