"Xbox 2 HD-DVD"

[RancidLunchmeat]

Geez.. As much as PC-Engine clearly hates Sony, DemoCoder must own stock.

Sony can't afford to give away BR drives anymore than MS can afford to take a loss on them.

JVD: No, because that $10 loss will only occur during the first year or two of sales, and you were (I believe?) predicting TOTAL sales volume in your estimation for the loss MS would incur.

In fact, the sooner MS and HD-DVD comes to market, the sooner the tech becomes mainstream and the sooner the reduction in loss (perhaps to a point of profit) will occur.

I guestimated $10 extra cost, and therefore.. $10 extra loss (because all new consoles will sell with a loss), only for the immediate future. Once HD-DVD becomes "the standard" all other drives will be obsolete (BC) and the costs will drop drastically. In fact, if Xbox (whatever) launches with a HD-DVD and HD-DVD movies are available during the same cycle (say Xmas 2005), by the time the PS3 launches HD-DVD will have already established itself in the market place and that additional $10 cost will be gone.

This isn't something like BR, who if nobody adopts it BUT the PS3, will continue to suffer from increased manufacturing costs throughout its entire lifecycle.

IF (and it's a big IF) MS puts HD-DVD in the Xbox2, then studios will follow (and I've read reports that studios can start producing HD-DVDs as soon as a "player" is announced) and in a year's time, it will be Sony that will have to decide to either go with the "Standard" or go with their own BR (and possibly better... but unsupported) tech.

Bottom line is, that Sony will NOT recoup the R&D costs on the BR unless they integrate it into the PS3 AND get support from somebody else.

Toshiba can easily go for lower profit margins on the HD-DVD and promote them to MS with Samsung manufacturing and make up their R&D costs in volume.. Not just on the Xbox2, but also on HD-DVD sales that will come about due to the Xbox2 sales.

 

[quest55720]

I really do not like this potental format war for starters. I will not choose one till there is a winner.

I hope that if MS includes a HD-DVD drive they do not have to sacrifice something to do it. I would rather have almost any feature than a HD-DVD drive personally. If I am going to invest in a nice HD-TV and HD-discs I am going to get a stand alone player that will have a much better play back quality. I just could not see spending several thousand on a TV and discs just to cheap out on the player.

I could be wrong but I think it would be very smart of the HD-DVD community to help subsidize a HD-DVD player in the Xbox360. If the major players ponied up the resources to give MS free drives to include in the Xbox 360 it might give them a fighting chance against blue ray. The 360 will be the only game in town for a year in the largest market.

 

[jvd]

JVD: No, because that $10 loss will only occur during the first year or two of sales, and you were (I believe?) predicting TOTAL sales volume in your estimation for the loss MS would incur.

No 10 million units is what ms wants to ship in the first 8 months (it may be more not sure )

Look at it this way . Since november nintendo has shiped over 6 million nintendo ds units

As for the 10$ loss yes it will only be for the first year or two . But that will only shrink not go away and it takes time . Not to mention that there will be price cuts to the unit over the years .

That is also only one item we are talking about .

In fact, the sooner MS and HD-DVD comes to market, the sooner the tech becomes mainstream and the sooner the reduction in loss (perhaps to a point of profit) will occur.

that is true and i talked about toshiba making money of software sales as the movie publishers will still need to pay a small fee

Once HD-DVD becomes "the standard" all other drives will be obsolete (BC) and the costs will drop drastically.

Unless bluray establishes itself first . Remember sony sold what 100millin units vs xboxs 20 million ? Even if ms doubles thier market to 40 million and sony looses that 20 million it will still be 40 million to 80 million .

Bottom line is, that Sony will NOT recoup the R&D costs on the BR unless they integrate it into the PS3 AND get support from somebody else.

well your right . If there is a war either side can come out the loser or both sides can come out a loser .

 

[DemoCoder]

Hollywood studios are not going to be enticed to produce HD-DVD movies because a GAME CONSOLE has a player. And MS isn't likely to sell the Xbox360 with full HDDVD playing enabled anymore than they sold the X-Box with Progressive DVD playback enabled because MS makes their money mostly if people buy games.

If people bought an X-Box 360 and used it mostly for HD-DVD playback, MS would take a huge losss.

I don't care WHO makes the format. I only care that the format is BETTER. BR is technically better, period. More space, more scalability (# of layers), and recordability. That alone justifies support for it.

Why do you want HD-DVD to win? So it can be another VHS and beat Beta (which was superior) so that we can be saddled with inferiority again, just because someone else rushed something to market? While not a truly apt comparison (Beta has less storage, but better video quality whereas BD is better than HDDVD on all fronts), I ask the same question: what's the rush, and why the HD-DVD support? To what end?

