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XBox Adding HD Tuners Next Year

Posted by CmdrTaco on Sun Oct 21, 2007 10:20 AM
from the convergence-or-some-crap dept.
XBox (Games) Entertainment Games
iloveCarla writes "Microsoft is partnering with Toshiba to turn the Xbox into a full fledged HTPC. With built-in HD DVD, a larger hard drive, revamped "MCE" interface, and possibly HDTV tuners, the Xbox would be in a better position to compete against the PS3 in the race to serve as the defacto entertainment hub for couch potatoes. According to the article "The new device is expected to be released late in 2008 or at the 2009 CES show in Las Vegas."
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Submission: New Xbox with HD DVD HDTV tuners coming next year by bogie (31020)
[+] Toshiba Denies 360 With Built-in HD DVD 50 comments
A few days ago we discussed the possibility of Toshiba working on an Xbox 360 with a built-in HD DVD component and HD tuners. Today, GamesIndustry.biz has word from Toshiba denying that they're working on that unit. "'It's got nothing to do with us,' said a spokesperson to gadget site Stuff. 'But we know Microsoft doesn't want to include the HD DVD so as not to limit the user's experience.' Microsoft currently sells the HD DVD player as a separate peripheral for the Xbox 360, and offers various deals for users who want to upgrade their console to a hi-definition movie player."
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  • Who cares? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 21 2007, @10:23AM (#21063169)
    Even if I had a screen big enough to enjoy the real benefit of HD, why the fuck would I want a locked down platform that goes out of its way to restrict my usage?
    • Even if I had a screen big enough to enjoy the real benefit of HD, why the fuck would I want a locked down platform that goes out of its way to restrict my usage?

      Here is one example: The big game recorded off-air in pristine digital HD. Looks damn good in large screen projection - better than DVD video - even with the constraint token enabled.

      No MythBox to assemble. 2-Way CableCard support. Begin the build-up to the match with a good console sports game.

      In this beer and pizza border town that is not a t

    • why the fuck would I want a locked down platform that goes out of its way to restrict my usage?

      Yeah! Why would I want my cable company's dodgy set-top box, when the industry has done everything in its power to weaken the CableCard mandate that would have given us more freedom?

      Oh, were you talking about the X360? Half a dozen of one...

  • Not the enhancement people really want (Score:4, Insightful)

    by jandrese (485) <kensama@vt.edu> on Sunday October 21 2007, @10:30AM (#21063221) Homepage Journal
    The real question is: Will they start making the 360s reliable enough to reduce the failure rate down to something reasonable? I don't really care about HD tuners and stuff like that, what I really care about is will it keep running long enough for me to finish a game before having to send it back to the shop?
    • Microsoft has already done this. They have identified the problem that caused the general hardware failure (insufficient heat dissipation and weak solder) and retooled their assembly line to fix it. Any hardware failures you hear about are older xboxes. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox_360_technical_problems [wikipedia.org] for more info.

          • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

            by grumbel (592662)
            ### It's not "guessing" at all, it's the logical conclusion to draw from the fact that the chips had detached from the motherboard due to overheating and weaker solder.

            Yeah, but how then did it take Microsoft way over a year to figure that one out and (maybe) fix it? Nobody knows the failure rate of currently released XBox360s and plenty of those that Microsoft had 'repaired' after they broke, broke again a while later.

            ### If you're waiting on Microsoft to admit they did something wrong to believe they did

                    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

                      by Pojut (1027544)
                      Well, Firestone's recall in 1978 (after an internal memo recognizing the problem in 1973...1973!) of over 7 million Firestone 500's (which the NHTSA documented 40 or so deaths as a result of the messed up tire)

                      Let's not forget the Firestone/Ford Explorer fiasco. The problem was discovered in 1996, but 6.3 million Wilderness AT, Firestone ATX/ATXII tires were not recalled until the year 2000. And these problems caused DEATHS. Not just minor inconvenience by having to wait for your gaming box to get repaire

  • Adding New Features to Consoles (Score:5, Insightful)

    by usul294 (1163169) on Sunday October 21 2007, @10:31AM (#21063231)
    Adding new features to consoles just makes people who bought 360 early upset. If the HD-DVD had been included since the beginning, I would be buying HD-DVD movies, and I really enjoy my high-def 360 playing when I'm home from school. Well, since my Xbox is off at the repair center for red-ringing, back to my Wii.

