Xbox 360 may ignore both HD-DVD & Blu-Ray
by Vladimir Cole 
{ Oct 18th 2005 at 5:30PM }
Here's yet another bit of data that corroborates our speculation that
the Xbox 360 has been architected as a trojan horse for
digital delivery of all game content.
In a speech given last Friday at Howard University in Washington D.C., Bill Gates stated that neither HD-DVD nor Blu-ray will matter in the long run and that both formats will be replaced eventually by plain old hard disks. This hints at one reason why Microsoft excluded "next-generation" disc media from the Xbox platform. It would be incredibly costly (and short-sighted) to stick a next-gen optical disc format in the Xbox 360 when their technical gurus believe that there's a chance that digital delivery of games could become commonplace in the Xbox 360-PS3-Revolution generation of consoles.
Gates said, "The format that's under discussion right now, HD versus Blu-ray, that's simply the last physical format we'll ever have. Even videos in the future will either be on a disk in your pocket or over the Internet and therefore far more convenient for you."
There are, of course, major challenges to overcome before digital distribution of games becomes commonplace. For one, super-duper high speed bandwidth needs to become far more commonplace. Only half of those online in America have broadband. For another, companies need to be sure that their digital products will not be replicated without their consent. Both problems are solvable. Whether they'll be solved this generation or next is the big question.
[Thanks, Odin]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Dralt @ Dec 18th 2005 9:05PM
In Bill's wet dreams, people transfer their money into his bank account without asking for any product or service.
The reality is that Micro$oft is not capable of designing a distribution system that would scale to thousands of users.
superberg @ Dec 18th 2005 9:05PM
You know, in order for this to really become commonplace, broadband needs not only to become more widespread and inexpensive, but FASTER, too.
Who wants to sit and wait for an eight gig game to download?
syco @ Dec 18th 2005 9:05PM
Except that this ignores that some people will always want to buy physical copies of things. If a large game comes out and the only way to get it is to download a tenuous digital copy, then it's very likely I might pick up a different game I can physically purchase in a real store for one of my other consoles instead. Getting old SNES games for $3 off Nintendo's setup is one thing, paying $50 for a new game and not getting a disk, box, or instruction manual is something entirely different.
vidGuy @ Dec 18th 2005 9:05PM
Harddrive failure sound a little costly to anyone else?
Come on, do we really think the average consumer is going to like a download over purchasing something at a store? We aren't talking about digital music here, which obviously has a benefit. Paying $50-$60 for a download may be a little hard to pass off.
Plus, the way I figure it we aren't going to have a very high penetration of high speed internet until near the end of this coming generation.
Yet, its a toss up because I don't really expect much of the Blu-Ray to be utilized for games anyway, at least this generation. And he's probably right, neither HD nor Blu-Ray will be the "final" solution for years to come. We'll see plenty of formats pop up.
vc @ Dec 18th 2005 9:05PM
Games will be downloaded up to weeks before they're actually launched. You won't need to wait the night of.
Gowans007 @ Dec 18th 2005 9:05PM
TOTALY AGREE HERE
I mean distrobution like steam and itunes is totaly the way forward.
Xbox live 360 seems to be taking this step with linking downloads to your gamertag instead of your box so if your hd goes or you get a new box you can redownload. This is teh same as teh steam model which has been doing this for over a year now.
Brian @ Dec 18th 2005 9:05PM
I'll take my HVD [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holographic_Versatile_Disc] over an HDD anyday, thanks.
Steven @ Dec 18th 2005 9:05PM
Sure, Bill.. I'm sure you still use that floppy disk on your crappy Dell in your office.
DVD/HD-DVD/Blu-Ray is not the "last" format war. There will always be portable media (CDs, DVDs, etc.).
Yeah, I'm going to go to Best Buy and buy my latest movies on a hard drive. Suuuure, Bill.
Michael Cicconi @ Dec 18th 2005 9:05PM
This coming from the man who said "Noone will ever need more than 640 kb of memory".
Sir Gates is a smart man. He spoke last week here at the University of Waterloo, which I saw. Some impressive new technology. Bill has an extensive knowledge of tech, so he may be right.
As for "Micro$oft is not capable of designing a distribution system that would scale to thousands of users" ... um, Windows/Office Update? MSN Messenger? Windows Server applications? Microsoft clearly CAN implement an effective distribution system. Get off your Apple-loving throne.
