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XBox (Games) Data Storage Entertainment Games Hardware

Xbox 360 to have HD-DVD, Eventually 409

Posted by timothy from the 360-view-of-nothing-yet dept.
thebaboon writes "Bill Gates announced that the Xbox 360 will have an HD-DVD drive, just not for launch. From the article: "According to the statements made by Bill Gates in Japan, Xbox 360, the new gaming console, will include HD-DVD drives. Considering that such a decision would postpone the launching date, Microsoft will equip the initial models with classic DVD drives, and only after the new HD-DVD are ready, the Xbox will incorporate them."
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Xbox 360 to have HD-DVD, Eventually More

Xbox 360 to have HD-DVD, Eventually

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  • Not very smart (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Punboy ( 737239 ) on Saturday July 30, 2005 @10:48PM (#13205390) Homepage
    This will make fewer people buy the 1st gen, and instead wait for the 2nd gen. Nobody wants to have to pay for an entirely new console to get the HD-DVD functionality. Unless they somehow release an upgrade to the 1st gen boxes, this is REALLY dumb.

    • This will make fewer people buy the 1st gen, and instead wait for the 2nd gen. Nobody wants to have to pay for an entirely new console to get the HD-DVD functionality. Unless they somehow release an upgrade to the 1st gen boxes, this is REALLY dumb.

      If the goal is the establish the "HD-DVD" standard to win over "Blu-Ray" then it makes sense. Unlike for a personal computer, both movie players and entertainment consoles are entertainment related and people don't seem to be as careful about issues such as for

      • Re:Not very smart (Score:4, Insightful)

        by timeOday ( 582209 ) on Saturday July 30, 2005 @11:22PM (#13205536)
        people don't seem to be as careful about issues such as forward compatability or even value for their money.
        The whole beauty of the console is that if you buy a game for your console, it actually WORKS. If Microsoft does this, the word XBox2 won't mean anything - you have to specify XBox2-v1 vs XBox2-HD or something. I don't think people want such subtleties in a console, it leads to tantrums on Christmas morning when Johnnie's new game won't load.
        • the word XBox2 won't mean anything - you have to specify XBox2-v1 vs XBox2-HD

          Actually, that's all complete gibberish. However Xbox360-v1 vs Xbox360-HD would make more sense ;)

          The whole beauty of the console is that if you buy a game for your console, it actually WORKS

          Like Everquest Online for PS2? Oh wait....

        • Re:Not very smart (Score:4, Insightful)

          by Wesley Felter ( 138342 ) <wesley@felter.org> on Saturday July 30, 2005 @11:44PM (#13205626) Homepage
          Xbox 360 games must be on DVD; they cannot be on HD-DVD. Thus there is no problem.

          • Re:Not very smart (Score:3, Interesting)

            by schtum ( 166052 )
            You realize that means that PS2 games on Blu-Ray discs will blow Xbox360 games out of the water in terms of graphics and features, right? I'm sure Sony will make sure something really stunning is available at launch just to make Xbox owners cry.

            Hilarious. MS is shooting themselves in the foot on features, Sony is shooting themselves in the foot on price, and Nintendo suddenly looks like the little engine that could, or the tortoise racing two hares.
        • I completely agree with you. However, I think the game designers will also agree with you. Coupled with the facts that games just don't take up more space than a DVD can hold, it seems extremely unlikely that any game maker is going to put out a game on HD-DVD.

          There's simply very little reason to do it, and a lot of good reasons NOT to do it. What game designers want to piss off all the early adopters of a platform? (And that's exactly who they'd piss off if they came out with a HD-DVD only game).
    • This will be very interesting. I think MS's plan is to release before the PS3 no matter what. However, they may be cutting off a lot of potential sales and cause the PS3 to leap ahead when it launches.

      At the end of the day it will be IBM that wins regardless :D
    • They could always sell the early units with a 'coupon' for a 'free' upgrade to a HD-DVD when they become available.. that would cost a bunch of money, though.

