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MS tramples external Blu-ray drive talk News
Xbox 360 News by Robert Purchese
Microsoft has denied that an external Blu-ray drive for Xbox 360 is in the works.
"As we've said before, Microsoft has no plans to introduce an Xbox 360 Blu-ray add-on. Games are what drive consumers to purchase game consoles, and we remain focused on providing the largest library of blockbuster games available," Microsoft told Edge Online in a thinly veiled swipe at the competition (presumably having temporarily forgotten about its price cuts, Avatars, movie downloads, music festivals, theme packs and all the other things it does which aren't games).
Reports surfaced earlier this week claiming Microsoft had already commissioned the manufacture of the hardware with Toshiba-Samsung. The rumoured price was to be between USD 100 and USD 150.
But speculation of internal or external Blu-ray drives for Xbox 360 has been rife since the death of the HD-DVD format earlier this year. And Microsoft has consistently swatted them down, maintaining that digital distribution will be the real future.
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I agree with two points there.
1) Focus on games. 360 / PS3 are GAMES consoles, not all in one multimedia centres. I think that might have helped the Wii break the family market. Homes already have DVD players, CD players etc, and the wii is primarily a Games console. 2) Digital Download, it is the future. Blue Ray is a (expensive) stop gap. Things like Steam etc are showing that Digital Downloading is working. (Though personally i do like to have the game in my hands)
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most recently on 10/10/08 @ 11:33
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Perhaps there has been some sort of Blu-Ray deal between MS and Toshiba.... for the Xbox 720 or Nextbox or whatever you want to call it. It makes sense that as games get bigger, and assuming they are staying in disk format, that you'll want to use whatever storage medium is available to you.
Can't personally see another wave of DVD based consoles myself, but who knows? |
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More games! Yay!
Besides, MS are implenting a copy to HDD feature in the new update, who would want a copy to HDD and then install to HDD feature!?!?!? Meh, who cares, just hearing them say they're concentrating on the games is more than enough for me. [fanboy]concentrating on stealing more games from p$3, eh people?[/fanboy dies]
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most recently on 10/10/08 @ 11:38
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The_Inquisitor
10/10/08 @ 10:44
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Oh Eurogamer... I've gone and told my mate about this and now I have to tell him I was wrong. Thanks for making me look like more of a fool.
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Just make a fucking 360 Ultimate with a Blu-Ray drive already.
...and release that fucking motion pointer while you're at it. Fucking hell man. Big companies are fucking touchy over other companies' tech. Just get your fucking box into as many living rooms as you fucking can, then push all of the contentent you want to sell by using the following: - Quality, accessible content - Competitive pricing - ENTICING MARKETING Jesus Christ. You'd think it was rocket science. Blu-Ray would STOP MANY FROM BUYING PS3s... for BLU-RAY. |
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>MS never gave a toss about hd-dvd anyway
And neither do they give a toss about Bluray. They got royalties from both formats for their codecs anyway. MS really has zero interest in optical media... that is not their business. Logical that they hope digital downloads will take off, they are not the only ones (Apple for example). Anyway... who is waiting for a Bluray add-on anyway? Can't imagine anybody will buy that.
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most recently on 10/10/08 @ 11:52
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stevethemeat
10/10/08 @ 11:07
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noooo, i wanted a blu-ray player and was hoping that in addition microsoft would also get the amazing cell processor as well
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stevethemeat
10/10/08 @ 11:40
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UMBERTY
Buying a superconsole with twin hdmi outputs running at 1080p, with 7 usb ports and full backwards compatability and a large selection of great games, with superior multi-platform conversions, that would not be a crock of shit If you bought into sonys bullshit and bought the real PS3, now thats the biggest crock of shit of the century
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most recently on 10/10/08 @ 12:41
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farticusmaximus
10/10/08 @ 11:42
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@Umberty
And what if we dont want a PS3? What if we don't think the PS3 has a games catalogue worth onwning? What if we prefer the 360 controller? What if we prefer Live to PSN? What if we think Bluray is pointless? Dont try to justify any of these points as I'm just not interested. Buying a console is not simply a cost decision. I don't like the PS3. I don't like it's games and frankly I find the PS3 community to be full of shitheads like you. 360 Has the franchises I like and the online features I want, end of story. So you see there are reasons to buy a console other than just the price. Now shut the fuck up and play your console, and I'll play mine. |
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Kill_Crazy
10/10/08 @ 11:53
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@farticusmaximus
And what if we dont want a 360? What if we don't think the 360 has a games catalogue worth onwning? What if we prefer the PS3 controller? What if we prefer PSN to Live? What if we think hearing damage is pointless? Dont try to justify any of these points as I'm just not interested. Buying a console is not simply a cost decision. I don't like the 360. I don't like it's games and frankly I find the 360 community to be full of shitheads like you. PS3 Has the franchises I like and the online features I want, end of story. So you see there are reasons to buy a console other than just the price. Now shut the fuck up and play your console, and I'll play mine. /see what i did there ;) |
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Kenshin001
10/10/08 @ 11:53
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"Anyway... who is waiting for a Bluray add-on anyway? Can't imagine anybody will buy that."
