silhouette
Regular
yeah! Someone from Sony mentioned that MS is in talks with them.
RUMOR: Xbox 360 20GB SKU to be replaced by 60GB SKU
- Thread starter AzBat
- Start date
Not gonna happen though, sorry about that. The engineering cost would be prohibitive. It took us more than a year to go from idea to product on the HD DVD addon, a BD addon would be just as much work. So by the time we would supposedly release it, the standalone prices would be approaching what we would charge, and it wouldn't really be worth it.
We made the HD DVD addon to help jump start the number of drives in the market. There's no need to do that for BD, and once the price of standalones drops well below the PS3 price, the number of people buying a PS3 for movies will also trickle down to nothing.
Not sure about that.. a combo BR/HD-reader+CD/DVD-everything can be had for a PC for just over $200CAN. I'll accept that there's some overhead to the interface (USB I assume) logic, but that's really all you need. Stand-alone Bluray players are most so expensive due to needing a decent amount of computing horsepower for decode, something which can easily be handled by the 360 hardware.
RancidLunchmeat
Veteran
Sorry if I wasn't clear, pop.
My point was that Sony was willing to take a revenue/sales loss on the PS3 in order to establish BR as the successor to DVD.
If they were willing to take a revenue/sales loss on their own product, why would they be unwilling to license the tech to a competitor?
It boils down to the exact same issue, and one that Sony has already chosen. Establishment of BR is more important to their future success than the gross margins of the PS3.
I disagree or misunderstand your point. Sony's future revenue streams from Bluray appear to be perceived by them to be one of their most important.
Bryan,
That's disheartening news. I'm not so sure that stand-alone drives will ever get down below $200 in the time-frame you're thinking. PS3 will most likely will be there before any of the others, but I don't see that happening by next year.
I take it that no engineering work at all will be done because of this time to market issue, even for an possible SKU with an internal drive?
Does Microsoft not understand that by not offering some kind of option for existing 360 owners that they stand to see them purchase PS3 systems instead? It is the cheapest most future proof Blu-ray player on the market, which just so happens to double as a game system. Doesn't that concern them any in the slightest?
Tommy McClain
DeathKnight
Regular
If a 60GB SKU is a reality I hope they also release a 60GB HDD as a separate upgrade. I'd like more space over my 20GB but I don't want to pay $170-$180 for a 120GB'er.
I've assumed it will simply replace the 20GB hd add on that currently sells seperatly for core owners wishing to upgrade for $100. The 120GB will still sell seperatly for a higher price.
I will say, it's sad how us early adapters are progressively getting screwed. In the not too distant future it's possible a 360 premium will be selling for $269 with a 60GB hd and built in wi-fi.
I might actually get another 360 later in the cycle, something like when Elite is 299, the chips are all 65nm or below, the noise may be quieter, plus the other upgrades.
They are both important, but there are things that are most effective when executed serially rather than in parallel
Microsoft says no Blu-ray for Xbox 360
http://www.reuters.com/article/reut...13?pageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=0&sp=true
This is the new official line from Microsoft, but it may well be just an acceleration of the launch schedule of Xbox 720 if you think it has a Blu-ray. It's sooner or later.
1.5 Mbps DTS 5.1 output was more than acceptable when the Xbox 360 was the cheapest HD player on the market. One would not have expected to get lossless output from a standalone player that had been priced similarly. The sound was very good and would satisfy the vast majority of consumers.
As Blu-Ray players have dropped in price faster than the X360 has, a compromise on audio output becomes less acceptable going forward. That said, it seems unlikely that a significant number of people would purchase a console with the intention (or expectation) of getting lossless audio output from it.
By another game console, you meant a 360 SKU with a build in BR drive? That would be weird. As an addon it´s either bad loser attitude or arrogance that keeps Microsoft from not adding it to their lineup.
woundingchaney
Regular
Is it really safe to assume that the only thing keeping an "add on" BD drive from the 360 is "bad loser attitude or arrogance"?? I cant help but find this to be a little nonsensical. Im sure their are various issues as to why there isnt currently a BD add on for the 360 many of them not pertaining to the suggested "bad attitude".
digital distribution
I wouldn't say it's nonsensical. When the HD DVD addon was first announced, MS said that they could support a BRD drive if consumers wanted it, and it was all about consumer choice. To not offer a BRD addon now is to say they don't want to offer the consumers choice any more. So what's changed? IMO it's not bad attitude or arrogance, but that MS only saw the HD DVD addon as a way to interfere with BRD adoption. It was never about consumer choice, but trying to use their market to affect other markets in their favour. Nothing has changed at MS HQ other than the PR statements - the intentions are the same as they were from day 1. String out HD DVD as long as possible in the hopes of getting digital distro or MS systems adopted throughout the industry.
Not really. If you really think the PS3 is going to be cheaper than the standalone Blu-ray players, you're already wrong. I can get a BD player today for well under $400. The chipsets in the BD players are significantly cheaper to manufacture than the cell, they don't have to include a hard drive, and the cooling solution is much cheaper.
People _like_ standalones. The PS3 and Xbox are loud, unwieldy, and not really designed to fit nicely into an equipment rack.
Aah, you're thinking of the wrong choice. The choice we were offering consumers was not "BD or HD DVD", it was "you can get an XBox without HD DVD and pay less, or pay more and get HD DVD too". A choice Sony didn't bother to offer to it's users.
And consumers said they didn't want it. The HD DVD addon only sold to a few percent of our userbase, not enough to justify the cost of developing a whole new addon to sell to only a few percent. Not unless the drives suddenly become a whole bunch cheaper, or if someone offers us a XBox optimised BD implementation. It's simply a matter of Return on Investment. It took a team of over 100 people a year to bring the HD DVD addon to market, that's a lot of investment.
There's undoubtedly some truth in there, but to temper your cynicism a bit -- a 3% attach rate for the HD-DVD add-on doesn't exactly paint a picture of widespread consumer demand for this type of device. If their assessment is that consumers don't want a BR add-on then their current stance is perfectly consistent with their stance all along. Keep in mind that some number of those HD DVD drives were bought with the intent of using them with PC's (that's how mine is connected) making that 3% attach rate actually inflated compared to reality. And go back and read their statements about choice in context. IIRC they were being made to contrast their approach to that of Sony and their integrating BR into every PS3, thus not offering the "choice" to not have to pay for an HD movie player in your console if you don't want it. Essentially it was spin to answer criticism for not having an HD DVD drive built in.
Consumers chose to avoid the HD-DVD drive in droves. MS would have to be nuts to spend tens of millions of dollars making and maintaining a 360 BluRay drive with low or negative margins, to sell to a tiny proportion of 360 owners who would then line Sony's pockets with their money instead of the Xbox Live HD movie download service.
The "choice" MS referred to was whether customers paid for a HD media drive with their 360 btw, not about choosing between a HD-DVD or BluRay drive.
woundingchaney
Regular
Well to clarify the "nonsensical" part was in reference to the lack of a BD add on being solely based off of a suggested mentality of "Im taking my ball and going home" adopted by MS.