    • Re:Not very smart (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Wesley Felter ( 138342 ) <wesley@felter.org> on Saturday July 30, 2005 @11:00PM (#13205447) Homepage
      Come on, you know the fanboys will be lined up at midnight to buy 360s. I suspect quite a few people either don't have HDTVs or don't use their Xbox to watch movies anyway.
    • I guess that depends. The vast majority of people who don't have HD-TVs just for their kids to play games on could probably care less.
    • While Japan is real big on the "console that does everything" in a large part because apartments tend to be small, that's not such an issue in the states. People will be willing to have a device for palying games, and a device for playing DVDs, and so on. Everyone I know that owns one or more game consoles also owns a seperate DVD player, though the new consoles could do that, if they wanted it to.

      An upgrade is certianly an option too, bring your box to an authorized dealer, they upgrade it, maybe for free,
      • That's plenty for the forseeable future of games.

        That sounds remarkably like "640K is enough for anyone".

        I have a two DVD console game (from Squaresoft), so it's getting there.

      • HD-DVD "Games" are the problem (Score:5, Informative)

        by cgenman ( 325138 ) on Saturday July 30, 2005 @11:30PM (#13205576) Homepage
        I've written this before, but there are a million ways to fill a HD-DVD. You could, for example, render out a version of all of your textures with time-of-day effects, and swap between them mid-game. You could add modifiers to all of your audio streams to get audio for various locations. You could pregen background or in-game assets, like applying a movie to a wall texture to make it appear that it has more depth than it does. You could pregenerate a thousand different havok crash animations, and randomly select between them. You can use a slow algorithm to populate a forest, make a few large-scale, adjustments, and save out the results as a sectionally loaded world the size of montana.

        When the transition was made between CD and DVD games, it was said that a DVD would never be filled. Well, they're filled. And BTW, nobody would accept a Dual-Sided DVD. Do you know how annoying it would be to be told every few minutes to flip your disk over?

        The question, really, is will anyone release games on HD-DVD instead of DVD? I'm betting so, as there will be blue-ray games getting ported from the PS3. And when that happens, whoever bought the DVD version of the Xbox will be screwed out of playing the lastest Final Fantasy, or Gran Turismo 5, or Fable 2.

        As a HD-DVD player I could care less. But as a game console that is supposed to play HD-DVD games, this will anger a lot of suddenly ex-customers.

        • Really, this isn't hard to understand.

        • Re:HD-DVD "Games" are the problem (Score:4, Informative)

          by Sycraft-fu ( 314770 ) on Saturday July 30, 2005 @11:58PM (#13205695)
          All you ideas are interesting, but you quickly discover they aren't worthwhile in a game, epsically one on modren hardware like the Xbox is going to have. You just can't render enough textures to truly account for every situation, every angle, etc, and even if you could you can't swap it off disc fast enough (HDs are too slow for it and DVDs make them look downright speedy). So what you do instead is write mathematical formulas that describe the surface, and have the card render them. That's the procedural textures you often hear about.

          Net result is the textures look more real, and properly react to the environment, they change as the light does and so on. That's actually how it's nearly always done on for high-end rendering. You don't texture map something, that won't look good, instead you use material shaders to describe the surfaces, and the engine calculates how it all looks.

          For games this kind of thing is still in it's infancy, but it's growing fast and will be big on next gen consoles. On the Xbox, the graphics card had the capability to do this, but in a pretty limited capacity, so it only got used for certian things (like a specular layer or for water or something). The 360 is on par with the latest nVidia 7000 series chips, and it has the shaders to do a whole ot of this.

          Sound is likewise handled like this. The sound processor convolutes teh sound in realtime in reaction to the environment. That actually works really well even on older hardware like the Xbox. It'l even take in to account the number and locations of your speakers if you like.

          I'm not saying it's impossible to fill a DVD, but doesn't seem likely. Like I said, average game today is running maybe 3-4 CDs in size. You get about 12 CDs worth of space on a DL DVD, so that's some room to grow.