I agree with superberg and syco, high-speed internet needs higher penetration and speeds before this type of system comes into place.
Dralt @ Dec 18th 2005 9:05PM
Michael Cicconi,
Do you know the difference between a few KB/MB and gigabytes? It seems you don't.
They can't even set up a chat session without making fools out of themselves.
(I still remember when they set up this online chat with J. Allard. After 150 users had logged on, their chat server started dropping people before it became completely useless.)
Dralt @ Dec 18th 2005 9:05PM
Another example:
Joystiq's Web site, which is becoming slower and slower everyday, is powered by IIS and ASP...2 of Microsoft's dear Web technologies.
Whuh? @ Dec 18th 2005 9:05PM
Download services is the way to go in the future. Broadband is getting faster and cheaper. For $15 you can get broadband. If there are downloadble movies, songs, and downloadable games services like Steam happening now, these services will expand. I download games from Steam, I am happy with it, unlike slow connection users. Steam allow me to backup my games, so losing data isn't a problem, plus I can alway redownload my games from Steam with no fee.
Kuroshi @ Dec 18th 2005 9:05PM
$50 is too much for a download? How about $29? retailers buy it from distributers for $29. So the developers make even less than that currently. PC games have been devlivered by download for years. this is not a new concept.
Mike @ Dec 18th 2005 9:05PM
are you guys kidding me? Blu-ray and HD-DVD are here to bring on the HD generation.. Which in effect is a 2 hour, 10+GB DVD movie in HD.
How the hell am I suppose to support a movie download onto hard drive with todays speeds? I have one of the fastest residential broadbands in Canada (6000kbits downstream) and even at that speed it would take me over 15 hours to download a dual-layer BR disc (and thats providing I get full speed from the server)
Not to mention the largest consumer Hard drives on the market are only 500GB. I own over 1000 DVDs. and with the next gen coming out, Im going to toal over 10 Terabytes of movies easily. How do I buy jurrasic park 4 on hd-dvd when all my hard drives are full? And what if a hard drive becomes corrupt? It will take me 2 months to re-download my 500GB of purchased movies.
Dream on Bill. If the digital media age will come to an end, dont excpect it for at least 500 years. We need to see faster internet speeds and larger disk space before any of this happens. Not to mention files keep growing in size. Dont think that we are gonna stop at Blu-Ray 30GB dual layer discs. In another 15 years from now there will be Blu-Rays next gen discs with 500 GB of disc space, 400 of which alone are used for the super ultra HHHHdefination resoultions which will exsist in the future.
I cant believe Bill even thinks this will happen in our life-times, let alone this generation.
KM @ Dec 18th 2005 9:05PM
I'm trying to figure out how he thinks hard disks will replace optical media. Or why he thinks that Blu-ray/HD-DVD is the end of the line.
We know that much greater data densities are theoretically possible, does he doubt that we'll ever have a need for that kind of space? I don't know if uncompressed video will ever become popular like uncompressed audio seems to be, but that alone would take hundreds of gigabytes (assuming a ~2 hour movie).
And since constructing a hard drive as cheap or cheaper than an optical disk is a LONG way off if it's ever going to happen, I don't see optical storage getting replaced anytime soon. And besides, how are we going to going to be storing multiple 10+ GB games on the 360's dinky little hard drive anyway? -_-
jromz03 @ Dec 18th 2005 9:05PM
Hmm... Last time SBG (Sir Bill Gates) said they might upgrade the 360 to be HD-DVD compatible, then they blasted Blu-Ray with propaganda (true or not, up to you).
Looks like a cleverly cloaked speech to entice people to buy the non-HD-DVD Xbox 360.
Until MS confirms 100% if they plan to release a HD-DVD 360, I'm not buying one. This is the console SBG, not the PC where people love to upgrade in increments!
is @ Dec 18th 2005 9:05PM
The comments in this thread seem to ignore the accumulative speed of technology.
Broadband speeds are doubling nearly every week. HDD are getting cheaper. Itunes music store is expanding like no-one imagined.
This is quite obviously the destiny. In literally a few years, youll laugh at the conversation above like we now laugh at WAP and lazerdisc (remember those?) this isnt exactly old tech, or even poor tech, its just moving frigteningly quickly.
Plus, its bill gates. He like, RUNS the computers. Nearly all of em! its pretty much what he says goes.