    • Re:Adding New Features to Consoles (Score:5, Insightful)

      by MooseMuffin (799896) on Sunday October 21 2007, @10:56AM (#21063441)
      If the HD-DVD had been included since the beginning it would have cost twice as much and most of us probably wouldn't own one.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by vertinox (846076)
        If the HD-DVD had been included since the beginning it would have cost twice as much and most of us probably wouldn't own one.

        I'd have to argue this though, the first DVD player most gamers had was the PS2. Back then VHS was still ok and no one had a need to go out and buy an expensive stand alone DVD player.

        I mean one night we were at the video store and we saw a DVD to rent instead of a VHS and we said to ourselves "Oh, if I only had a DVD player. Oh wait!"

        This really drove the format and many kids with P
        • But the PS2 didn't cost $500. Don't you see the difference. PS2 was able to include the DVD player without adding much to the cost of the console. The PS3 or XBox 360 with HD-DVD are much more expensive than the standard console. So, while it's true that it would be a cheaper HD player, it's still more than most people are willing to pay for HD video. Also, everyone seems to forget that VHS to DVD was a huge leap. DVD to HD, not so much.

        • Re:Adding New Features to Consoles (Score:4, Insightful)

          by toolie (22684) on Sunday October 21 2007, @09:21PM (#21067971)

          I'd have to argue this though, the first DVD player most gamers had was the PS2. Back then VHS was still ok and no one had a need to go out and buy an expensive stand alone DVD player.
          Yeah, but back then everybody had TVs who bought the PS2. Not everybody has a HD-TV. That would make the expense unjustified to some who did buy the 360 already.
      • Not twice, 50% more given that you are either prone to stupid hyperbole or are bad at math.

        The cost was $399 for something worth buying, the $299 model was not. The separate drive was $199, so the total for such a model would have been $599.

        Maybe not standardize on it, but the top model could have had one built in, I would have been willing to pay the extra.
    • Yeah, HD-DVD for movies may be nice if it succeeds but in late 2008-2009 the price of players will probably not be that much anyway and who knows if people care if it's within the console or not.

      For games they are sorta screwed anyway, to add it later will add bulk and look bad.

      At current US prices of 40GB PS3 vs premium 360 I know what I would had choosen, but I'm not intrested in any of them atm, I game to little anyway and still have plenty of DS titles to play. I wonder if PS3 sales will ever kickoff or
      • [quote]If someone upgrades a product you bitch about being an early adopter (The fucking machine is 2 years old, do you think this is the Atari 2600?) if they never upgrade it you scream "Where's the innovation?"
        [/quote]

        When have consoles ever been updated? the PS2 got smaller and integrated IR, that's it. Short obsolescence cycles just piss people off. If these new features are so genius, sit on them and put them in the xbox 720.

        All this is doing for mid-cycle adopters (like me), is making me wait. It'
        • I would argue that 360 will be a third at the end of these consoles life, but only time will tell.

          I would assume that Microsoft will get their next console out before Sony does thought.

  • Well then... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by John Betonschaar (178617) on Sunday October 21 2007, @10:34AM (#21063241)
    .. they'd better also do something about the terrible noise the 360 is producing. There is no way I would use my 360 as an HTPC as long as it produces so much noise. I can live with it when playing games, but when watching a movie I want the silent scenes to be just that: silent.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Cosmic AC (1094985)
      FTA:

      Anothe r[sic] big problem for Microsoft according to insiders is getting the heat and noise output from the current Xbox 360 under control so that the new device can run silently while a movie is being played. It is known that Toshiba has been working with Microsoft on this issue as it has extensive experience in notebooks and "quiet" drives.