          • Re:HD-DVD "Games" are the problem (Score:5, Insightful)

            by The Only Druid ( 587299 ) on Sunday July 31, 2005 @01:30AM (#13206038)
            "Net result is the textures look more real, and properly react to the environment, they change as the light does and so on. That's actually how it's nearly always done on for high-end rendering. You don't texture map something, that won't look good, instead you use material shaders to describe the surfaces, and the engine calculates how it all looks."

            Except you're wrong. Most textures in the highest resolution systems (e.g. movies, etc.) are most certainly NOT procedural. They're just extremely high-resolution texture maps (including high-resolution normal and bump maps).

            Procedural textures are extremely important and useful, but there are certain effects (such as the texturing of a face - which requires coloring specific to the contours of a face, etc.) that are not viable via procedural textures but are easily accomplished with high-res textures. Your comments indicate that you don't understand the workflow involved in high-end rendering, much less games (which involve more texture mapping and less procedural texturing than film work).

            • Re:HD-DVD "Games" are the problem (Score:4, Interesting)

              by Sycraft-fu ( 314770 ) on Sunday July 31, 2005 @07:43AM (#13206926)
              No I understand it quite well, you seem to have a concept of how things were done a couple years ago. Yes, games like Deus Ex did the high-res texture trick you talk about, detail textures I believe they were called. You'd get close to an object, they'd render another layer of textures to give additonal detail. Of course this still isn't what the GP was talking about, this was another layer of rendering.

              Now normal mapping is something else entirely. That's an operation to fake geometry, more or less. Tou design a high detail model, then you cut it way down so it can work well on a graphics card. Then you use a normal map to fill in the missing detail, which it does faily well.

              Also I'd note normal mapping in games is exceedingly rare these days.

              Now you are correct in that there are methods for using modified texture mapping to do high resolution renderings, such a thing was done in Fight Club for the apartment scenes. However that isn't the direction computer games are moving. They come from a realm of nothing but texture maps. The orignal 3d games were just mapped textures and a light map on that. Not until the GeForce 3 genrations of cards could you get mathematical textures. As time goes on cards get better and better at this (having more powerful pixel shaders is a big thing) and games go over to it.

              It's not supprising, space aside, games have demands movies don't. In a movie, you know the lighting, the camera angles, etc. So you can work on your textures and have them right for what you are doing. Not the case in a game, people can wander aroundand do as they please. A texture needs to look good from all arbitrary angles, not just one. The lighting can change as well, as the environment is dynamic. Thus it makes a lot of sense to use procedural textures.

              In some cases it's real simple. World of Warcraft basicaly throws a specular shader on a bunch of stuff to make it shiny. Cheap trick, but nice visualy. Doom 3 makes far greater use to get reflections off of surfaces to look somewhat correct.

              Regardless of all this, the point stands. You go ahead and render every texture and light combination perfectly form every angle. You aren't streaming that off DVD in a fashion to make a game playable. It needs to be done in realtime in hardware.
        • And BTW, nobody would accept a Dual-Sided DVD. Do you know how annoying it would be to be told every few minutes to flip your disk over? Someone's never owned an Apple II...

        • Re:HD-DVD "Games" are the problem (Score:5, Insightful)

          by snorklewacker ( 836663 ) on Sunday July 31, 2005 @12:50AM (#13205897)
          > I've written this before, but there are a million ways to fill a HD-DVD.

          You mention a dozen esoteric ways to fill a HD-DVD except the obvious one:

          Full motion video at 1080p
          • "You mention a dozen esoteric ways to fill a HD-DVD except the obvious one:

            Full motion video at 1080p"

            Unlikely. We're not seeing much FMV these days. Short of teasers and intros, most of that stuff is done in real time. It's a lot easier and cheaper to let the 3D engine handle that stuff than it is to get high quality CG rendered video at that res and frame rate. In the case of pre-rendered FMV, a simple "move the character a little to the right" operation can be a huge expenediture in time and rendering
      • Yes, but at the same time all these games are going to have better graphics, with support for higher resolution, which means higher quality textures, which means way larger disc space. Remember if you double the resolution of a texture, you quadruple the file size. Things can add up real fast.