/points at HD-DVD player add on buyers /laughs |
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@ RickHard
You can start watching a film before it has fully downloaded on the 360. On my 10Mb connection I can start watching a HD film a few minutes after I've started to download it. Oh and the quality of the picture and sound was great - maybe not good enough for the anal among us but good enough for me. |
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@ Ryze
360 Ultimate SKU on its way. MS likes to add features incrementally. First it was HDMI, then it'll be wi-fi (which they should add) and next it'll probably be a high-margin Blu-ray SKU, instead of an external drive. Though the 360 is so noisy, who the hell would want to have it on any longer than is neccessary. |
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Can I say that I *love* Blu-ray (BD) movies and thus equally adore my PS3? :)
It's a shame that Xbox 360 owners might not be able to watch BD movies on their consoles but these days the standalone players are much cheaper than they were and you can buy a decent quality player for under £200 now. If Microsoft released an add-on for the 360 it probably wouldn't come cheaper than £150 anyway. |
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Actually making a compelling game that people want to buy is rocket science.
I don't like how the 360 does not have WiFi built in vs Wii and PS3. The 360 is feeling dated at the moment. It needs a way better graphics card, more ram, a disc drive that doesn't make noise, plus it needs to be smaller its too big and bulky. Give it another couple of years for supply chains to provide more powerful cost effective technology for it and the XBOX 720 could be a sexy powerhouse. And discs are still the way to go for at least the next twenty years because you can't download a massive game in under an hour in most parts of the western world and asia.
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most recently on 10/10/08 @ 13:18
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Amusing how many people that used to champion HDDVD are now distancing themselves from a HD disc format. You want digital downloads to take over, fine but you'll be waiting for a few more years yet. Blu Ray is on the up, go read the articles about how well the Iron Man Blu Ray has sold, even outselling the DVD version at some retailers.
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farticusmaximus
10/10/08 @ 12:23
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@KillCrazy
/golfclap Well done, well done indeed. Did you even read my post, or did you just see the words 'PS3' coming from a non-PS3 owner and decide you hated it and must kill it on sight, with maximum prejudice? Umberty had decided that 360 owners bought the wrong console. I was pointing out to him that no, I had in fact bought the right console as it suits my needs. If I wanted the things a PS3 offers then I would have bought one. It doesnt, so I didnt. I didnt tell him my console is better, I didnt tell him he bought the wrong console. Is this getting through? Are you able to understand that concept? Next time try to ENGAGE YOUR BRAIN before posting please. |
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makeamazing
10/10/08 @ 12:24
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Sorry but the guy that said Digital Downloads is the future... yes it is.. but probably in about 10 years time (unless you live in a country that has good internet speeds, unlike most of europe or the UK, with its rubiish upto 8 mb). Unfortunately unless someone can stump up £15 billion we wont be getting the speed we need for movies or large amounts of content.
As for Blu-Ray, the quality is amazing, and will do well imho... people are expecting it to just replace DVD over night, its going to take a couple of years. Now waiting for Zulu on BR which trust me, the quality difference between that and dvd is massive. |
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CannonAnBall
10/10/08 @ 12:27
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I was worried about the hype surrounding Blu Ray. Was it worth it?
