Gamerscore Blog

A Blu-ray addon drive would be so awesome right now.

Does Sony own the rights to Blu-Ray, which would mean Microsoft would have to pay a scary fee to be able to produce something? :(

The HD-DVD addon was amazing value for money when it was first launched. There's no doubt in my mind that the PS3 played a major part in the demise of HD-DVD. I also imagine that Sony would covertly make it difficult for Microsoft to release a similarly good value blu-ray addon drive.

Personally I think at this stage in the life of Hi Definition drives I'll probably end up getting one for the media center pc rather than for the 360.

To back up the official comment, for me it's a games console and provided Microsoft continue releasing great games (at least until my 3 year warranty expires as I'm on my 4th as such) I'll not even consider getting a PS3.

Correction: a Blu-Ray add-on that supports all of the HD audio the PS3 doesn't would be so awesome right now.  ;)

Didn't Microsoft once state if Blu-ray becomes the dominant player that they'd offer a solution?

RIP  HD-DVD.

Im glad i didnt 'invest' in a collection.

"we will continue to give consumers the choice to enjoy digital distribution of high definition movies and TV shows directly to their living room, along with playback of the DVD movies they already own."

HA, what a joke.  Is THAT what the pathetic excuse known as Video Marketplace is supposed to be, in the UK/Europe?

I am glad I bought the HD-DVD addon as even now there is more content for it than Marketplace will have for some time.
I really do hope you guys ARE planning on a Blu-ray drive and that it will work without having to swap between HD-DVD/Blu-ray in the USB port as that would be annoying.

Digital distribution can never replace actual physical media.  The quality is far better on disk for a start (because nobody wants to download 30GB per movie) plus you get to keep it, lend it to your friends, watch it in different rooms cheaply (eventually), buy it second-hand, etc.

If you do not release a Blu-ray drive then I will just be forced to use my PC as no doubt everyone will have a Blu-ray burner in a few years anyway, which I always suspected would happen even if HD-DVD had won the movie format war (Blu-ray makes a lot more sense for backing up your PC where the ONLY important factor is disk size).  

I may rent a couple of times off marketplace should something interesting come along, but its not a viable alternative to disks.  It doesn't even have all the Harry Potter movies which are all on my shelf on HD-DVD.  Plus I dont want to pay EVERY TIME I want to watch a movie and have to wait for it to download, or discover the movie I want to watch was available last week but isn't this week.

For it to stand a chance for me, rotation of movie availability has got to stop.  I want any movie I might want to watch to ALWAYS be available.  Don't tell me its not technically feasible because if thats true then it proves that digital distribution isnt feasible.  Not to mention what am I supposed to do when my ISP is on the fritz?

When my 360 went in for repair I was still able to watch my HD-DVDs on my PC using the 360 HD-DVD addon.  I cannot however watch anything I may have on the 360 HDD without the 360 itself.  So do not tell me digital distribution is the future because its a huge step BACKWARDS compared to what we had with VHS never mind disks.

Sony does not own Blu-ray. 9_9
Blu-ray owns Blu-ray.

I hope you bring out a Blu-Ray add-on (or combo HD-DVD/Blu-Ray drive) for the 360 ASAP. The best Blu-Ray player at the moment is the PS3 and I don't want one of those in my living room if I can't  help it!

I love my XBox 360..but for this not to have material impact Microsoft needs to *significantly* advance digital download options.  I'm expecting in the next two weeks some sort of effort to show customers they are still in the game.  I had thought they would use GDC to make some sort of NetFlix (monthly subscription) announcement.  Its going to need something of that level to offset this format loss.

As much as Microsoft would like to claim they have comparable HD media in XBox Live, it isn't even close to options in blu-ray or quality. So in my opinion even with the low attach rates of the HD DVD drive they still have to come out with a blu-ray drive. If they dont' then I along with many other techies are going to be recomending to friends who are looking for a blu-ray player to buy a PS3. That is going to turn out to be a HUGE market boost for Sony. They just have to throw a small amount of marketing at it and everyone will be buying PS3s as the next gen video disc player, and xbox 360 is going to be left out in the cold for anyone looking for HD disc players.