      • Re:No, probably work fine in America at least (Score:4, Insightful)

        by javaxman ( 705658 ) on Sunday July 31, 2005 @01:22AM (#13206014) Journal
        While Japan is real big on the "console that does everything" in a large part because apartments tend to be small, that's not such an issue in the states.

        There is one thing we're pretty sensitive to here in the states, though- actually, much more sensitive to than the Japanese: being screwed over by being the early adopter. It's bad enough to know that HDTV prices are going to drop, which is certainly keeping a decent number of folks away from those; here we have an example of a product that not only might see superior competition released in another six months ( competition which will play all those PS2 games you have sitting around ), but definitely will be supplanted by a superior model in another 6 months. It's like buying a computer, except you don't _have_ to buy it to get your project done.

        As such, if MS is worried they might not have a great supply of these things in the first 6 months, this might stem demand.

        IF, on the other hand, they really want people to buy them the minute they're available, they need to spell out what the upgrade path is and make the cost known up-front. This makes me really NOT want to buy a 360. I was thinking about it before, but you know what? Maybe I'll wait until PS3s are available in the wild, and can be compared side-to-side with an Xbox 360 with HD-DVD, so I can make a more informed decision about which to buy.

        An upgrade is certianly an option too, bring your box to an authorized dealer, they upgrade it, maybe for free, maybe for a small charge.

        You're dreaming if you think a new HDDVD for the 360 will be a cheap option, and you're crazy if you think it's going to be free. Sorry, that's just silly to say.

        It's just hard to generate that much data for a game. You can only develop so much content on a reasonable budget.

        Who ever said anything about games developed on a resonable budget? Those will still be current-generation games, for the most part... this generation of console games are going to have budgets that dwarf those of many smaller movies, and are going to include lots and lots of HD movie content ( which, now that you mention it, isn't necessarily super-expensive to create, but these will be crazy-big-budget games). That'll fill up an HD-DVD real fast, all that HD video.

        I think any disadvantage of having peopel wait will be compensated by being first to market.

        Game console history is littered with the dead, forgotten bodies of the first-to-market. Knowing a more capable XBox will be released in 6 months or so of the original, and that games might be released that the original can't play... those are concepts that make me really NOT want to buy an Xbox. Sure, if I have plenty of cash burning a hole in my pocket, maybe... but maybe I'd sink it into a gaming PC or graphics card instead. As it is, I'm like most Americans, and I can't afford to spend hundreds and hundreds of dollars on every game console that comes out, just to line Microsoft's pockets... I'll be waiting and watching, looking to compare the Xbox 360 HD-DVD directly with the PS3 Blu-Ray. No, it won't be about the disc format, it'll be about the games... but even if I had been thinking I'd for sure buy the 360, I think knowing the HD-DVD version would be out within a year might make me think twice...

    • Right, it doesn't make much sense. Even though many people may not actually use it, the big plus on a console is that they're only making games for one set of hardware. Even though this is only the media that it is going to use, and even though people may swear that there's barely any chance it could have an effect for future games, the lifecycle of a console can be very long, and we have no idea how things are going to nut out over the next four to five years.

      The only thing I can see working is if people

    • Rock and a hard place (Score:3, Insightful)

      by darkonc ( 47285 )
      If they start releasing titles on HD-DVD, then the people who bought early on will be frozen out unless they fork out an extra couple hundred dollars for the upgrade (can you spell pised off?? I can't).

      If, on the other hand, they don't release titles on HD-DVD, then the people who pay extra for the later models that come with hd-dvd are going to be wondering why they paid extra for a pink-elephant hardware 'feature'.