  • Better position to compete? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by johannesg (664142) on Sunday October 21 2007, @10:37AM (#21063265)
    Unbelievable - "better position to compete"? Are they so incredibly afraid of Sony, then, despite their enormous lead? Or are things not quite as rosy for the XBox as various sources would have us believe?
    • Actually, it seems like a very good strategy, constantly upgrading the console, you aren't making such big losses on the high end parts, and within a short time you start outdoing your competitors. Does it not seem odd to you, these companies that make a console once in 5 years, wait for it to be completely out of date, and then make a new one that they start by making a hideous loss on.
    • I think the correct response to that would be shocked silence followed by uproarious laughter. That competition is obviously for last place. And Sony is already so far ahead in that competition that no one is going to catch them!
    • Why settle for a win if you can stomp out the competition? The xbox is rather weak if you are of the subset that want it to also be your entertainment center. I don't think they need it, but why give Sony any easy sales at all? There are enough cross-platform games or xbox exclusives that they can easily steal away some of those sales. Market share in the console market is always important, there's no reason for Microsoft to be satisfied - they also have a small competitor in Nintendo. Yeah yeah, different
    • Microsoft wants to own not only the console space, but also the STB space. In front, Microsoft wants to own the entire "computing" and "consumer electronics" markets.

      Imagine this Microsoft Dream World: You use Windows at work, hear about a cool new show, and schedule the recording via your Windows Mobile smartphone, and come home to your XBox, which has recorded all of your TV shows to your Windows Home Server in the closet. You can fire up your Windows Media Center computer, and watch them from there or from the XBox, or sync them to your Zune to watch on the go.

      Microsoft wants to compete with basically every technology company out there. Not necessarily unlike Apple. The goal that both companies have is domination of your computing lifestyle.

      • Re:Better position to compete? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by arkhan_jg (618674) on Sunday October 21 2007, @04:04PM (#21065927)
        Imagine this Microsoft Real World: You use Windows at work, hear about a cool new show, but can't look up anything about it, because your browser been locked down by the domain administrator to stop you visiting personal websites in office hours. You try to schedule the recording via your Windows Mobile smartphone, but there's no cell signal and the battery dies shortly after from the power drain of trying to use it with your work encryption on the wireless.

        You come home to your XBox, which has tried to record all of your previous TV shows, but silently stopped working because it couldn't update the guide data, same as MCE. You spend some time trying to force it to download the guide data from your perfectly good home internet connection, but only a reboot fixes it, for no good reason. Except there's now no list of the failed to record shows so no information to try to manually reschedule a repeat broadcast with. You finally manually schedule that cool new show you wanted, and then you find out the broadcaster has flagged it with the do-not-record marker, and your xbox won't even allow you to record it. You decide to try and watch one of your previously recorded shows, only to find the last 5 minutes has been lost because it screwed up the clock. Again.

        You finally decide to download that cool new show via bittorrent, made harder by the artificial TCP connections limit imposed by microsoft on windows and your ISPs packet throttling. You'd save it to your Windows Home Server in the closet, but the mofo died from overheating in your poorly ventilated closet, and when you try to reinstall you've hit your activation limit. You'd fire up your Windows Media Center computer and watch it from there, but MCE sucks at sharing media with other MCE boxes, and besides, you don't have the codec installed. You try watching it off the Xbox, but it just red-ringed of death from overheating because you left it running all day.

        You give up on TV, and go to check your email, only to find out you've just had your account cancelled by the only ISP in your area for going over your 1GB a day limit on your unlimited super-amazing mega-expensive account, and you've just been sued by viacom for copyright infringement for downloading a show you could have watched on TV if you didn't have to work 14 hours a day to pay for your bandwidth bill and windows licences.

        Welcome to the modern world of digital media.

    • If by "various sources" you mean XBox Fanboiz, then yes. ;)

      XBox360 is the number 2 "next-gen" console. Which is great, but not something Microsoft will be satisfied with. Microsoft is competing to have a set-top box attached to every TV (and, right now, they have a long way to go).

