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360 HD-DVD to cost 200 quid News
Xbox 360 News by Games Industry.biz
The Premium Xbox 360 won’t benefit from a price cut this Christmas - but instead a HD-DVD and console package is due, spearheading a marketing drive of console bundles available from November.
Retail sources have indicated to GamesIndustry.biz that Microsoft is currently planning to price the standalone HD-DVD drive at GBP 199 (293 Euro), and to package it with two HD-DVD movies. The sources also suggested that Microsoft will bundle the Premium console and next-generation movie player together for under GBP 400 (589 Euro) – and that the price could even be as low as GBP 375 (552 Euros).
Next-generation movie support is considered a unique selling point of the PlayStation 3, but Microsoft’s HD-DVD bundle could retail around GBP 50 (74 Euro) cheaper than Sony’s machine, which features the rival Blu-ray movie format.
UK distributor Gem is already offering Premium Xbox 360s with a copy of Project Gotham Racing 3 and two wireless controllers for GBP 299.
It’s expected an official Premium bundle will be made available in early November, with a newly released triple-A third-party title included.
Microsoft recently reduced the price of the Xbox 360 Core package, after many retailers had already taken a similar intiative.
With the pressure to compete with Sony over the Christmas market no longer a threat for Europe, Microsoft looks set to capitalise with a range of SKUs to help grow its installed base in the region.
Microsoft did not respond to requests for comment.
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I think it would be very for for Microsoft to offer some sort of reduction on the HD-DVD drive to those who purchased the Premium pack up to a certain date.
Perhaps those early adopters could send their till receipt to MS and get the player for closer to £99 ? Would make me much more likely to buy one.. |
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king_skins
08/09/06 @ 16:08
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If it was around £100, I might have bought one just to play the occasionaly HD-DVD movie on my HDTV
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"Surely not - they don't usually screw the userbase that badly."
No, they wouldn't think of cutting short the life cycle of their console, cutting back virtually all first party support before their next generation machine has even been released, or not making backwards compatibilty a high priority from the get-go... Timing of the news is great though, probably nobody will really read it with all the Sony-bashing going on right now...
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most recently on 08/09/06 @ 17:21
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captainrentboy
08/09/06 @ 16:22
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Faaaar too expensive for me,I was prepared to pay £150 tops,even then that wouldn't be until next year some time.I think it would be silly to make a bundle out of it though,the daft customers I deal with on a daily basis get easily confused by the existing two skus,they really don't want to chuck a third in there.
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kangarootoo
08/09/06 @ 16:26
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@spongebob
"And you can't play HD-DVD games with it" Errr, because they don't exist perhaps? |
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Tweakmonkey
08/09/06 @ 16:27
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This HD malarkey is expensive. I'm sticking with non-HD stuff for now.
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> A HD-DVD player without HDMI?... thanks, but no thanks.
> > Why not? Componentis more than adequate for routing "full" HD signals over. No HDMI will not be a problem initially because as you say there is no difference in the video quality. However as soon as HD-DVD movies start shipping with the content protection that requires a certified device connected by HDMI before playback is allowed, it will be a problem. However I'm sure MS have plans to address this when it is needed. |
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SergioAguero
08/09/06 @ 16:34
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A HD-DVD player without HDMI? No thanks.
Yeah doesn't make a lot of difference from what I've heard. Don't believe the hype about HDMI - it will become the new standard, that's all. £199 is a little high I think, although it is much cheaper than a stand alone player. Better to make it cheaper than bundle it with some shit like The Chronicles of Riddick! |
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Stormflood
08/09/06 @ 16:37
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It was never going to be less. How the hell could the primary components of an HD-DVD player sell for £100? How would that justify the heavily subsidised standalone players costing at least £400-odd for the cheapest model?
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@Rhythm
"Why not? Componentis more than adequate for routing "full" HD signals over." Somewhere in the PS3 delayed mammoth thread there is some discussion from me with ... /racks brain ... erm, nope, someone else. Anyway upshot is that if you do not have HDMI then the studios will allow HD-DVD or Blu-ray but only at the max output of 960x540 - not that much greater than current DVD. If true in practice then the X360 may upscale this to 720p for you - but you are kind of missing out quite a lot of the benefits of the whole HD-ness. Note this would apply to the cheaper PS3 and the HD-DVD X360 add-on. There was a story about an X360 HDMI lead, but it was mucho expensive $99(?). Presumably because it has to convert the X360 analog out to digital before sending down the lead? |
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davidbarrie
08/09/06 @ 16:43
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Does anyone know whether it will be able to output hd movies in their full 1080p resolution? As far as i was aware, the 360 does not currently support this??