Before someone jumps on me and claims that the Xbox Live market place is great for High Def content; It isn't! Not only isn't there an option to buy, but most if not all of the content has very low bit rates, not that much better then DVDs when compared to blu ray. Let's not forget the lack of even 5.1 audio support in most of the movies as well. Don't get me wrong I think download is the way to go in the future, just Microsoft is botching that lately. They need more content, it ALL should have at least 5.1 audio, HD content needs to double in bit rate, they need to have options to purchase content or a subscription service, they need to improve the player controls a bit(my XBMC box pwns it) and all that needs to be out in the next 3 months.

If it isn't, PS3 is the console to get for HD content because there are farm more sources for Blu-rays then there are for xbox-live downloaded movies. I'd guess most people, myself included who have been holding off purchasing until the war was over, well that time is now. Microsoft is caught without much of an offering in the HD content area, and they aren't squawking if they have any new improvements to their service coming. Just as icing on the cake, as much as I love my 360, I wouldnt' be surprised to see Sony pass it in overall sales just after Christmas this year. Unlike the 360 the PS3 is quiet, doens't have high failure rates, comes with a larger hard drive, more power for video processing, blu-ray disc playback, and many more things that make it more ideal as the market begins to mature this generation.

Just throwing this out there, I love my Xbox 360, and until now have never considered a PS3 but I'm finding it harder and harder to turn away, and let's be honest Microsoft isn't exactly doing all they can to ensure the success of the console. I mean we still don't even have clan support in Live yet, and that should have been out when Halo 3 was released. I hope if anything this serves as a warning to Microsoft, "you've been given all the chances in the world to succeed, but your slowly throwing them away."

Things to do to beat Sony(forget Nintendo for the moment they're playing a different game):
1. FIX THE MANUFACTURING PROBLEMS
2. Quiet your machine
3. add blu-ray support
4. put more programmers into live feature add mode possibly raise the price 5 or 10 bucks per year
5. keep up the job with the game release schedule
6. put pressure on studios to speed up releases
7. FORCE the studios to give you at least 5.1 audio and 720p content
8. Increase hard drive size and for a REASONABLE price
9. Integrate Zune and XBox Live for Music and Movie sake
10. Add a subscription model for the movies
11. Grit your teeth because Sony just got a whole lot more competitive

You know, Microsoft has the resources and experience to do something 'nice' for people with an HD-DVD player - and of course, they know exactly who those people are, and could probably have our addresses easily retrieved from a database ...     so how about it?  It's all very well saying this development will have no impact on the 360 at all, but back in reality, some of us are feeling we're owed, at the very least, a decent apology for investing in an expensive failure.

I think the best thing to do it put more effort into their digital download service.  VC-1 is better than MPEG4, and the Xbox would be the same as Apple's TV.

We just need the software!  To be able to download movies, watch them on my computer, to Xbox, to Zune to ETC would be the best thing for Microsoft to invest in.

If they don't, they are going to lose more ground with average consumers and Apple/Sony will be the best way to get HD content.  Yes, gamers as well...we loVeS the HD!

@ k111

It was (or should have been) obvious to anyone plunking down coin for either of those formats that one was doomed to obscurity eventually.  If you "invest" in one or the other early on while the swords are still drawn, as I also did, then you are accepting that risk and I doubt you could make a case that you are "owed" anything.  You win some, you lose some.  Certainly not the first time competing techs have dinged folks who jumped in early, and unfortunately won't be the last either.

"...they know exactly who those people are, and could probably have our addresses easily retrieved from a database..."

I don't even know where to begin! That is quite a scary scenario you've made for yourself.  I don't know where you're from, but where I'm at a Microsoft employee doesn't walk around behind me logging everything I do, including trips to Best Buy to see what I'm picking up.  (Though I'm sure they'd make a great co-op partner when I got home.)  Privacy laws would ensure any company foolish enough to do what you are describing would be litigated off the map, and for good reason.

