Microsoft insists (again) that Blu-Ray isn't coming to the Xbox 360

[Sledgstone 8,672]

http://fidgit.com/archives/2008/10/microsoft-insists-again-that-b.php

In case you're holding out on getting a Playstation 3 because you're hoping you won't need it for a Blu-Ray player once Microsoft releases their inevitable* Blu-Ray drive for the Xbox 360, you're going to have to hold out a bit longer:

"As we’ve said before, Microsoft has no plans to introduce an Xbox 360 Blu-ray add-on," [Microsoft] told Edge. "Games are what drive consumers to purchase game consoles, and we remain focused on providing the largest library of blockbuster games available."

Edge suggests that Microsoft is putting their eggs in the digital distribution basket for the time being. Consider the upcoming availability of Netflix's streaming movies on Xbox Live. Hmm, I wonder if this has anything to do with Netflix adding a dollar to the cost of my subscription if I want to watch Blu-Ray movies?

What do you think, is Microsoft holding a grudge against sony by not putting a blu-ray drive (sony product) in their machines?

[Myk JL 1,731]

I thought it was Sony not wanting to sell such tech to Microsoft.

But I'm ultimately getting a PS3 if Deadpool is in the Hulk vs. Wolverine movie.

[gokuDX7 2,871]

I don't think Microsoft wants to put any money in it's competitors hands. I also think their a bit frustrated that HD-DVD didn't make it as the standard of choice.

[Strider Hiryu 2,704]

I can see their point. Really you don't buy the console for what it can do outside of games, you buy it for the games that come out with the system. I really don't blame them for not going blu-ray, hell I wouldn't buy it if they did. I bought my system for games, not for a player. If they made there games on blu-ray I would but they don't so I don't see the point in them releasing it.

Plus as goku pointed out, Microsoft isn't going to put money in it's competitor's hands.

[DeathscytheX 9,732]

Not only that, but im sure Sony would charge them outrageous amounts of royalties for using the drive.

[Sledgstone 8,672]

I'm sure Sony is just waiting patiently for future royalties. When the next systems come out years from now, blu-ray will probably a set standard and MS will have to reach some sort of royalty contract.

But then again, with a majority of gamers having high speed internet, maybe in the future MS will focus more on internet delivered games over whatever capacity the largest physical media could provide.

Imagine this as a possible copyright protection in the future. You buy a game at the local store on a dvd disk... But that disk is just an initial installation disk/copyright code but the game itself is 60gb. Once that downloads you'll have a high quality monstrous file sized game with no loading screens. Kind of like how some MMOs on PCs currently work. Except even offline games in the future will probably require a high speed internet connection just to download the content while verifiying your copyright/registration code. *shrugs*

[Strider Hiryu 2,704]

God I hope thats not the route the industry will head down and I don't really seeing it happen (I'm not to hip myself on downloading huge programs to install them on my computer (had to do it with Visual Studio 2008)). It might happen though, it's the niche MS has the most power over and in.

Still though I don't see people accepting that route in the future. People will always want a physical copy of the software because lets face it, data gets corrupted on computers and other machines of the like through viruses and what have you. Once thats corrupted you're in a very hard spot because you lost your only copy/data of the program/game (yes I know, smart people keep at least 3 backups of their software they download (I do anyways, one on dvd and two in digital format and externals)). Most companies are greedy enough to make you pay for the download again just so you can access you information again in said program/game.

Bah, but who knows. With all the changes going on lately I have no freaking idea whats people in the industry are thinking as of late.

[gokuDX7 2,871]

I cant see full games all being downloaded even if the company adopts the bittorrent protocol. With ISP's throttling and placing bandwidth caps on people I doubt this is a viable option. The whole point of HD-DVD and Blu-ray was to increase the space and quality to put content on. The down side is HD-DVD is a much smaller container then Blu-ray and Sony managed to get all the major movie company's to adopt Blu-ray over HD-DVD thus making Blu-Ray the new standard.

