Microsoft Shows Off 360 HD-DVD Drive

C|Net is reporting on a demo Microsoft put on, showing off their HD-DVD drive for the Xbox 360. The unit, which is expected out for the Christmas season, is an external add-on for the company's next-gen console. From the article: "The device--about the size of a hardback book--played "The Phantom of the Opera" as Collins pulled up a menu bar to display a few of its navigation and interactive features that can be called up on screen while a movie is playing. Collins said Microsoft's HD DVD drive will be among the least expensive of the HD DVD players, but he declined to disclose the drive's retail price."

Price point

[The_Pariah]

Retail price is said, from MS, to be that of the lowest priced HD-DVD players at that time.

Being that all the movie processing is done thru the Xbox, the manufacturing has to be fairly cheap with a lot less hardware. And since HD-DVD players can be had at $500 today, I'm guessing a $200 price point. Take in mind MS would NOT want to sell their console and an aftermarket HD player that would cost MORE than a PS3 that has similar capabilities.

Props to MS if they sell the player under $200. Otherwise they're inviting the HD addicts who haven't bought next gen to purcahse the PS3 to get a "better" deal.

I Wonder

[MBCook]

I've read that the drive only does the reading, all the processing takes place in the 360. That's kind of interesting. However, I read a comment some where that I'd like to reprint (paraphrased or so):

I wonder if they will let you play games with it?

Now they've said "no games on HD-DVD" (which frankly I expect them to change in a few years). But what about normal XBox games in there? Wouldn't it be nice to be able to put one game in the 360 (like Dead Rising) and another in the HD-DVD drive (like PGR3)? Then you could choose either one when the console starts up. I'd love to be able to do that with my PS2 and Guitar Hero. It would save me quite a bit of disc swapping.

And there is no technical reason they couldn't.

Re:Cheapest HD-DVD player

[laxcat]

Seriously though, unless the addon is less than $200, (which it almost cirtainly won't be), Microsoft is going to loose their ability to knock the PS3 as being overpriced. I understand its nice to give gamers the choice, but if you actaully want an Hi Def DVD player (I do, and I don't think I'm alone), the PS3 will actaully look like a really good deal in comparison to the 360+HD-DVD.

Who knew I'd ever use the words "PS3" and "good deal" in the same sentence?

And that's not to mention all the other superior fetures... bigger hard drive, more advanced CPU, HDMI, etc, etc, etc. Could it be that "crazy ol' Sony" actaully took the right path in this high end market? I doubted along with the rest, but seeing Microsoft present the alternative really makes me wonder.

Meh

[pedropolis]

So, $399.99 for a new 360 with HDMI output (needed for the ubershizzle HD-DVD) plus another, what, $199.99 for the HD-DVD player? Wow, comes to the same price as a PS3 - only that's an all-in-one system with complete compatability with both PS1 and PS2 games. If Sony takes a beating over that price point, then it's only fair to batter MS for arriving at the same price. Oh, and if that snazzy HD-DVD player costs more than $199.99, then it's game over man.

I love options

[The_Pariah]

Next gen games don't NEED higher capacity discs than DVD9 discs.

Therefore, I LOVE the option of deciding if I _want_ the fancy movie player or _just_ the game console.

Sony doesn't give me that option. I'm FORCED to purchase the integrated drive to play HD movies, although the games themselves don't require them.

Re:Price point

[Quino]

Let's say that I agree with your statement that "studios like certainty". They will have that certainty; in what format are videos selling? and in what format are videos being rented in? -- that's their certainty, not "how many of these add on units does MS sell"?

If I own an Xbox and a PS3 and I have an HD TV and I want to test out the "next-gen" video format, do you really think there's a greater than zero percent chance that I'll end up renting/buying an HD DVD video instead of using the Blu-ray player I already own?

If I'm an owner of a PS3 and not of an Xbox 360, same thing applies.

Again, I'm not saying that therefore Blue-ray already won, but I do think that Blu-ray has an big advantage in trying to elbow itself in as the new format. If Sony can make sure that studios see that Blu-ray movies are 10 times more likely to get rented/purchased than a HD DVD version of their same movies (or a 100 times, I don't know what these numbers might look like, but it's hard to imagine they won't reflect the numbers of Blu-ray players in the wild vs. the number of HD DVD players in the wild), then the push would be to make sure studios take a side and stop making both formats. If by pre-packaging Blu-ray players Sony helps make the blu-ray format become the standard (which is all I'm saying is happening -- Blu-ray definitely has a big leg up over HD DVD *out of the gates*), this might snowball and in return, help sell PS3 units.

This assumes a lot of things, of course: mainly that technically Blu-ray and HD DVD, for the purpose of watching movies, is transparent to consumers and it's just a matter of which "flavor" the thundering herd goes for. Also, I'm curious to see what tricks MS and company have for pushing back with their format (they did think things through, one would assume).

Sony's play on the format has been obvious for some time -- what's MS's play going to be? Or did they forsake the format war just to be able to come out first with the next gen gaming system? Was their choosing of HD DVD simple naysaying to Sony's Blu-ray? That's the sort of thing I'm wondering ...

This MS "add-on" HD DVD pack, to me, seems sort of a weak reply, in the sense that Sony's customers are 1) already commited to one format as opposed to 360 customers and 2) provide an early market of early adopters (more likely to have cash and HD TVs) for Blu-ray movies -- something the HD DVD format, as far as I can tell, lacks.

Re:*Applause*

[atomicstrawberry]

Just 6 minutes for a 12 fighter game is 72 minutes worth of HD video, I tried converting a couple things into the true HD standard with one of the codecs, for about 10 minutes worth of video the outputted file was over 500mb so even though they are dual layer dvd's they are still restricted by size.

If you know what you're doing, using H.264 it's quite possible to get 25 minutes of 720p video down to around 250mb without it looking too bad at all. Certainly you need a reasonable machine to play that back, but the X360 shouldn't have any issues whatsoever.