 

[quest55720]

Hollywood studios are not going to be enticed to produce HD-DVD movies because a GAME CONSOLE has a player. And MS isn't likely to sell the Xbox360 with full HDDVD playing enabled anymore than they sold the X-Box with Progressive DVD playback enabled because MS makes their money mostly if people buy games.

If people bought an X-Box 360 and used it mostly for HD-DVD playback, MS would take a huge losss.

I don't care WHO makes the format. I only care that the format is BETTER. BR is technically better, period. More space, more scalability (# of layers), and recordability. That alone justifies support for it.

Why do you want HD-DVD to win? So it can be another VHS and beat Beta (which was superior) so that we can be saddled with inferiority again, just because someone else rushed something to market?

I could honestly careless who wins as long as I get a solid formate with reasonable prices. I have bought 150 DVDs a year the last few years so price is a concern.

 

[jvd]

If people bought an X-Box 360 and used it mostly for HD-DVD playback, MS would take a huge losss.

that is something very unlikely to happen .

If sony put out a bluray enabled ps3 what would happen if everyone buys that just for the movies ? All the money in the cell tech and nvidia gpu would be a waste

Why do you want HD-DVD to win?

Its not just one company that owns the right to it . It was submited to the dvd forum. There wont be 1 company with a nose around everyone elses neck that can fix prices to what they want them to be at .

 

[DemoCoder]

The manufacturing cost of the disks is infinitessimal compared to the cost of the DVDs on the shelves. When you go and buy a $30-40 DVD, you are buying something for which duplication cost <$1 per disc (last time I looked, in 1999 it cost about $1 per disc excluding the cost of the master)

Most of the cost of a DVD at Point of Sale goes into the pockets of the studios/MPAA/industry. It's pure-margin, which is why you can buy pressed DVDs in China for 10-50cents!

In other words, the cost to produce BD discs should not be your overriding concern. You won't notice it at the cash register when paying for the disc, since the margin the studio is taking is 30 times larger.

 

[DemoCoder]

If people bought an X-Box 360 and used it mostly for HD-DVD playback, MS would take a huge losss.

that is something very unlikely to happen .

Then why did MS disable progressive playback.

If sony put out a bluray enabled ps3 what would happen if everyone buys that just for the movies ? All the money in the cell tech and nvidia gpu would be a waste

But Sony would gain large revenues from sales of BD discs, since Sony owns HUGE amounts of movie content. The revenues from the last 10 summer blockbusters, repackaged as HD-DVDs alone, would amount to hundreds of millions or billions.

Why do you want HD-DVD to win?

Its not just one company that owns the right to it . It was submited to the dvd forum. There wont be 1 company with a nose around everyone elses neck that can fix prices to what they want them to be at .[/quote]

Please. Toshiba owns crucial patents that allowed them to extract tremendous revenue from DVD manufacturers, which is Numero Uno why Toshiba and Warners want to push HD-DVD. They don't want to lose their monopoly revenue (a patent grants a monopoly)

If anything, you should be supporting Sony in an effort to break up Toshiba and Warner's stranglehold. But again, here you are supporting a format for POLITCAL reasons instead of enduser reasons.

This is like not buying the X-Box 360 because you hate Microsoft and don't want to see them succeed.

The reality is, both Toshiba and Sony will wield considerable pricing power, so I'd rather buy a superior technology and pay $X to Sony than buy an inferior technology and pay $X+$Y+$Z to Toshiba, Warners, and the other "big six" patent holders, who all exert a "tax" on every DVD player sold.

 

[Megadrive1988]

*cries*

I want Constellation 3D's FMD and FMD-ROM

 

[jvd]

Then why did MS disable progressive playback

I don't know why . I know they disabled playback with out a special remote so that they could recoup the cost of having the drive in there and liscensing fees for having it play movies .

But Sony would gain large revenues from sales of BD discs, since Sony owns HUGE amounts of movie content. The revenues from the last 10 summer blockbusters, repackaged as HD-DVDs alone, would amount to hundreds of millions or billions.

But no one will buy games which is the point of the ps3 .

The point is no one is going to buy a ps3 or a x360 for just movie playback .

If ms gets a good deal like the drives at cost it will only help them sell more units .

So in this case if it happens not only does hd-dvd make out because its in a next gen system but microsoft would make out as it would have a next gen format helping people swallow the cost of a 300-400 x360

If anything, you should be supporting Sony in an effort to break up Toshiba and Warner's stranglehold. But again, here you are supporting a format for POLITCAL reasons instead of enduser reasons.

So trade toshiba / warner bros for sony is what your saying ?

I duno i'm pretty happy with how quickly the prices of dvd players , writers and media droped in price. I rather stick with the devil i know personaly .

What i realy want is for them to merge the hardware so that i don't have to worry about getting a bum unit

 

[PC-Engine]

Yeah for me if companies can make dual format drives I'd be able to watch all movies which includes SONY studios.