Microsoft is in a bind. If they don't do something soon they'll end up losing a lot of customers. Not to mention pretty soon all the newer movies will start coming out just in Blu-ray.

[DeathscytheX 9,732]

The whole gaming industry is going to go into its own recession and have to rebirth itself with the way things are going now. All the big mass mergers of little developers, Soon the only 3rd party choices you'll have is EA or Activision.

[Ladywriter 7,783]

before they can force ppl to d/l games or key components to the games; everyone in the target market must be hooked up to cable. The FCC is getting them there, all tv must be cable/satellite or have a converter box by next year or ya just get snow. More restrictive caps on down/up loading dished out by ISP's would have to be changed to accommodate downloading/setting up yer game in the blink of an eye.

HD vs Blue ray sound sort of familiar? It should, its a re-hash of beta vs vhs. It took a few years for that to be sorted out and then a few years later vhs became garbage anyway when dvd hit the market.

We've been in an economic recession for a while, it just wasn't until recently the big ol bucket of shit hit the fan spreading financial hardship across the globe. Xbox and PS3 are already too expensive for people with more modest incomes (their target market) to run out and buy one or both of these systems. If it comes down to buy a system or pay rent and have a place to live for another month... most people are struggling to hold on to what they have without slipping further into debt.

Its responsible business practice for Microsoft to say not now to blue ray because in this economy they and their investors wouldn't be getting what they pay for ie a huge profit margin. After consumers have survived 4$ gas they've learned to spend more safely and after the bloodbath on wall street companies are taking a second look at how to run their businesses lucratively.

[Strider Hiryu 2,704]

Don't remind me (especially considering I'm trying to get into this business), EA is royally screwing over the game industry with it's greediness as of late and it's going to make it freaking hard as hell to get a job once I hit the industry (I hate almost everything EA stands for, sure I buy their games because they damn near own the majority of the small developers but that doesn't mean I want to work for them). And with some studios closing lately (Ensemble is shutting down after Halo Wars is released, which I'm not happy about) the industry is going to start hurting.

Microsoft isn't in as much of a bind as you put them in goku. Remember they could really care less about the game market, they make their money off of computer software and could really care less how they do in the game market (not going to lie that they'd be idiots not to care as they do but it's not their huge money maker). Again I must point out movies are really not that important when a game console comes into play. The minute movies define a console is the minute I quit gaming. Yes Blu-ray will most likely become the standard for gaming also since it can hold a crap ton of information, Sony was smart to go down that road (hell MGS4 filled a blu-ray disc) but really that won't be for awhile (and I don't use my 360 as a dvd player so I could care less what type of dvds in can play, I bought it for gaming).

Microsoft won't lose many customers over this. Like I said the majority of 360 owners didn't buy their system for movies, they bought it to game (and game cheap, it was the cheaper of the new gen consoles before the Wii was released) and with the Netflix deal going through I don't see anyone giving up on their 360 (hell my classmates are estatic about this, no more buying dvds). Plus I'm sure the next Microsoft console is well into development (because lets face it, the 360 needs to be retired. The thing is still riddled with problems), I'm sure they've got something up their sleeves.

[gokuDX7 2,871]

Don't remind me (especially considering I'm trying to get into this business), EA is royally screwing over the game industry with it's greediness as of late and it's going to make it freaking hard as hell to get a job once I hit the industry (I hate almost everything EA stands for, sure I buy their games because they damn near own the majority of the small developers but that doesn't mean I want to work for them). And with some studios closing lately (Ensemble is shutting down after Halo Wars is released, which I'm not happy about) the industry is going to start hurting.

Microsoft isn't in as much of a bind as you put them in goku. Remember they could really care less about the game market, they make their money off of computer software and could really care less how they do in the game market (not going to lie that they'd be idiots not to care as they do but it's not their huge money maker). Again I must point out movies are really not that important when a game console comes into play. The minute movies define a console is the minute I quit gaming. Yes Blu-ray will most likely become the standard for gaming also since it can hold a crap ton of information, Sony was smart to go down that road (hell MGS4 filled a blu-ray disc) but really that won't be for awhile (and I don't use my 360 as a dvd player so I could care less what type of dvds in can play, I bought it for gaming).