I've bought a nice 1080p tv and hooked up my ps3 and gave a blu ray disc a try. Awesome. If you don't know any better then dont worry about it. I love movies and spend a lot of time watching them so I'm well prepared to spend a little extra (at the mo I'm paying no more than 13.99 for them). My list for Lovefilm is all Blu Ray, no way am I going to bother with DVD unless I have to. MS tried the HD route and got their fingers burnt. |
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farticusmaximus
10/10/08 @ 12:27
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@Umberty
"It's also interesting to see how quickly you forget how piss poor the first 18 months of the 360 software was" Haha, that's really not the argument you want to bring up considering how long it took to get any software worth owning on the PS3. I, and my other 360 early adopting friends had a great time on our 360's in the first 18 months, thank you very much. Go away with your pathetic trolling, it's getting embarrasing. |
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360 with internal bluray would be a major selling point. I can't see it this gen but hopefully next. I fail to see why moving away from being a pure games box into a do anything box is a bad thing in anyones eyes. "Here is some additional functionality for you" to be met with "NOO! Christ no! Make it stop! Pass the mind bleach!"
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"Welcome to XBrick fanboi central, oh dear..."
The irony is on you. "Amazing how many people have been mugged into the it's a cheap console mantra. Add all the useful/necessity stuff on to it like the aforementioned HDD and it costs more than a PS3 + the annual shafting of the Live subscription. Bargain. What a crock of shite..." No it doesn't. You can have all you need for as little as 260 euro, can't find a ps3 anywhere near that. Now crawl back under that rock you insecure little person.
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most recently on 10/10/08 @ 13:45
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Doctor_What
10/10/08 @ 12:51
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@ Farticus: I think Umberty is trying to balance out the astonishingly pro-MS posts on here by bringing some balance to the debate. It's fairly trollish to call him a 'shithead' for pointing out that the Arcade model costs a lot more than it first seems when you add on a decent HDD, wireless (which I agree isn't essential for everyone), and the yearly Live subscription. If that's the kind of behaviour that's acceptable in what you describe as the 'Xbox community' then I'm pretty glad that I don't get involved with it often.
Why does everyone have to say that one machine is better than the other? I've got all three: the Xbox has better games but I find online gaming to usually be full of twats and so Live seems like a big rip-off to me, the PS3 has less AAA games but more than enough to keep me happy and the media capabilities are just perfect for everyone in my house to use, and the Wii doesn't get used much except for Wii Fit. In my house the PS3 wins because it's so handy for media as well as for gaming. We like HD movies. We like the interesting and arty PSN games. If we didn't care about the media capabilities so much then I'd possibly prefer the Xbox (although the fan noise really irritates me unless the game is massively engrossing). I can see that all the machines have their strong points, their strong titles, and their commmunity benefits and drawbacks, so calling a person a shithead for trying to point out that things aren't universally rosy on the Xbox side of the fence is rather unfair. |
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DaveBassant
10/10/08 @ 13:00
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Choice, that's the key word, if there are any 360 owners who are still interested blu-ray though all is not lost!
Decent blu-ray players are falling down quite fast in price and if you pick up a copy of this months what? hi-fi you can find some cheaper alternatives than the PS3 which have better picture and sound quality. With the upscaling they can achieve (again, better on some seperate BR players) I think it must be a serious consideration for anyone looking to upgrade their current DVD player. imo BR is here to stay until very-fast broadband is the norm and storage becomes cheaper, BR discs can be 50gb after all! |
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I prefer optical media. A 1GB HD rip of something like Heroes does not match up to something like a Sky+ HD feed. You don't even need to be anal to spot the blocky compression. In turn Sky+ just isn't quite as sharp or as good as a bluray.
Interesting article on digital download quality here too: http://gizmodo.com/5048025/giz-explains-... |
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I read that Whathifi. I think the best standalone now is a Sony effort. When it comes to speed, navigation and picture, the PS3 is still fantastic, they did mention that the sound quality didn't match the standalone though.
£250, which is £50 cheaper than the PS3 if you don't care about the other functionality that the PS3 has. |
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@farticus
Why do you have to be so pompous and aggressive when someone doesn't have the same opinion as you? We live in a a free world where people are entitled to there own opinions and manners cost nothing so why don't you have a little dignity instead of sounding like a pompous prick all the time? |
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@Doctor_What - Like you, I own all three current generation consoles and completely agree with what you wrote. I enjoy using all three machines (shame about the lack of decent software on the Wii but hey!) and as far as I'm concerned no one format satisfies all my gaming needs but between the three of them I'm as happy as Larry (whoever he is!). :)
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chessboxer
10/10/08 @ 13:11
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I hope M$ stand by their digital distribution belief and release their next console without an optical drive.
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