X360 not getting built-in HD-DVD

By Tom Bramwell Published 6 January, 2008

Microsoft issues rare denial.

Microsoft has denied that it plans to announce a new Xbox 360 model featuring a built-in HD-DVD player following widespread speculation.

UK gadget site Stuff.tv and Seattle Times columnist Brier Dudley have fuelled excitement about Bill Gates' final Consumer Electronic Show keynote - taking place later tonight - with speculation that the company has a new model to unveil or may consider licensing the Xbox platform to other electronics companies.

Microsoft isn't having any of the HD-DVD bit though. "We have reiterated multiple times since launching the Xbox 360 HD-DVD Player that we have no plans to integrate an HD-DVD player in to the Xbox 360," a spokesman told GameSpot. "We feel that offering the drive externally is the best way to give consumers the ultimate choice to create their own high-definition experiences."

Whatever Gates does have to say, he is bound to want to go out with a bang ahead of his change of job later this year - the current Microsoft chairman has said he will go part-time in July 2008 to pursue his philanthropic efforts with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation - and while the Microsoft statement rules out one strand of the rumour it does not address Dudley's contention that the Xbox platform is set to be licensed to others.

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About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (24) Latest comment 4 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • slickster #1 4 years ago

    the future for the 360 dont look good.ps3 all the way 2008 is going to be a good year i can see it happening.

  • George-Roper #2 4 years ago

    LOL!

    I hope you're trying to be sarcastic or something. Y'see, games consoles are about games. I suggest you take a look at the top 10 in the last few months and let me know precisely which PS3 titles were there.

    That is all.

  • wired009 #3 4 years ago

    There is no point in making an integrated HD-DVD playable xbox now. Blu-Ray seems poised to win the format war at this point, which is actually great news for everyone. Most 360 owners don't seem to care about the add-on player (If they did HD-DVD would be much more popular) so MS should just get ready to release a Blu-Ray add-on player instead and we will be done with it.

  • tonynibbles #4 4 years ago

    Stupid T3 magazine spreading darn stupid rumours for the internet to obsess about - it was never going to happen.

  • The-Bodybuilder #5 4 years ago

    I really hope the x360 gets licenses away. Competition within a console platform? Cheaper, more reliabl consoles? Count me in.

  • CreepinJesus #6 4 years ago

    Even if Blu-Ray wins the format war, there's still practically nothing to be won. Hardly anyone is buying either format. They say Blu-Ray is outselling HD DVD, but they're still only selling like 5% of all DVD sales.

    As for '3rd party' consoles... Bring on the futuristic designs etc! We'll have glowing ones, built-in systems in your front room, 360s stuffed in your car... lovely stuff. However, I'm skint.
    Edited by 1 at 06/01/08 @ 21:04

  • JediMasterMalik #7 4 years ago

    New formats have always had slow uptake, it's perfectly normal.

  • Lexx87 #8 4 years ago

    DVD is totally fine though...no-one really needs the new format yet.

  • Darren #9 4 years ago

    @CreepinJesus - When DVD came out, it wasn't selling in huge numbers either: the players were expensive as were the movies themselves. It took some three years for the format to hit mass market and then it was several years before it usurped VHS. That BD and HD-DVD account for 5% of movie sales now means that it may be 15% by the end of 2008, 40% by 2009, etc., particularly as sales of HDTVs are increasing massively (you'll have a hard time trying to buy an SDTV these days!).

    New formats don't take off overnight, people will only buy them when the price is right and at the moment they're still expensive to all but die-hard movie buffs but it won't always be that way. The price of the players is tumbling all the time, a year ago they cost £500-£1,000, now you can buy an HD-DVD player for £200 or a BD one for £290. You can buy the movies for as little as £13 online now if you shop around.

    I still buy DVDs but having watched a lot of BDs over the last year, must admit to preferring the latter as the picture quality is just so much better in terms of detail and image quality. I guess the people who say that DVDs are fine are likely the same people who insisted VHS was good enough when DVDs first came out. Like anything, you don't miss something better until you try it but when you do it's hard to go back. Certainly I'd miss my HD movies if I had to go back to only watching DVDs because I now see them as the new VHS.

  • drumbaby #10 4 years ago

    Warner's announcement changed Msoft's announcement...simple as that.

  • BadBoyBonner #11 4 years ago

    "We feel that offering the drive externally is the best way to give consumers the ultimate choice to create their own high-definition experiences."

    Hmmm

    Surely offering either format as an external drive would allow the ultimate choice?

  • captain-future #12 4 years ago

    Uhm? Just as 5000x before they denied it.

    There are two rumors that just won't die... MGS360 and Xbox 360 with built-in HD DVD.

    And please don't be so lazy and at least write "HD DVD" correctly, will'ya? ;)
    Edited by 1 at 07/01/08 @ 01:20

  • Refrenz #13 4 years ago

    "I guess the people who say that DVDs are fine are likely the same people who insisted VHS was good enough when DVDs first came out."

    I am one of those who thinks that DVDs are fine, but contrary to your comment, I much preferred DVD to VHS when it first came and hereare my reasons why ...

    * The differences between VHS and DVD are much greater, namely increased picture resolution from below 200 lines to 576 lines (or 480 for NTSC), cleaner digital picture, no need to rewind/fast forward, anamorphic picture, extra features, DTS, DD5.1, scene selection, commentaries, branching, DVD ROM content.
    * The main differences between hi-def and DVD are better picture and sound. Big deal.

    So you see, people are saying that DVD is fine because the leap from DVD to hi-def is not as vast as the leap from VHS to DVD. In fact, hi-def formats are a backward step in some respects, with many DVD releases containing extras not included on their hi-def counterparts.

