MS Says They Have Absolutely No Plans For Blu-Ray >

	2007/05/17 10:02:40: Posted by DM
	Despite the rumors of Japanese reports that have surfaced on the web recently, Microsoft has no plans to release any Blu-Ray hardware for their XBox360 console. "We're fully committed to HD-DVD and have absolutely no plans to support other optical formats," confirmed Microsoft on its Gamerscore marketing blog. >Link
	Labeled With  xbox360 microsoft blu-ray Comments [30]  | Rate this article: -- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10  | Avg. rating of 7.3

Then they are idiots. Sorry MS, HD DVD really has no chance.

did anyone expect them to say anything else?

it's called damage control, nothing more, nothing less. to take this at face value would be stupid, microsoft can care less about this format war, but they will support HD-DVD until the bitter end. they can support it with little to no damage to their business, it's how business works.

Well, following some of the statements made by Moore IIRC, you'd think their business model would attempt to appease their 360 installed base. Adding a similarly priced blu-ray add on would remove the "you can't watch this on hd dvd" argument from the Sony side. I know MS's plans are more geared towards d/l'able content, but they too have to realize that broadband isn't widespread enough to depend on that.

You could theoretically have a HD DVD/Blu ray player for $800.

Honestly who cares about high def movies. It wont affect Microsoft that much if Blue-Ray wins will it??? Sony has way more invested, and as far as gamers go, it doesnt really matter which format wins. VaeVictus U want to talk about DL content and how broadband isnt widespread. But which has a bigger install base? HDTV's or Broadband Internet??? Thats why I think this whole HD-DVD/Blue-Ray format war is way too premature... It wont matter for a few more years at the earliest... How many people are in a rush to switch from DVD to Blue-Ray/HD-DVD??? Heck I still know people who buy movies on VHS.

I agree with what you have to say Nuttsack, but why would MS even get involved if they had no vested interest? Why even concern themselves w/ HD DVD, much less blu-ray if d/l content is what they are looking to in the future.

As for the format wars, Sony and Disney's movie titles being exclusive is too much for HD DVD to cope with. There are rumors that Universal is considering going blu ray as well.

My primary argument is that MS could really corner another market if they'd consider blu ray. That'd be one less reason for anyone who cares to buy a PS3 if they owned a 360.

I don't think this is that important to MS as it pertains to the 360, but it is something to consider nonetheless.

well MS&HD-DVD needs your support, I think if more ppl support the HD-DVD for 360 I think MS will make special HD-DVD collector's edition games.

No way that'll happen.

@jlemdon

2xHDDVD=2xBluRay=6.5xDVD

To sloooooooow for X360 games - written for DVDx12

I think Microsoft will avoid BluRay like the plague. Adopting BluRay would be admitting that Sony's strategy with BluRay had merit. MS is affected in that for some consumers, buying a console that is also a hi-def player will be a deal clincher. If/when Blu-Ray wins the format war, the PS3 will become a very popular mainstream choice for HD movies much like the PS2 was for DVDs, until BluRay players become much cheaper than a PS3. Of course, prices for both have to drop first.

we'll see when Devlopers say they can't fit games on the 360 soon.lol

VaeVictus I think MS should just stay out of the high definition DVD format war. Blue-Ray looks like the runaway winner right now. They should just focus on being a videogame console. The 360 has progressive scan DVD playback capabilities which is just fine for todays consumers. I dont see how offering Blue-Ray would help MS corner anything in the videogames market. All it would do is help Sony put Blue-Ray over... If MS make's a Blue-Ray player then it would justify Sony putting Blue-Ray in every PS3.

Madgunde: Good post. However I dont see the PS3 getting below $299.00 MSRP anytime soon. Also I think everyone gives the PS2 too much credit for helping DVD get adopted. I owned a stand alone player for a year before I bought my PS2. I never even used my PS3 or XBOX for DVD playback. MS just needs to focus on the "VIDEOGAME" market. Improve the online. I know they have IPTV coming, the whole DL service for movies/music/etc... By the time high-definition DVD's become the norm or start outselling DVD's we will be playing the next-generation XBOX.

Just like we have no plans to bring out a xbox 360 with a hdmi port.

"Honestly who cares about high def movies."

Sorry to contradict you, but the millions of (current and future) HDTV owners do. HD movie sales are not that bad either.

Remember what Bill Gates said about 64kb of memory and enough? :)

Oops, I meant 640kB

Itaintrite: The point is that High Definition movies have nothing to do with videogames... I admit high def movies look nice. I am a GRAPHICS WHORE!!! But at the same time I dont think high-def movies will really take off till next decade. It's going to take a long time for HDTV's to replace the standard tv's. Th jump from VHS to DVD was a bigger jump in my opinion. Sound, picture, not having to rewind the tape, smaller physical size, extra features, etc... With the high def DVD players U really need HDMI 1.3 and 1080P to do those movies justice. Think of how many millions of people only have 1080i/720p HDTV's right now. Thats why I sold my 65" 1080i HDTV to my roommate. I am going to buy a good 1080P HDTV this Christmas. From what I read 1080P is going to be the last jump in screen resolution for TV's. Is this true??? I also read that anything higher than that resolution wouldn't be noticeable to the human eye. Is this true too???