FACTUALTENDENCIES: To be precise, Sony does issues licenses because it is their technology.

Luke: Additionally, yes Microsoft did say that they would "consider" Blu-ray.  This was in a statement to Reuters right after CES.

http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSN0851332620080108

BTW, coolest would be if Microsoft would follow Edion's example and give everyone with an external Xbox 360 HD-DVD drive a swap.  

http://technologyexpert.blogspot.com/2008/02/honest-crazy-retailer-to-allow-hd-dvd.html

Probability: low

@ BackScatter

Of course it was obvious one format would fail, but it is also obvious that lots of people will be upset at what has happened.  I am suggesting that in the midst of a console war that is far from over, a gesture of appreciation to early adopters would go a long way to ensuring they continue to believe in the strength of the associated brands.

Also, why on earth would people would freak out?  Our credit card information is on file, we are automatically billed each year for Xbox Live, I receive emails every time it happens, or every time I purchase some points to buy some arcade titles..  so if HD-DVD owners received an email stating "Please visit this link to receive 1000 free MS Points", you think people would suddenly fear the eye of Big Brother and hurry to move somewhere off the grid?  Get real, the vast majority of people would feel valued and appreciated at such a gesture, rather than abandoned with the rather obnoxious press release, "We don't believe this has any effect at all, you can rent movies from Xbox Live"...

Then again, it's only 300,000 people, a mere drop in the ocean, so it's not likely anything will happen at all.

I'm just wondering why people would invest there money on either HD-DVD or Blue Ray when there is an all out war going on and you know there will only be one winner.  Why not just wait to see what happens!  Now we all have to hear you cry about your decision...

It would be beyond awesome if you guys made a Blu-ray add-on. It would be beyond that (beyond awesome you say; yes, BEYOND awesome) if you made a new XBox with a Blu-ray drive built in).

Come on guys, help an HD lovin' brother out!

Please, oh please make a Blu-ray player. I understand about the low attach rate of the HD-DVD, but one of the reasons why it was low was because most people were not interested in buying a product which wasn't yet the winner of the format war. I personally would have bought one once HD-DVD was declared the winner of the format war, but not until then. I'm sure others are in the same boat. I DO NOT want to buy a PS3, but it's the cheapest way to get Blu-Ray and has excellent value as it doubles as a game machine too. I just want a a cheap Blu-ray player and without an option from the Xbox guys I might be forced to buy a PS3. I DO NOT want to rent movies on Live Marketplace. I want to own my HD movies on physical media.

"HD DVD is one of the several ways we offer a high definition experience to consumers"

wel a blu-ray addon would be the best way to offer a HD experience to 360 owners...

seriously, think about it - blu-ray will only get bigger and more marketing will be devoted towards it. people will see a CLEAR feature discrepancy between PS3 and 360 unless you guys get a blu-ray addon to the market.

personally, i'd also advise putting the blu-ray addon into the elite SKU, perhaps along with a wifi adapter, message pad etc. undercut the price of the PS3 with this SKU, and people have a clear feature set to compete with the PS3, and at a better price. the 360 is in a unique position - it can compete with the wii (arcade SKU) as well as the PS3, if an appropriate elite SKU is created.

Sony owns the logo, but, like CD and SACD, it was developed with Philips.
Contributing to the development of the format were/are Matsushita, Pioneer, Thomson, LG Electronics, Hitachi, Sharp and Samsung.
The current Board of Directors is comprised of:

Apple
Dell
HP
Hitachi
LG
Mitsubishi Electric
Panasonic
Pioneer
Philips
Samsung
Sharp
Sony
Sun Microsystems
TDK
Thomson
Twentieth Century Fox
Walt Disney
Warner Bros.

Sony does not "own" Blu-ray.
Even Microsoft is involved for part of VC1 (one of the codecs used).

I believe HD DVD losing out to Blu-ray so soon is a big blow to Microsoft. With Blu-ray the chosen HD medium it makes a PS3 very attractive, greez I'm going to buy one this year solely due to Blu-ray playback and Sony build-quality.