      • they'll just include both versions for the few games that'll actually use 30+ gigs. A dual layer dvd is 9 gigs after all, 3 or 4 extra 20 cent dvds aren't that big a deal, kinda like the good old days when games came on 3 1/2 and 5 1/4 floppies.
    • "This will make fewer people buy the 1st gen, and instead wait for the 2nd gen."

      So will a higher price and a later launch date.

    • Feature by feature, they're just going for the TV-based computer...

      People will still buy first gen, because most people DON'T CARE. Those that wait still fall into the general goal.

  • YAY! (Score:4, Funny)

    by Evilhomer2300 ( 900004 ) <crn2&comcast,net> on Saturday July 30, 2005 @10:48PM (#13205392)
    Yay! I just paid out my rear end for this new 360, and now, a BETTER ONE is released later on. I'll just buy a new one, cause I have so much money. It's sorta like the plus pack for Windows XP, only this upgrade is worth more then half a soggy cookie.

  • Yep... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Nexum ( 516661 ) on Saturday July 30, 2005 @10:48PM (#13205394)
    ... there's nothing so bright as selling a console where some users have different capabilities than others.

    Potential to fragment and confuse the XBox 360 market.

    • Re:Yep... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by BackInIraq ( 862952 ) on Sunday July 31, 2005 @12:51AM (#13205901)
      ... there's nothing so bright as selling a console where some users have different capabilities than others.

      Potential to fragment and confuse the XBox 360 market.

      The funny part is that in the current generation they were the only one of the three that DIDN'T fracture their market this way...by shipping all Xboxes with ethernet and a hard drive standard, they made sure that everybody had the same console, so that software publishers could target those features knowing that they'd be aiming for the -entire- market. There's a reason networking never really took off for PS2 and GameCube in this generation, and I'll be interested to see how successful HD-DVD is for the Xbox in the next.

      • Re:Yep... (Score:3, Insightful)

        by badasscat ( 563442 )
        There's a reason networking never really took off for PS2 and GameCube in this generation

        The PS2 has always led the Xbox in online users by about a factor of four to one. The service being free certainly helps...

        In fact, I disagree with your suggestion that MS didn't "fracture the market" with the way they implemented networking - because you have to pay, on an ongoing basis, to enable that feature on your box. Many people (more than 90% of Xbox users, by MS's own numbers) have chosen not to do so. So, t
  • Yep, that's brilliant. Completely screw all the die-hards that buy early or pre-order machines, so they don't get a feature that'll be a major selling point a while down the road. Sounds like the wrong way to market a console to me.

    • Completely screw all the die-hards that buy early or pre-order machines, so they don't get a feature that'll be a major selling point a while down the road.
      Pff.. HD-DVD is going to be a hard sell to the vast majority of consumers. Everyone already has DVD players, and no one wants to upgrade to HD-DVD because they don't even have a high-definition screen to take advantage of it. DVD is at the "good enough" stage right now. That might not be the case in say 5-10 years, but I find it doubtfull that many s

      • Well, my guess is that Blu-Ray is going to be the "winner", or that some compromise will be made and all players will support both BR and HD-DVD. In either case, I'm not willing to bet with my dollars, so the PS3 having Blu-Ray from the start is going to mean I can experiment with BR titles without having to buy a new separate player. For HD-DVD, I'm just going to wait. I wasn't going to get an XBox360 anyway, since I have a bunch of PS2 games I'll still want to play, but not having at least one of the n

  • Who would buy an early XBOX 360 in this case? Assuming you just have to be first, doesn't this also raise problems regarding compatibility? As soon as consoles become anything less than completely standardized (except for addons), their main advantage over computers goes, since it becomes harder and harder to guarantee compatibility. Not to mention that, as far as I've seen, there is no way to upgrade parts (such as a video card) in any console. I really wonder what MS was thinking with this one...
    • Um, you could upgrade the HD in the PS2 and xbox i think... i dunno, i own neither.
    • MS can mandidate that all games be released on DVDs, not HD-DVDs. Remember that console manufacturers maintain basically complete control over the distribution. all games have to be licensed to run on the consoles. Back in the NES days a couple non-approved carts were released that figured out a way around the protection. These days it won't work on a non-hacked console, never mind the huge lawsuit. So, regardless of the console you publish for, you have to play by the rules of the console maker.