Microsoft won't lose many customers over this. Like I said the majority of 360 owners didn't buy their system for movies, they bought it to game (and game cheap, it was the cheaper of the new gen consoles before the Wii was released) and with the Netflix deal going through I don't see anyone giving up on their 360 (hell my classmates are estatic about this, no more buying dvds). Plus I'm sure the next Microsoft console is well into development (because lets face it, the 360 needs to be retired. The thing is still riddled with problems), I'm sure they've got something up their sleeves.

If you haven't noticed MS's market shares have been on a constant decline ever since Vista was conceived and made public. With that said, I think MS is very serious about the gaming market, more serious then you may think. Sure, this whole argument wont cause MS to lose much money right now but think towards the future. Game sizes have constantly been getting bigger with more advanced graphics and in-game movies, you should know that as a game developer. The DVD format, as big as it is, still cant offer the space and quality Blu-Ray can, and since HD-DVD is basically dead MS either has to hope game developers wont go past the dual layer limit on DVDs or they will have to adopt Blu-Ray or some other format that offers such space. A perfect example of this is Assassin's Creed. The developers of the game couldn't fit the whole thing on a DVD so they where forced to go back and strip some stuff out and clean up code, which isn't a bad thing but still thats gonna cause issues in the foreseeable future. Sony's Blu-Ray format on the other hand has 30+gigs to work with.

The whole using your game system to watch movies argument is moot in my opinion. It wont affect MS for at least another year or two or even three. The reason I say this is, because movie company's are slow at adopting new standards. They want to give people enough time to understand what the new format is and to buy a player. If MS wants to continue to allow movie support, which I'm assuming they would, Blu-Ray will most likely be added in their next system (Xbox 720?). This is why I'm saying their in a bind. On one hand they want to continue making money, but on the other they don't want to put money in their competitors hands.

It should be interesting to see what happens.

[Sledgstone 8,672]

( I started replying with a single paragraph and then my mind started wandering. X'D )

Well microsoft could always option for a custom disk format just for their system like the old Sega Dreamcast did. Its pretty much copyright protected because no add-on drive for a PC could read the disk, but on the downside production costs go up because all the game developers would have to buy new hardware to make games/produce them on yet another format. It didn't work all too good for sega back then because when the PS2 came out with a dvd format, game developers could by the hardware cheap because dvds were the established format. Developers would rather make and produce games on the cheaper/established medium to save on overall production costs... BUT! With todays market and all the 3rd party developers being eaten up by the big ones... Only a few companies would have to get new hardware to make games for a dedicated format as opposed to the Dreamcast days where hundreds of smaller companies would either have to invest in something with money they didn't have to make games for a system that might not make it or just dedicate their time to another system altogether.

Well, with a company like MS backing a new system in the future, you know the system wouldn't flop in a year or so. And with all the main developers consolidated into just a few companies now, investment into more hardware would be seen as an investment for developing for a system that has huge financial backing.

So yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if MS just goes for its own custom format or even sticks with hd-dvd for a future system and says to hell with being a movie player. And honestly, how many people use their PS2 as a dedicated DVD player? I'm sure PS3 owners use their PS3 for blu-ray movies, and the same was true when the PS2 first came out for dvds. But in a few years blu-ray players will be alot cheaper and nobody will really care for using a game console as a movie player.

And check this out, the Wii uses the dvd format but doesn't let you play dvds unless you mod the software:

http://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/

So Nintendo has no problem saying no to movie playback... the gamecube couldn't play movies either, same with the dreamcast. So in the future I have a feeling MS and Nintendo could care less about supporting movies or the blu-ray format in any future system.