    • They may be ahead in overall numbers, but that's only because the XBox 360 was out a full year earlier than the PS3. Accorinding to this chart [vgchartz.com] the PS3 and the XBox 360 have had pretty much equal sales at the same point in their lifetime.
    • They don't have an enormous lead, at the same month since release they sell quite similair, they just started to get there consoles out 1 year earlier or whatever it was.
  • The one feature that would make the 360 into a descent media centre would be support for SMB (aka Window's) shares, so you can easily access all the media from your PC or NAS. It's the thing that makes XBOX Media Centre rock. No-one wants to be forced to use Media Player 11's crappy media streaming when they could just as easily browse their network shares.
  • beefing up the hardware so it lasts more than six months without getting the 3 rings of death!
  • I sure am glad I rushed out and stood in line to buy the original $460 version, spent another $179 to add an HD-DVD player, and now I get to buy one all over again if I want the extra sexy-ness in a single box version?

  • This generation... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Tol Dantom (1114605) on Sunday October 21 2007, @11:02AM (#21063497) Journal
    I actually really dislike the way this new console generation has gone, and am glad I have held off buying so far. There is way too much SKU shifting, with new better versions constantly being released to one up the other guy and keep the console "relevant". Its all well and good if you don't care and are sitting on the fence, but as a person actually interested in a next generation console instead of dropping a grand on a gaming PC it is really aggravating. Kudos to the Wii for avoiding this, but its not really what I'm looking for.

    Examples of this abound. The one that pisses me off the most is Dual Shock 3. Some of the upgrades have been less than necessary, such as the Elite Xbox SKU, but rumble is a novel game input that you're completely missing out on for no reason if you bought or will buy a PS3 in the next six months. Some weren't even able to make the choice to wait because Sony lied about it.

    Now with the HD tuner incorporated HD DVD Player MP3 jack extravaganda, why buy now? You know there will be a new SKU and it will make your box look like a chump. And this isn't like Apple releasing something new and you're paying opportunity cost (forgetting about the iPhone for a second), because most of these upgrades already exist and are minor. The only difference is if you buy them now you're paying probably twice as much for something that's half as well integrated with the box.

    Maybe I should just buy a Dreamcast...now there's a stable SKU!

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by DrXym (126579)
      I actually really dislike the way this new console generation has gone, and am glad I have held off buying so far. There is way too much SKU shifting, with new better versions constantly being released to one up the other guy and keep the console "relevant". Its all well and good if you don't care and are sitting on the fence, but as a person actually interested in a next generation console instead of dropping a grand on a gaming PC it is really aggravating. Kudos to the Wii for avoiding this, but its not r
    • Death by SKU-SKU!
  • ...to own one of these new 360's you'll need to buy a tv license as if you own any equipment capable of receiving TV signals you need to own a license. That's an extra £130/year (unless of course you have a license anyway).

    Flibberdy
    • Considering that the vast majority of people with a xbox 360 will also have a TV in the first place to plug it into, which is also covered by the TV license requirement, I don't see it being a huge issue. For those that don't, they just need to demonstrate the lack of an aerial and thus lack the capability to receive broadcast TV, to legitimately not buy one.
  • OK, no trolling, I am a happy XBOX owner and play on live.

    BUT: first they should take care of the noise the 360 produces. For me TV/Video watching is completely ruined when you have such a loud fan noise.

    It is an incredible gaming machine, but I better use my 5+ year old DVD player than the 360 because the noise concerns.

    And before you tell me to crank up the volume: every movie has silent/low volume scenes, and usually the ones when there is important conversation or other dramatic parts..... now that is
    • A large number of HD television sets were sold without ATSC tuners. Now that ATSC chip-sets are being produced in large volumes, it's a feature that can be added at a low cost. Might as well throw in support for QAM.
  • The one thing they could do to interest me is offer the ability to interoperate with third party software.

    - Define a set of acceptable video formats that the unit will play, starting with ATSC HDTV formats.

    - Create a simple networking protocol to interact with PCs/Servers. Maybe UPnP is good enough, maybe not. It needs to stream the video and allow for flexible playback (FF/REW, Jump n seconds, jump to this point in time, pause, etc.)