  • convercide #14 4 years ago

    Yeah, we all know it is buggered. Please don't shout.

    "They need to sort out the XBox Live service before anything else. Every night I try to have a game on Call Of Duty 4 or Halo 3 with friends (around 9 o'clock 'til midnight) and the damn thing keeps crashing or freezing. Don't worry about who is going to win the next DVD format, the money is in online gaming. Just keep doing what you do best."

    See, it's not hard to type what you just said so it doesn't make you look like a spanner.

    P.S. Microsoft probably never read this site so asking them to keep doing what they do best on here is like an unsharpened pencil. Pointless.

  • jonchoo #15 4 years ago

    "The differences between VHS and DVD are much greater, namely increased picture resolution from below 200 lines to 576 lines (or 480 for NTSC)... "

    So the difference of 480 lines to 1080 lines is negligibly when you cited resolution increase of VHS to DVD as the main contributor to increased quality.

    Ok...

  • Darren #16 4 years ago

    @BadBoyBonner - Very good point. If Microsoft really were interested in offering its customers choice then they'd have made an external HD-DVD *and* BD drive or even a unit that plays both formats. Sony have a vested interest in BD plus it is used for PS3 games so that choice was never going to exist on the PS3.

  • Darren #17 4 years ago

    @Refrenz - The leap in resolution from VHS to DVD is actually much smaller than the one from DVD to HD. Of course, if you only have a standard definition TV then you won't see that difference but try watching a DVD on a 40"+ 1080p HDTV and compare its HD-DVD or BD equivalent and the resolution increase and extra detail will certainly be more noticeable. I can actually see the difference on a 32" HDTV - DVD image quality tends to look soft and blurry compared with the sharper, crisper looking HD equivalent - but, as I said earlier, if you've never seen a BD or HD-DVD movie then you won't know what you're missing.

  • moggsy #18 4 years ago

    @ Darren

    Not many punters have a 40" 1080P screen at the moment or for the foreseeable future though. 720P is where it's at.

    Also the difference in definition also depends on how far away you're sat from the screen. We recently pushed our settee back to allow my little un to have room to play and now on my 32" screen there is no noticeable difference between a DVD or a Blu Ray/HD DVD; so I've switched back to renting DVDs.

  • space_ace #19 4 years ago

    confirmed then :)

  • groovychainsaw #20 4 years ago

    sit more than about 8' away from a 720p screen you'll struggle to notice the resolution difference unless oyu have vision borrowed form superman. Having watched some HD content recently on my HDTV, I'd be hard pressed to justify any expenditure over upscaled DVD (although you could spot slightly more skin imperfections in close up shots... :-S)

  • Darren #21 4 years ago

    @Moggsy - I know a lot of people who had 28-32" CRT TVs who've now bought larger screen HDTVs simply because they aren't actually that much bigger comparatively speaking, thanks to the thinner, narrower frames.

    My own parents and one of my sisters have 40" screens now and my other sister has bought a 37" HDTV. None have particularly big living rooms. I suspect that all of them will eventually "embrace" HD movies in time, once the public become more aware of them. Heavy advertising and word of mouth will help, already they're aware of what BD is and what it looks like because of me. They've all been impressed by the quality and have shown interest in the format, only the price of the players and movies is putting them off buying "in" at the moment. However, they said the same thing about DVD back in 1999 and HDTVs a couple of years ago and they all own those now so logical tells me that BD will be the next big thing for them and many others I'd guess.

  • moggsy #22 4 years ago

    @ Darren

    Are they 1080P though? There are an awful lot of 40" telly's being sold at the moment that are just 720P. Of course I expect you advised them to go for the more future proof 1080P versions? ;-)

    Even when I was sitting closer to my 32" screen although I certainly felt the picture looked sharper my wife didn't notice any difference. I've also heard various people say this about their mates Sky HD systems - very little real difference to the quality of the picture unless you have your face up to the screen.

    There's a definite whiff of emperors new clothes surround HD which may prove to be it's downfall in the long run - especially where physical discs are concerned. It doesn't represent a shift in quality that most people would care about.
    Edited by 1 at 07/01/08 @ 11:05

  • moggsy #23 4 years ago

    As a related aside, Toshiba today have just announced that they are releasing some new DVD players and recorders which upscale to 1080P. Hardly a massive vote of confidence in their HD players.

    Would your average punter be able to tell the difference between a HD DVD player outputting at 1080P and a DVD upscaled to 1080P? The sad truth is probably not...

  • Darren #24 4 years ago

    @moggsy - "@ Darren

    Are they 1080P though? There are an awful lot of 40" telly's being sold at the moment that are just 720P. Of course I expect you advised them to go for the more future proof 1080P versions? ;-) "

    They have HDTVs that are capable of accepting a 1080p signal and downscaling it to 1360x768 which is perfectly fine for that size IMO. My parents have opted for a 100Hz 768p Sony Bravia HDTV over a proper 1080p HDTV because they weren't prepared to pay over £1,000 to have both 1080p *and* 100Hz. While I can certainly see the difference between upscaled DVDs and 1080/24p BDs on my 32" Sony HDTV, from experience I can't tell the difference between a BD movie being played on a 40" 1080p and 768p screen in all honesty since the downscaling is so good. Of course, I could if I look at the picture from two inches away but no-one watches movies like that! LOL

    Unless you're planning on buying a large 46"+ HDTV, I don't think a 1920x1080p resolution is all that essential. I'll likely buy a new HDTV in three or four years time anyway and by then I've no doubt 1080p will be standard even on smaller HDTVs.