 

[lip2lip]

frankly, I have a feeling toshiba will want a considerable price for hd-dvd technology. I don't think ms has ever been in business with toshiba before.

 

[PC-Engine]

frankly, I have a feeling toshiba will want a considerable price for hd-dvd technology. I don't think ms has ever been in business with toshiba before.

But Samsung has and TSST is a joint venture between Toshiba and Samsung. TSST is the factory where currrent DVD drives and future HD DVD drives for PC will be manufactured.

 

[one]

frankly, I have a feeling toshiba will want a considerable price for hd-dvd technology. I don't think ms has ever been in business with toshiba before.

But Samsung has and TSST is a joint venture between Toshiba and Samsung. TSST is the factory where currrent DVD drives and future HD DVD drives for PC will be manufactured.

TSST is not related to the next-gen format at all now. It's a joint venture to manufacture CD/DVD drives as cheap as possible. Heck, even Toshiba's HD-DVD partner NEC made it clear that it'd sell PC with a Blu-ray drive along with HD-DVD models for the sake of business.

 

[wco81]

Isn't Samsung in the BDA?

 

[PC-Engine]

frankly, I have a feeling toshiba will want a considerable price for hd-dvd technology. I don't think ms has ever been in business with toshiba before.

But Samsung has and TSST is a joint venture between Toshiba and Samsung. TSST is the factory where currrent DVD drives and future HD DVD drives for PC will be manufactured.

TSST is not related to the next-gen format at all now. It's a joint venture to manufacture CD/DVD drives as cheap as possible. Heck, even Toshiba's HD-DVD partner NEC made it clear that it'd sell PC with a Blu-ray drive along with HD-DVD models for the sake of business.

TSST is where the HD DVD PC drives will be manfactured and Samsung and Toshiba is working on a hybrid drive too.

HD DVD Slim Drive for PCs (Toshiba Samsung Storage Technology Corporation)
The brilliance of HD DVD in a slim profile PC drive

Toshiba delivers HD DVD on the go with a multi-format slim line HD DVD drive that can read HD DVD, standard DVD and CD and write to certain DVD and CD. Developed by Toshiba Samsung Storage Technology Corporation, an optical-drive joint venture between Toshiba Corporation and Samsung Electronics Co., the drive will bring next generation high definition DVD to notebook PCs, while assuring the backward compatibility essential for users to continue to use libraries of application software on DVD and CD.

Got a link to where NEC say they'll sell PCs with Blu-ray drives? Who will they buy these BR drives from?

Isn't Samsung in the BDA?

Yes that's why they said they're working on a BR/HD DVD dual format drive with Toshiba at TSST during Cebit 05. That's why I said Xbox360 may very well get that dual format drive.

Anyway at Cebit 05 NEC said their HD DVD drives for PC will be 99 EUR when they're released later this year.

 

[one]

Got a link to where NEC say they'll sell PCs with Blu-ray drives? Who will they buy these BR drives from?

This is a machine translation of what NEC corporate officer told in Jan 2005. He says a configuration such as HD-DVD read/write and Blu-ray read is possible for a PC assembled by NEC. NEC is a Dell-like PC vendor while doing technology development, so their stance is very reasonable.

 

[PC-Engine]

Got a link to where NEC say they'll sell PCs with Blu-ray drives? Who will they buy these BR drives from?

This is a machine translation of what NEC corporate officer told in Jan 2005. He says a configuration such as HD-DVD read/write and Blu-ray read is possible for a PC assembled by NEC. NEC is a Dell-like PC vendor while doing technology development, so their stance is very reasonable.

I guess if the customer demands two drives so they can watch movies on both formats it would make business sense to give the customer what they want.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Yes that's why they said they're working on a BR/HD DVD dual format drive with Toshiba at TSST during Cebit 05. That's why I said Xbox360 may very well get that dual format drive.

How much would that cost?! Licensing fees to absolutely everyone!

 

[jvd]

Yes that's why they said they're working on a BR/HD DVD dual format drive with Toshiba at TSST during Cebit 05. That's why I said Xbox360 may very well get that dual format drive.

How much would that cost?! Licensing fees to absolutely everyone!

Enough that we'd be missing out on a dual tri core cpu set up or a dual r500 set up or 1 gig of ram .


No if ms goes next gen its going to be a single drive format and it will be whoever gave them the best price. Next gen systems are a trojan horse and since sonyhas one its in toshibas best intrest to have 1 or more .

So for toshiba / samsung who will make money on movie fees they may be willing to sell the units cheaply or at cost to ms for a while to get it into the box and perhaps even to nintendo as well.

I think we can all agree that the x360 can't do worse than the 20 million units the xbox sold . So that would be 20 million hd-dvd players in homes .

Go into the gamecube and thats another 20 million .


I doubt it will go into the x360 unless samsung or toshiba is willing to break even on the drives . Otherwise it will cost to much