Of course Sony secured that functionality and movie playback feature by doing that power-move of releasing the PS3 at a loss for the first couple years just to secure the blu-ray format and rake in future royalties that will off-set their initial loses and set them into a position of having a preffered format for a future system already set in place for quick production and (most likely) backwards compatability for current PS3 games.

MS and Nintendo are already planning on not having backwards compatability for future systems based on their future formats which is why they have their online game download systems already in place. Especially Nintendo. Sure you can download all the Mario games for the original nintendo on your wii now, but back in the day of 14.4 dial up connections when those games came out, even that would have taken forever. Higher speed internet connections in the next couple years will probably make online only game downloads possible.

[gokuDX7 2,871]

( I started replying with a single paragraph and then my mind started wandering. X'D )

Well microsoft could always option for a custom disk format just for their system like the old Sega Dreamcast did. Its pretty much copyright protected because no add-on drive for a PC could read the disk, but on the downside production costs go up because all the game developers would have to buy new hardware to make games/produce them on yet another format. It didn't work all too good for sega back then because when the PS2 came out with a dvd format, game developers could by the hardware cheap because dvds were the established format. Developers would rather make and produce games on the cheaper/established medium to save on overall production costs... BUT! With todays market and all the 3rd party developers being eaten up by the big ones... Only a few companies would have to get new hardware to make games for a dedicated format as opposed to the Dreamcast days where hundreds of smaller companies would either have to invest in something with money they didn't have to make games for a system that might not make it or just dedicate their time to another system altogether.

Well, with a company like MS backing a new system in the future, you know the system wouldn't flop in a year or so. And with all the main developers consolidated into just a few companies now, investment into more hardware would be seen as an investment for developing for a system that has huge financial backing.

So yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if MS just goes for its own custom format or even sticks with hd-dvd for a future system and says to hell with being a movie player. And honestly, how many people use their PS2 as a dedicated DVD player? I'm sure PS3 owners use their PS3 for blu-ray movies, and the same was true when the PS2 first came out for dvds. But in a few years blu-ray players will be alot cheaper and nobody will really care for using a game console as a movie player.

And check this out, the Wii uses the dvd format but doesn't let you play dvds unless you mod the software:

http://www.engadget.com/2008/08/13/the-wii-finally-gets-dvd-playback-no-thanks-to-nintendo/

So Nintendo has no problem saying no to movie playback... the gamecube couldn't play movies either, same with the dreamcast. So in the future I have a feeling MS and Nintendo could care less about supporting movies or the blu-ray format in any future system.

Of course Sony secured that functionality and movie playback feature by doing that power-move of releasing the PS3 at a loss for the first couple years just to secure the blu-ray format and rake in future royalties that will off-set their initial loses and set them into a position of having a preffered format for a future system already set in place for quick production and (most likely) backwards compatability for current PS3 games.

MS and Nintendo are already planning on not having backwards compatability for future systems based on their future formats which is why they have their online game download systems already in place. Especially Nintendo. Sure you can download all the Mario games for the original nintendo on your wii now, but back in the day of 14.4 dial up connections when those games came out, even that would have taken forever. Higher speed internet connections in the next couple years will probably make online only game downloads possible.

They could resurrect Toshiba's HD-DVD format even though it lost the format wars and is basically dead. I'm sure Toshiba wouldn't mind working with MS. HD-DVD is also backwards compatible with DVD and CD. Xbox already has the HD-DVD drive extension you can buy. If they just add it into the default hardware and start putting games on it then they would be all set.

The only downside is whenever Blu-Ray becomes the default format for movies, MS will feel the hurt (ie. when they stop putting movies on DVD and start putting them on Blu-Ray exclusively). But I guess that wont stop their game sales.

[Myk JL 1,731]

The only downside is whenever Blu-Ray becomes the default format for movies, MS will feel the hurt (ie. when they stop putting movies on DVD and start putting them on Blu-Ray exclusively). But I guess that wont stop their game sales.

I finally got Halo Legends on Blu-Ray!

Blu-Ray version also has an exclusive not on the DVD version.