      That's why
      • Remember that console manufacturers maintain basically complete control over the distribution. all games have to be licensed to run on the consoles.....These days it won't work on a non-hacked console, never mind the huge lawsuit.

        And why do gamers accept this? This would be the same as MS coming along and saying "Oh you can't play games under our operating system unless we grant you a license." No-one would stand for that. Same with DVD-player-companies saying "You can only release DVDs that will work in

        • Same with DVD-player-companies saying "You can only release DVDs that will work in our players if you are given a license from us."

          DVD technology is patented. It already needs a license.

        • Console gamers don't give a crap about it. They want to play the games on what they think is the best console of the time. Game developers can either accept it or not publish for that platform. For them, the money is more than worth the loss of control.
    • Microsoft's a doer, not a thinker. That's what got them where they are today.

  • Then I'll wait (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Nightspirit ( 846159 )
    Then why buy one initially, unless you can't wait a few months?

    Unless they have some sort of free "upgrade" offer...
    • "Then why buy one initially, unless you can't wait a few months?"

      Ask the four million jackasses that bought a PS2 after it launched even though there were no real interesting launch titles. A lot of people don't want to wait a few months, they want it now now now.

      Okay, it was harsh of me to call them jackasses. I just don't understand why somebody would spend $300-$400 in a system like it's some sort of investment, but not wait until the games you want to play are actually out in stores. I made this mist
  • 64DD, anyone?

  • Perfect Plan! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by AnswerIs42 ( 622520 ) on Saturday July 30, 2005 @10:51PM (#13205409) Homepage
    1) Release 360 for Holiday Season
    2) ?
    3) Profit!
    4) RE-Release 360 Later with HD-DVD
    5) MORE Profit!

    All the more reason I WON'T be getting a 360 till about a year after release. Heck, I didn't get an X-Box till about 7 months ago.
    • I think step 3 should be "lose money on every console" and step 5 should be "lose MORE money on every console".
    • Ding! With PS3 claiming a 10-year life span, Sony will be counting on software for profit for 10 years, much like the current generation (though not as long a life cycle). They've already said the PS3 will be more expensive than PS2's launch price, mostly due to all the technology in it (HD support, BD-ROM, etc.).

      With 360, though, MS will be able to sell the 1st gen box at less (though probably still a loss) and enjoy a price difference now, then when the technology is mature and needs to be added, sell t
  • ...Foot, Gun, Shoot!

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Saturday July 30, 2005 @10:55PM (#13205421)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • While it might seem you have a point here, it is not actually the same:

      1) The Sega CD was an optinal add on rather than a whole new console.

      2) Only if you actually wanted CDs did you need to upgrade. You could still do everything with cartridges as per normal - hence no need to upgrade for "normal sega" functionality.

      3) There was not a simultaneously released (big player anyway) console that HAD the functionality already.

      I am not rich enough to have a HDTV anyway. Poor me. :)

  • It will kill all initial sales (Score:4, Interesting)

    by fsterman ( 519061 ) on Saturday July 30, 2005 @10:58PM (#13205432) Homepage
    Loss of initial sales means fewer number on the market. The fewer on the market means that developers have less reason to make games for that consol, and with less games it will mean fewer buyers.

    A similar occurance with the DreamCast. Fewer people bought it and was waiting for the "vastly more powerful" PS2. Now Sega no longer makes a console thanks to the above cycle.

  • Yeah, right... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Zen Punk ( 785385 )
    Maybe they will, they probably won't. I remember the rumours about Dreamcast and it's supposed DVD drive. Even after it came out people were speculating about a possible upgrade to DVD. Remember how the PS2 HD, which wasn't packaged in, took off like a fucking rocket? Yeah, this'll be just like that except even better.