Aren't they going to enforce HD broadcasts as the standards by 2009? At least here in the States anyway.

Supposedly...older tv's will become obsolete. It won't happen over night though.

You guys are missing a huge aspect of the hi-def movie race: porn. If one of the formats will not support porn then that format will be destined to fail. It had a huge impact on the VHS/Betamax format war (which Sony lost due to it not supporting porn on the format) and will likely have a huge impact on this format war as well. I guarantee you that if one of the formats doesn't support it then, years from now when people are ready for hi-def movies, they'll choose the format that does. It's the nature of the beast.

No, pr0n will not play a part in this.

(1) Both have support.

(2) Who wants to see that in HD?

(3) This is one industry that CAN and does make a lot more money via digital distribution.

(4) This argument has been done to death, pr0n will not play the same factor at all. During the Betamax/VHS wars, there was no internet.

There is no way they can make standard TV's obsolete like that. No way the whole world is going to own HDTV's by 2009. I think that all stations will be required to broadcast in high def though by that time. But I also remember initially that 2006 was supposed to be the original target for high def broadcasts to become standard... Also it is going to take time for the Cable and Satellite companies to ramp up and get the hardware in place to handle all the bandwith they will need for that many channels doing high def broadcasts...

HD-DVD will win because this fall there will be $199 players sold at Wal-Mart.

Also, right now the HD-DVD format supports a lot more pornographic movies than Blu-ray does.

Blu-ray doesn't even have movies from Universal, and Universal is the most important movie company of all. The only "format" that receives movies from "all" companies is "downloadable content" like what people receive on their Cable boxes and Xbox Live.

I read an article that said something like, "Each day that passes where no winner is determined between HD-DVD and Blu-ray, then On-Demand Downloadable Content becomes that much closer to winning."

Aren't they going to enforce HD broadcasts as the standards by 2009?

No, they are enforcing Digital Broadcasts which are not the same as HD. HD is digital, but digital is not necessarily HD.

No, pr0n will not play a part in this.

correct, will porn was a factor in the VHS/Beta war it won't be here. Both camps are supporting porn, but besides that a large number of porn is downloaded from the internet.

X of 360, sorry, the Wal-Mart rumor has been debunked. Even if Wal-Mart were to sell uber cheap generic HD-DVD players, there needs to be movies to play in these. As we can see, there aren't.

Again, the combined films exclusive to Blu Ray are far greater than those for HD DVD. Disney + Sony's holdings are huge.

As for downloadable content, you are talking huge amounts of bandwith and storage necessities when involving HD content. It's too far away for us now...maybe not Japan, but the U.S. has a long way to go before digital distribution determines any format wars as they pertain to HD playback.

I think as far as movies are concerned that people tend to prefer a physical media. I still believe DVD will be the dominant format for the next few years, but eventually Blu Ray will win out and be the standard for a few years until digital distribution is a viable option for HD playback.

THE MATRIX TRILOGY on HD-DVD whats fucking with that. There goes all the digital Geeks.. Really I don't care for HD movies untill they become the standard. - Hi My name is B1ueBurner and I'm just a casual gamer. I like long walks on the beach with a girl with big breast and no common sense. -Thank you for reading

PS. didn't mean to curse. but its in context

@Vae: Porn won't play a part in this? You serious? Last time I checked bigtime porn companies still make millions on DVD sales and will continue to do so. Yes it's true that the internet and digital distribution play a big role in the porn industry, but not big enough for those companies to not make a move into hi-def formats. And though you might not want to see porn in HD you know that there are plenty of people out there who will want to view porn on their shiny new HD player. If both formats support it then it very well may be a wash but to say it won't play a part is greatly underestimating it's impact.

VaeVictus, in case you haven't noticed, there is very little difference in visual quality between most Blu-ray movies and regular DVD discs that are upconverted to high definition. But, with HD-DVD there is a really big difference in visual quality. Dude, HD-DVD is a really big improvement over the normal DVD discs.

Seriously, dude, at this point in time it is very common knowledge that most of the "exclusive" Blu-ray movies use that same video compression format as regular DVD discs. It's called MPEG-2 and it is very old. Very few Blu-ray discs use the new MPEG-4 or VC-1 video compression formats. So, there is no reason to spend $25 or $35 on an expensive Blu-ray disc. But every single HD-DVD uses VC-1 video format to make sure the discs looks awesome.

Seriously, 100% of something crappy isn't worth anything at all. Good lord knows that Sony is the type of company to take a crap in a box and mark it "guaranteed."

I'm not biased, but I am just telling it the way it is. You would have to be really dumb if you think either Blu-ray or HD-DVD will "win" when neither of them has all of the movies studios making films for their formats. The only way either of them could ever hope to be "win" is if one of them received support from all of the major movie studios. At this point, neither of them have that support.