Wink E @ Dec 18th 2005 9:05PM
Ok here's my take on things, First bill and intel put their names behind HD-DVD camp an blast blu-ray claiming hd-dvd is the shiznits and all.
now bill says hd-dvd and blu-ray is irrelevant because digital content is the way to go...
i doubt within the next 2-3 years while hd-dvd or blu-ray starts picking up steam that people will want to toss out their accumulated coleections anytime soon.....
like many of you have said in previous post nothing is on the radar in terms of extremely high download speeds for us consumers within the next few years. Plus how much will the service of high speed access be in the first couple years if it is even available to consumers..
either way hope google hires away more microsoft employees and makes bill pissed off about things....
Dralt @ Dec 18th 2005 9:05PM
The thing is: People imagine you just have to think about "it" for "it" to be possible. Sorry, technology and fantasy are different realms.
This is, obviously, achievable. However, the Federal government will need to intervene in order to truly liberalize the telecommunications industry.
Telco CEOs play golf with government officials and lobby enormously to prevent this from happening.
So, broadband adoption in the US stagnates.
Would you like to know how bad it is?
Guess which country has this package for less than $36/month:
- 20 Mbit/s broadband access
- Free voice-over-IP (Internet telephony that allows you to call any telephone number using your Internet access.)
- 200 TV channels, including 100 free digital channels (HDTV), over your broadband access
So, what's your guess?
The US is slowly becoming the third-world country of broadband access...
Bo @ Dec 18th 2005 9:05PM
At its early stages, digital download distribution will scale in size with consumer bandwidth. It will not automatically replace physical medium, but complement it with add-ons/updates.
A system like Steam where you register the game with an account and download/remove to your physical medium (hard drive) as you see fit, but not removing your license all together. This has a benefit of never losing your physical media and get up to date version, especially for on-line gaming which will void game hacks (file validation check).
The best benefit will probably be cheaper deliveries compared to physical medium. Without the need of distrubtion to retail channels, a digital delivery will cost less. Another benefit would be demo download. Instead of reading reviews you can download a demo and you be the judge if you like it or not.
Now for the naysayers, remember we're not talking about new world order of distribution that will happen tomorrow, it will gradually phase with the technology and consumer acceptance. It may work, or it may not...but its inevitable in my opinion.
vblidl @ Dec 18th 2005 9:05PM
What country is it, cause i want that deal
Dralt @ Dec 18th 2005 9:05PM
Another note:
You will be told all this is for the good of consumers, while the number one reason Microsoft, Hollywood and the video game industry are interested in this is piracy prevention.
Nowadays, it's a popular thing to disguise your best interests in the appearances of public service and common good.
Bo @ Dec 18th 2005 9:05PM
Absolutely by the digital distribution model, it will prevent piracy, rental, sharing/transfer and re-sale.
In this case, I don't mind paying for games I want to play. So thats doesn't bother me.
However, rental/subscription, sharing and re-sale is a benefit with buying physical media. It will depend on consumer acceptance and how the media companies can entice us with digital delivery.
As a consumer point of view, digital delivery will probably not replace physical medium, but complement it. Perhaps we will see how it will play out in the next 4 years...
mike @ Dec 18th 2005 9:05PM
"The format that’s under discussion right now, HD versus Blu-ray, that’s simply the last physical format we’ll ever have."
---
Eh, thanks Bill but you're the last guy on Earth I'd look to for future predictions.
Unknownguy @ Dec 18th 2005 9:05PM
I saw him speak at Waterloo last Wednesday, and it was quite interesting.
The most interesting thing IMHO was when by placing a business card beside a phone on a table with a camera/projector looking over it, the business card information was added to the cell phone. Pretty crazy.
He also talked about the elimination of telephone numbers and tv channels, how eventually everything is going to be different for everyone.
Darien @ Dec 18th 2005 9:05PM
Whuh you said "Download services is the way to go in the future. Broadband is getting faster and cheaper. For $15 you can get broadband. If there are downloadble movies, songs, and downloadable games services like Steam happening now, these services will expand."
You would NOT want to attempt to download a game over the "broadband" speed you get for those $15 services.
daver @ Dec 18th 2005 9:05PM
Joystiq's website IS becoming extremely slow. I agree. It is actually becoming annoying.
JPRacer @ Dec 18th 2005 9:05PM
Hey, it's been a year now that I have video on demand with my cable. You don't have to download all the movie to see it, it takes 20 seconds to buffer or something and after that the system stream it to you. Cool thing is if you FF or rewind, the delay before the playback resume is generally less than 5 secs. Picture quality is perfect, sure it's only SD but I'm sure HD content will be available in less than 5 years.