If Sony can sort out their game library and their online setup they will win the console war again.

At the end of the day it's still 'IF' Sony can, so in summary the console war is far from over but the keys to winning are surely firming in Sony's hands.

Good comments/suggestions/feedback everyone.  Thanks for keeping comments civil, on-topic, and intelligent.  I'm impressed with the quality of the conversation you're all bringing to these comments...

i do solemnly swear if microsoft does not atleast give me a $100 rebait on its next generation blu ray in exchange for my 360 hd dvd add on, i will purchase a ps3 buy the end of this summer.

Im not going to lie-- if I can find one for cheap I will get it. Just for the simple fact I can use it to play DVDs.  Its true I have a 'buy everything 360 problem'.

@ k111

"Our credit card information is on file, we are automatically billed each year for Xbox Live, I receive emails every time it happens..."

Don't get me wrong - I'm certainly not arguing that Microsoft hasn't collected and stored away various information in the process of opening accounts and providing service to folks on Live.  That's a given.  This appears to be their privacy statement regarding that data - http://privacy.microsoft.com/en-us/default.aspx

Every company you or I have ever done business with, and every website visited, has stored away information involving those transactions.  Companies want that information - They crave it.  Statistical data gives them a window into what their customers want, how they use services or products, what improvements need to be made, or what trends they should jump on.  The same SQL db that Major Nelson gets his "Top Ten Games on Live" list from would happily regurgitate data on how many hours you've played, what games those hours have been spent on, what you've downloaded from the service, etc.

"Get real, the vast majority of people would feel valued and appreciated at such a gesture..."

Probably!  I'll play devil's advocate. The issue is not what companies store away; it is how they use it.  You are happy with the above scenario because you gain something from it - Microsoft identifying your GamerTag as having had presence information indicating a HD-DVD drive, which they then match to your Windows Live ID containing contact information, which they then use to give you some unsolicited compensation.  While unlikely in this case, they could just as easily identify you as a problem child - Due to negative posts about the company somewhere, because you are found to be using a competitor’s accessory, or because you are using too much bandwidth on their servers - And thump you for it in some way.  If it's ok to identify you in the first case, what's the argument against doing it in the others?

I'm by no means a privacy Nazi, but thought your position was interesting given the implications.  You have to be careful where you draw your lines in the sand as they set precedent.

Hopefully this will mean that Microsoft will continue to deliver the firmware updates that are required for the players through XBOX Live when people are playing new HD-DVDs that have newer advanced features?  If not, I guess I should go through and play at least every single one of the HD-DVDs I own so that if any need a firmware update it's loaded in case the servers are pulled and the firmware is gone.

I don't buy the argument that us early adopters should bend over and take it because "we knew this might happen". I don't recall there being a warning sticker on the box I bought less than 2 months ago saying "this product may be defunct before Easter...buy at your own risk".

This experience is highly instructive. Microsoft don't give a damn about us - their announcement is all about how it doesn't affect THEM. At least Toshiba have the fig-leaf of an argument that their HD-DVD players can be used as high-spec DVD players, something which isn't the case here.

So in the interest of staying positive and constructive, I'll say that my next console purchase will be positively blu-ray based. And I've got a XBox 360 with a very-well-constructed but useless addon for sale on ebay right now.

It's obvious and understandable that Microsoft would take some flak as the format war ends with it on the losing side. But, at least for a customer in the US, I think the Video Marketplace is at least as important as high-def optical media.

However, to convince people that Microsoft didn't lose the format war, but merely leapfrogged it, a couple things need to happen. The Video Marketplace lacks many features of its rivals, most notably the iTunes Store. And now that the Apple TV has gotten an upgrade and is actually a viable competitor, it's more important than ever to chug ahead.

International support is very important, as demonstrated by a lot of angry comments. But so is the experience. For instance, there's no way to see what others think of the movie. Will the XNA "peer review" system be extended to other items in the marketplace? I hope so.