    An HD-DVD player, which could also play games, and can interact with my

  • Haha, I knew it was coming. (Score:4, Informative)

    by Charcharodon (611187) on Sunday October 21 2007, @11:22AM (#21063647)
    Well so much for this generation of consoles being the end all be all "it just works, I don't have to upgrade every year" devices that were supposedly hamering the last nails into the coffin of PC gaming.

    Looks to me like we'll be seeing XBOX and PC gaming being synonymous in the next year or two. They've already got the hardware rating system in Vista as well as USB adapters for their wireless 360 controlers. It's just a matter of adding direct game support for XBOX titles on the PC.

    Considering how fast PC hardware advances in comparison to consoles there is no reason not too. The only thing they'll have to watch out for is letting the software developers get too far head of the average customer's hardware, the very reason many gamers have abandoned PC gaming in the first place.

    Personally I would love to see this since I have already distilled my living room entertainment package down to a PC and a 40" LCD HD TV, and don't care spoil that with the noisy, anemic, unreliable, one trick pony, 360, just to be able to play the few console titles I'm interested in.

    • Looks to me like we'll be seeing XBOX and PC gaming being synonymous in the next year or two.
      Great. That already ruined Oblivion.

  • HDTV Tuners? (Score:2, Informative)

    by zbend (827907)
    Cable cards? Last time I checked, besides over the air or unencrypted HD, the only way devices that can record HD content from your cable or satellite provider is with a cable card. If there is anything that's had more hardware problems than the xbox, without any of the popularity, its cable cards. Until that whole situation gets figured out I don't see anyone providing a good HD DVR.
  • Like, yeah, I'd use one of these as my living room hub of choice, if it didn't blow or suck quite as much. ;-) The noise these things put out is phenomenal, and then there's the noise from the DVD drive. I have multi-core boxes running serious number cruching apps that are quieter.

    Nah, living room entertainment centre? Don't think so somehow.

  • PS3 TV (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Doc Ruby (173196) on Sunday October 21 2007, @12:59PM (#21064439) Homepage Journal
    The PS3 needs help developing native X drivers that work on the Cell's SPEs [google.com]. Linux currently runs on the PS3 Cell's PPC core, but that doesn't even have the accelerated graphics that cheap PCs have on their videocards (the PS3 RSX is locked out to Linux). The SPEs are so much more powerful, and designed for exactly the pixel pushing that X needs. Once they're running instead of sitting there, the PS3 will be by far the best $600 HD terminal out there. Especially with home theater/automation systems on it like LinuxMCE [linuxmce.com]. But it needs help across that basic milestone.

  • history (Score:3, Interesting)

    by smash (1351) <jethro.rose@gmai l . c om> on Sunday October 21 2007, @01:04PM (#21064479) Homepage Journal
    As anyone with a passing knowledge of consoles should know - this will flop.

    Just ask sega about how well console "upgrades" sell - eg MegaCD, 32X, etc.

  • Implications for Intel (Score:3, Interesting)

    by symbolset (646467) on Sunday October 21 2007, @03:56PM (#21065847) Journal

    With their crapulent MCE OS offerrings MS has just about convinced Intel there is no market for HTPC. Now we find that MS wants the whole market with its non-Intel XBox.

    Will Intel respond with some non-Microsoft developments, or will they surrender another market to the Beast of Redmond?

    Ultimately Microsoft has to take ownership of the entire PC hardware market if they are to sustain growth. They are already an OEM of desktop PCs in India. If they take the consumer electronics space also there's nothing left but servers. How long before they're drooling over that high margin business?

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by ricebowl (999467)

      They need to make an Xbox 360 that sells for no more than $300, and includes at least a 40GB hard drive. Then they need to get more and better games.

      I'd tend to agree with the suggestions that improvement of the console is required to maintain interest, that a larger hard-drive, or allowing the use of any, generic, hard drive would be a vast improvement, particularly for games developers (if they could count on a hard drive being present then I suspect games might stream slightly better without so many obv

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