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SergioAguero
08/09/06 @ 16:54
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1080p resolution?
There are only about 3 TV sets on the market that do this! And they will cost you more than £2000! Again, HD myth. In 5 years time okay, but I doubt 1 person out of 100 could even tell the difference between 1080i and p anyway*! *even less would care, frankly.
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most recently on 08/09/06 @ 17:56
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rhinoxious
08/09/06 @ 16:56
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"Yeah but you own a HDTV right, and you are not really getting the most value out of that if you can't watch hi-def movies. As 360 owner with a HDTV, this addon represents the cheapest route to hi-def movies you will find."
Hard to judge, but I reckon that sky HD is the currently the best option for HD movies (and other content). That's what HD-DVD and Blu-ray really have to compete with. |
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The reason the stand alone player cost so much is partly due to the drive and partly due to the fact they have a mid range PC inside them. With the 360 they already have a perfectly good CPU\ GFX card combo to do all the decoding for them.
Then again all the HD-DVD players sold at the moment at sold at a huge loss anyway. |
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bigbadbeasty
08/09/06 @ 17:02
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£200 is cheap.
They will/do cost around £500 normally. Do you not remember DVD players costing £1000?! |
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SergioAguero
08/09/06 @ 17:09
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"Then again all the HD-DVD players sold at the moment at sold at a huge loss anyway.
Plus, you get more and better features on a dedicated player and a better build quality. Question is, how much better than DVD will even an entry level HD-DVD player be? Early reviews suggest it depends on the movie, and in the first round, HD-DVD wins out on picture quality over B-Ray; now there's a shock.
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most recently on 08/09/06 @ 18:12
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£280 Premium Xbox 360
£200 HD-DVD Player £60 WiFi Adapter £80+ 60GB Harddisk _______________________ £620+ Premium Xbox 360 incrementally upgraded to PS3 spec. Not such great value if you do want the full experience. I honestly believe Sony are providing better value for people over time even if it's a painful buy to start with. |
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samuraipimp
08/09/06 @ 17:12
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You see this is the great thing about having it as a seperate drive. You can take it or leave it. It's not being forced upon people that only want their console to play games.
I'm cool with the price. I already own a 360 and I have every intention of watching HD movies so paying £200 for an add-on drive to achieve that as opposed to £400 for Toshiba's HD-E1 is a very attractive proposition. I don't have a problem with the lack of HDMI. My TV is native 720p and component is just fine for full-bandwidth HD video at that resolution. If I decided to upgrade to a 1080p tv in the future (when they don't cost the earth) then I'll buy a stand-alone player with HDMI. I don't think anyone should worry about HDMI in the slightest unless their rocking a 1080p TV (are there any in the UK yet? Affordable ones?) |
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login_name
08/09/06 @ 17:25
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"Unlike Sony, MS don't ram new formats down your throat that you don't want."
Really? So I can use DirectX 10 on WinXP and not have to upgrade to Vista? Can I play Halo2 or Crisis or any other new next gen pc title on WinXP? Umm...no... |
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@Wonga
I believe the opposite is true, having the drive and software built into the console from the start and that always being the plan should mean everything is integrated much better, as well as the drive being useable for games. The current Xbox 360 DVD playback quality, sometimes jerky downloaded HD video content playback (probably software fault that's fixable but still) and preview of how they plan to integrate the drive opening control into the dashboard doesn't leave me too enthusiastic about their drive for high quality playback and user experience. |
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"£280 Premium Xbox 360
£200 HD-DVD Player £60 WiFi Adapter £80+ 60GB Harddisk _______________________ £620+ Premium Xbox 360 incrementally upgraded to PS3 spec." If you take in the cheapest bundle, 375 + 60 + 80 would get you at 515, still more than PS3. So as you all see (and it is completely in line with economic theory) options come at a price. edit: NB, the above calculation doesn't take the superior tech of blu-ray into account as it's not sure it will win this format war Btw, MS supporters value choice? Hilarious! :)
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most recently on 08/09/06 @ 18:56
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Inflatable
08/09/06 @ 17:56
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@login_name, yes you can.. Crysis will also run on WinXP and DX9 without any no problem, just like 99% of all games coming out next year I bet you.. I don't know about Halo2 specifically, but who cares about that game on PC anyway?
Also, you obviously don't get the point of forcing formats.. Sony forces you to buy an expensive Blu-ray drive with your PS3 gameconsole.. That has nothing to do with needing a certain OS to run certain games or new software.. |
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