The biggest point of all is portability. The iTunes Store has the huge advantage of offering media across three platforms: the computer, the Apple TV (which isn't very big at the moment, but could be), and of course the iPod. Microsoft has the Zune Marketplace for music and the Video Marketplace for the Xbox, but there's no way to watch content bought on the Xbox on your computer. If I were you, that might be my #1 priority.

My biggest concern with all this HD-DVD/Blu-Ray stuff is that game developers will run out of space when developing for the Xbox. Indeed, reports indicate that's already happening. It's too bad.

On the flip side, of course, are little games like JellyCar, which is my new obsession. :D Can't wait for that whole XNA thing to really get going....

I bought an HD DVD drive for my 360 shortly after I got my 1080p tv.  Yes, I won't be able to by future titles in this format, but I will be able to get the ones that are out now and they won't degrade.  Odds are good that the drive won't die in the next 2-3 years where I would have made enough use of it to get my money's worth otu of it.  I dont' feel to bad about the death of hd dvd even though I made a very small investment in it.

"Small investment" is the key here.

I just bought a HD-DVD addon drive for $AUD49, and I've also ordered a bunch of titles for $AUD10, so I now have a High Def player and a collection of movies for under $200, and something to tell the grandkids about :)

First off, you're never going to see digital downloads deliver the same quality as an optical disc.  As was said earlier, there aren't many people willing to download 30GB per movie, at least not on the average $40/US DSL connection.  Fewer still are going to be willing to pay $80/US or more for the connection speed needed to make that download reasonably brief.

Not only that, but I prefer to KEEP my movies, an option Xbox Live doesn't give me.  I have a pretty large DVD collection which will likely switch off to Blu-Ray when more titles come out.  Between the silly limited rotation of films that are rarely 720p and never higher and the gestapo rental terms (seriously, blockbuster is cheaper), there's no way I'm dealing with XBL Video Marketplace, even if I WASN'T waiting THREE MONTHS to get the DRM on my XBLA games reset.  No way in all I'm going to buy a MOVIE with the broken Xbox Live DRM.

As a Singapore/Asia resident and long term Xbox user, the Video Marketplace has got 3 videos listed, and hasn't changed since launch. It's not a viable solution.

Luckily, Bluray has got a piss poor cataloge in shops here for now, but the moment the catalogue gets good, it's time to add a PS3 to the collection.

An absent Bluray drive may not negatively impact the 360, but it will positively impact the PS3, and that can't be a good thing for MS, can it. The PS3 is still the cheapest bluray player and the only future proof one as the BR-J is such a mess, so it's the logical choice for now.

Now, a Bluray drive from MS that connects to both the 360 and the PC, that's something to have in an instant.

I knew full well that there would be a loser and purchased the HD-DVD drive for the 360 with liquid income from selling an original PSP and some games I no longer played.

The fact that it's a device that doesn't take up extra component slots on your TV or switcher and will play the cheapest HD movies on the market makes me a happy consumer. I could care less if it's a dead format at this point. I knew I wasn't going to only buy 1 HD player ever (for the same reason I have like 8 DVD players) and I also knew if HD-DVD flopped there would be fire sales on the movies... which there are... which I am CASHING IN ON!

Also... a Blu-Ray add-on would be a great option... I kinda doubt it's going to happen with BD+ though.

I'd LOVE to see a Blu-Ray add-on, I'd buy it the first day it comes out!

OK, sadly enough I'm considering getting a PS3 now.  I won't buy it until Sept. or Nov. of this year (hoping that prices will ease somewhat).

Why?  The idea that I can get a Blu-Ray player that also "happens" to play video games is compelling.  I'm not all that excited about the PS3 as a gaming platform -- hardly any games on it that I wouldn't rather play on the 360.

Microsoft has its work cut out for it: get a Blu-Ray add-on into store shelves by November '08 -- just in time for the holidays.  Given the current trends, HDMI 1080/24P would be a requirement, not an option.  Bitstream audio?  Ok maybe not... :)

But honestly, folks, everyone should know that seeing a Blu-Ray symbol on any Xbox product signifies the end of the world.  Really.  So stock up on water purifiers and canned foods.