  • The Osborne effect (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Wizzmer ( 862755 ) on Saturday July 30, 2005 @11:07PM (#13205470)
    Sounds like Bill is doing an Osborne (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osborne_effect [wikipedia.org])

  • Makes sense to me... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by ThePatrioticFuck ( 640185 ) on Saturday July 30, 2005 @11:13PM (#13205490)
    I think MS may be hedging their bets on this one. There's still a ton of talk going on about which format to go with as the standard (HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray vs. some hybrid version). By holding off a bit, they still get to market ahead of Sony and depending on when/if a format is chosen, they can put out a drive that is supported by the 360 with a simple software update. If they put in an HD-DVD drive now, they're stuck with it (and possible a dead format).

  • Hardware fragmentation (Score:4, Interesting)

    by xswl0931 ( 562013 ) on Saturday July 30, 2005 @11:15PM (#13205509)
    I think some of you are over reacting over the news that future XBox360's will incorporate a HD-DVD. Considering that 99% of game barely use the space on a single DVD (I'm not sure if any use dual layer DVDs). It's likely that XBox 360 games will only come out on DVD. I suspect that there will be two different SKUs for the XBox 360, one with the DVD drive and the other with HD-DVD. And the HD-DVD one will cost more for those who want it.

    • DVD space usage (Score:2, Informative)

      by dafing ( 753481 )
      Im sure many games are close to filling a DVD, once when I had my Grand Theft Auto San Andrea ps2 disc in my computer, it showed up as using something like 7GB, sorry I cant be specific on exact usage. This is surely dual layer. I hear xbox discs have around 6GB of storage, so all xbox discs must be dual layer?
    • Have an HD-DVD so they can carelessly hog as much space with high-res cut scenes and such might be a little too tempting for game studios...
    • Team ninja has has people talking publicly about lack of space for their DoA games on a 'tiny DVD'. When you have major developers for your console out in public saying they might just forget developing for you console -- it's a big deal.

      The problem is many Japanese developers like having HD quality cutscenes, and they can fill a lot of DVDs.

      ( DoA is the only title that sold well on xbox in Japan. Japan is the #2 games market, so do the math. )
  • WTF was BillG thinking?

    Obviously he wasn't.

    If Halo 3 is a launch title, then that will help the sales of the 360, however I'm not sure that it would be enough to get me to invest in a system that will be obsolete in a year.

    I can't wait to see what Penny Arcade says about it. You know they will :)

  • News wrong and over 1month old (Score:5, Informative)

    by NiteStar ( 628233 ) on Saturday July 30, 2005 @11:24PM (#13205542) Journal
    Wha! Slashdot did it again. http://news.softpedia.com/news/The-Microsoft-Toshi ba-HD-DVD-Alliance-Changes-Xbox-360-3902.shtml [softpedia.com] This article was posted on 28th of June 2005, 16:45 GMT ... juNE juNE juNE. On a 2nd note ... softpedia is wrong too. Bill Gates said it (over 1 month ago): ``The initial shipments of Xbox 360 will be based on today's DVD format,'' Gates said. ``We are looking at whether future versions of Xbox will incorporate an additional capability of an HD DVD player or something else.'' It's not confirmed what-so-ever! see: http://news.teamxbox.com/xbox/8591/Xbox-360-Might- Incorporate-HD-DVD-Drive/ [teamxbox.com] or http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000101&si d=aIoj6W6mNl_M&refer=japan [bloomberg.com]
  • but in my mind this almost ensures that Blueray (ps3?) is going to be the 'real' HD dvd standard. This doesn't seem like a lack of available tech issue (I mean, comeon - they are custom building everything else in the box - how is designing a HD DVD reader any different if they have a known spec?). It looks like MS lacks confidence in the disc format and is consequentially playing it safe.

