Blu-ray technology for Xbox 360 in development?
Category: Xbox 360, Posted: 02/20/2008 at 03:33AM CST by Sean Pincombe, Staff Writer
Rumours have been floating around for months regarding Microsoft integrating Blu-Ray technology in the 360, and with the apparant demise of HD-DVD many more will no doubt arrise.
One such rumour comes from the website SmartHouse. Supposedly, insiders at Microsoft have confirmed that the company has already created a stand-alone Blu-ray add-on in the same vein as the HD-DVD add-on. As long as Markerting and Sales approve the project, there will be a Blu-ray add-on in the coming months.
To add more to the above rumour, the same insider sources have claimed that Microsoft have been working on a new 360 with an internal Blu-ray drive. Now while the add-on rumour is somewhat believable and quite logical, this one might need to be taken with a grain of salt or two.
Firstly, Microsoft fully backed HD-DVD, yet they never released a 360 with an internal HD-DVD drive. Secondly, why would they start creating a Blu-ray equipped 360 variation while the next-gen format wars were still being fought (remember that Toshiba only just announced they were pulling out while the rumour suggests Blu-Ray development has been going on for months).
However, if a Blu-ray equipped machine were released, it would allow developers who release multi-disc games to cram everything onto a single Blu-ray disc, similar to PC game developers releasing games on CD and DVD. Some developers may even move to releasing games solely on Blu-ray, although this could cause a lot of backlash, with owners of older 360s being forced to buy the Blu-ray add-on to play new games.
Personally, I'd put money on a Blu-ray add-on and maybe even developers releasing games on both DVD-9 and Blu-ray. What do you think?
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Wonder when the Wii will get a DVD Player, ohhh CHOMP!
LMAO... i love the images in the "forced" link.... classic. :-P
It would be stupid if X-box did not make a Blu-Ray adaption.
About as stupid as people buying a HD-DVD Player or Blu-Ray before the format war ended. Betamax and Lasordisc anyone?
At least the HD-DVD player can play DvDs, and therefor, still has some use if you can get over the absorbent price you paid for it.
Games won't be published on BluRay. If they put out an addon, it'll be for movies only like the HDDVD player.
Microsoft is smart enough to know that you can't alienate customers by putting out software that those with earlier machines can't play. It would be a PR nightmare. Also, does anyone know how fast BR players are these days? Do they approach the read speeds of the current DVD9 players? If not, then that's another reason you can't put a game on the BR player. Without being guaranteed a HD that developers can use to cache data, a lot of the game has to be read straight from the disk. Putting a slower BR player in to read games will greatly increase load times.
How many games have come out that really use more than one DVD? I know Lost Oddessy uses 4. Maybe some of the other RPGs? But if it's just a handful out of hundreads, why go through the expense and trouble of putting in a player with expanded capacity that 99% of your games don't need?
Sony controls Blu-ray, if M$ is going to release a BD device I am sure Sony is controlling what it can be used for, in other words Sony wants people to adopt BD for movies but they want to be the only game system that can play BD games. IMO
i like snakeoilers opinion on this
I feel so bad the the people stil working on HD DVD technology right now.