So, let's stop arguing about this stuff until something major happens. Otherwise it is all speculation that wastes time reading and writing. I am starting to get as bad as some of you in terms of how much I write. I'm just happy I got a new keyboard that types capitals well. My other keyboard had a broken shift button.

you guys are all dumb !

first microsoft might go with blue ray if anything happens in the future, but at the moment they only went with HD DVD to tell everyone that they are hundred percent competitors with ps3, think about it

if thye dont have it, then thats one less device or addone they have, they had to have it wether they are supporting or not!

AT THE MOMENT xbox360 has HD DVD to hurt ps3 which is happening if it doesnt then they'll go with blue ray which one make any different...

Right now Microsoft doesn't care about HD DVD or BLUE RAY thats just for the movies, otherwise if they did care, belive me they would made all games running on HD DVD, but they didnt cause DVD 9 gig is enough if u know how to compress it well...

lazy ppl always go way more 15 gig,,

and belive me having 2 full DVD DL isn't bad and thats already 18 gig !

and top of that i forgot tell you guys something that no one has discussed

Every HD DVD comes with INTEL usb port, and it is able to play few games and what not...and also uploading and downloading , its basically like having USB HUB to show on TV.

but i rememer reading that so i am not to sure about that but if its true i knwo intel only wants with HD DVD cause of microsoft made a deal with it.

REMEMBER INTEL AND MICROSOFT TEAMING ALWAYS WINS.

to me i wont buy shit till next three years, and by the time three years later, belive me they will be all cheap and plus it dont matter who wins, cause then i can afford both.. if i want to...

so from there on, there is no point of arguing whats this and what thats, right now ps3 is loosing that need to be discussed !!!

sorry again x of 360, vc-1 is used in blu ray. burn

i mean "sorry UTP" vc-1 is used in blu-ray

lol! u all r strait up idiots talkin bout stupid discs...

Response to VaeVictus:

Maybe if you weren't so biased towards your personal beliefs you would have taken the time to read what our friend, X of 360, had to say in a more careful way.

He specifically said, "Very few Blu-ray discs use the new MPEG-4 or VC-1 video compression formats."

He did NOT say that “none” of the Blu-ray movies use the superior MPEG-4 and VC-1 codecs; he simply said that "very few" Blu-ray movies use those high-quality codecs. This is 100% correct.

The unbiased reason why it is 100% correct is because VERY FEW BLU-RAY MOVIES USE MPEG-4 or VC-1!!! Most Blu-ray movies use the same crappy MPEG-2 that standard DVDs use, which means there is almost no point in buying those movies a second time.

VaeVictus, have you even noticed that things like boxed sets for shows like Lost and Grey's Anatomy, Star Trek, Friends, Dallas and CSI don't even come out for Blu-ray or HD-DVD. They are only released on standard DVD.

When you watch those standard DVDs and see them unconverted to near-high-definition, they really do look very similar to when they are broadcast in High-Definition on TV. So, DVD is going to be the king of the disc market for a very looooooooooooong time to come!

Don't worry, though, buddy. If you want to watch those shows in high-definition, you can download them from the Internet, your Cable Box, or even Xbox Live!

VaeVictus, you are the one who felt a need to start getting mean by telling people to "burn." Why is that? Why can't you just accept it that the PS3 is a huge disappointment?

Seriously, I think it is a SHAME that you are still waiting for games to come out on the Playstation 3, like Rainbow Six: Vegas and Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter 2. Those games have been available on the Xbox 360 for such a long time.

F.E.A.R. was released on the Playstation 3 six months after the Xbox 360 version. The Xbox 360 and PC versions of F.E.A.R. received many awards because it is a great game.

Yet the Playstation 3 version of F.E.A.R. is a HUGE DISAPPOINTMENT of a game! The framerate drops below 20 frames per second at times in the PS3 version. It goes into slow motion so much that it affects the gameplay! There is no Online Voice-Chat in F.E.A.R. on the PS3. It SUX on the Playstation 3!!!

Rainbow Six: Vegas and Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter 2 also won many awards on the Xbox 360.

But how do you think the Playstation 3 versions of those games will be?

If you were honest, you would say that it is logical to conclude the PS3 versions would be inferior to the Xbox 360 versions. The Xbox 360 versions of those games will be superior not only in terms of gameplay and graphics, but also in terms of price, because F.E.A.R., Rainbow Six: Vegas, and Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter 2 have all become best-sellers on the Xbox 360, which means they can go on sale successfully.

Also, I have seen several people on the Internet comment that Rainbow Six: Vegas is on sale this week for only $39.99 at Target this week for the Xbox 360.

Why in the UNIVERSE would you even consider waiting for a Playstation 3 version of Rainbow Six: Vegas that will cost you $59.99 when you could get the superior Xbox 360 version for only $39.99???

Only a biased person who is a practical lemming would do such a foolish thing!!!