  • What is it with these corporate heads these days? Do they have so much hubris that they don't care about "the Osborne effect" anymore? First it was Jobs with the Macintosh platform Intel switcher-roo, and now its Gates with this announcement. Doing this never works out in the game industry. Its like driving nails into the coffin. People have already cited the Dreamcast/DVD fiasco, so I won't spend extra space addressing that.

    At this point, Microsoft should delay the console's debut until HD-DVD is read

  • I see it as smart. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by standards ( 461431 ) on Saturday July 30, 2005 @11:55PM (#13205679)
    Releasing the XBox without HD-DVD will permit the delivery of the games and consoles many many months before the delivery of the PS3 . And the lack of HD-DVD will negatively impact very few users - please recall that few world-wide households have HDTV - less than 1%! And about zero percent have HD-DVD discs.

    Microsoft is playing second fiddle now, and it's XBox division WILL die if it doesn't improve its very disappointing numbers. Microsoft requires the advantage of delivering significantly before Sony. If it means that HD-DVD comes in as an upgrade, so be it.

    Will some people want HD-DVD? Yes. But those people who can actually use the technology are in the very very distant minority.
    • And the lack of HD-DVD will negatively impact very few users - please recall that few world-wide households have HDTV - less than 1%!

      The number of HD sets in the US is about 10 million or so. Using the "worldwide" numbers is kind of misleading, as I suspect that it includes a few billion people that might have access to a TV but won't be able to buy a game console even if they wanted one.

    • Re:I see it as smart. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Dryth ( 544014 ) on Sunday July 31, 2005 @01:08AM (#13205960)

      And the lack of HD-DVD will negatively impact very few users - please recall that few world-wide households have HDTV - less than 1%! And about zero percent have HD-DVD discs.

      HD-DVD != HDTV. It's a higher capacity format, and while the specification does include higher resolutions for HD-DVD video, the higher capacity (and perhaps bandwidth) is more relevant to gaming. The problem is it would create two classes of Xbox 360s, meaning older consoles would need to be physically upgraded to play new content on HD-DVDs.

      Where HDTV is concerned, at last check roughly 10% of households in America have HDTVs. These are individuals willing to spend more money on their entertainment technology and willing early adopters; this is exactly a company selling gaming devices would be targeting.

  • Does anyone else think MS might be trying to use Xbox 360 to try to get WMV accepted over H.264 as the standard HD-DVD codec?

  • The Osborne Effect (Score:4, Informative)

    by nathanh ( 1214 ) on Sunday July 31, 2005 @12:13AM (#13205756) Homepage

    A number of people have already commented that this is a dumb marketing move - announcing "a better product coming out Real Soon now" - because at least some purchasers will wait rather than buy the first generation and get an inferior product.

    This marketing mistake has a name; The Osborne Effect [wikipedia.org]. Apparently an urban legend but never the less a good one, it describes how a similar announcement crippled Osborne Computers in the 1980s. Nice to know that even 20 years later, Microsoft is still copying ideas from competitors <g>.

  • Can you buy HD-DVDs in the stores right now? No? What's the fuss about. Right now there isn't even much beyond a few proposed standards that hollywood has not even begun to think about supporting yet. DVDs are so common now, why would it make sense to move beyond the format and gamble on something that may or may not be the next betamax? Hopefully a DVD drive will lower the 360 costs and also allow M$ to make a preemptive strike. I honesty don't think that many games need more than a DVD of data and in the
  • Uh, yeah, sure. I hang on his every word. He's always been such a reliable indicator of what Microsoft was about to do.

    Reasonable people will wait and evaluate what actually shows up in stores (and WHEN that happens). MS burned its creds years ago.
  • Isn't the whole point of a video game console to have standardized hardware?

    Otherwise if the parts are continually different and developers need to consider that, isn't it no different from a PC?

    -M
  • With the PS3 likely shipping with Blu-Ray, does this even matter anymore?

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