For games, I think a Steam-like distribution is the way of the future, but before this happen for 100% of the games, could take at least 15+ years.
LaughingTarget @ Dec 18th 2005 9:05PM
Steam works. And unlike iTunes, if you have a hard drive failure, you can still get the game back without having to re-purchase it. Not much to buy on it now, but Steam works. Therefore, a distribution model like that will be great, especially if you don't have to pay monthly for the connection, ala the ever present joke, Phantom.
Google Nazi @ Dec 18th 2005 9:05PM
The reason why Joystiq's website is slow is because they got bought by AOL a few weeks ago. -_-#
As for the download subscription thing.. Sure if you don't like owning things. I like to have my nice little Jewel case and game catrige / cd. It is one of the big reasons why i buy games. The other reason is to support the company for them to make more awesome games! I'd be pissed if I couldn't have my precious jewel cases ;_; It would be like a library without books. Where all the books are replaced by google monitors and keyboard.
Also, do you believe microsoft will still have game servers that hosts your purchased games 100 years from now? What if you have cyborg body parts and you become pretty much ageless? How are you going to get your games back?
Dull @ Dec 18th 2005 9:05PM
& 640K of memory should be enough for anybody.
OTAM @ Dec 18th 2005 9:05PM
If they don't plan on putting an HD-DVD or Blu-Ray drive in the 360 at any time then I can sleep softly tonight.
Seriously,I would constantly debate wether to keep my preorder or not of the 360 but now it's solidifies it,i'm getting my 360.
Mike @ Dec 18th 2005 9:05PM
That's a lotta Gbps and gigs, Bill.
Ghazi @ Dec 18th 2005 9:05PM
Somehow nobody mentioned this but what about re-sale. Will i be able to sell my download ? Sure, Gamestop and EB rip people off with pre-used games and make millions of it, but that is only because many folks out there feel its worth it to get atleast 5 dollars back for the 50 dollar game they purchased. So how do they get their 5 dollars back. Will the licenses be transferrable. How about multiple systems ? Do you download when you visit a friend? How is that possibly going to do anything for piracy ? i can say i work on two computers and download on two separate drives and then give away one copy....
additionally, each game will theoretically cost more than just its own cost. What i mean to say is, for example in 2 years there is a game which occupies a BD-Rom up to about 50GB and at that point we are seeing 200GB hard drives standard, saying 80 GB is standard now. That means, in 2 years i will only be able to store 4 games on the hdd. so now, if i purchase a fifth game, i need to buy a new hdd. Basically, after every few games, there is the added costs of expanding my hdd collection so i can actually download a new game without loosing my old one. Ofcourse, at that point we will see the use of "obselete" media i.e BD-RWs to store backups of our downloaded content, which means ANOTHER additional cost of requiring a BD-RW and its disks. It seems simpler and less expensive to simply buy the games on BD directly.
Lastly, the way politics is, there is no way we are going to see such a fast rate of increase in speed of internet services.
vidGuy @ Dec 18th 2005 9:05PM
Ghazi:
Just wanted to point out that it's very unlikely that we will see games at the 50GB size "in 2 years". Look at how few games really push the DVD to its limits; you'll be lucky to find a game at 15GB, I'd think, in this next generation.
And there's a "law" recognized in the tech industry that says that in general, computer technology doubles in quality/power/size every 18 months while staying at the same price. This would suggest that within this generation, HDD will at least triple in size, so expect to see 300-400 GB HDD standard within five years.
This would work out to a HDD costing $100-$120 being able to hold 20 to 30 full size games.
Although I still feel game downloads are a completely different situation than music download services. Buying a 3 MB file for $1 is very different than a 15 GB game at $50-$60 (or even $30-40 if they dropped the price for online sales).
Nick @ Dec 18th 2005 9:05PM
"How about multiple systems ? Do you download when you visit a friend? How is that possibly going to do anything for piracy ? i can say i work on two computers and download on two separate drives and then give away one copy...."
Why do you think the Xbox 360 HD is removable? It could easily be argued that if you have a legitimate need to move your games around, such as going to a friend's or playing on a different system, that you will have access to the HD to remove it.
Even if the HD were not removable, piracy would be greatly curbed if we were assuming access to the game files and the ability to write to the hard drive would not be cracked any time soon. There are a few reasons why this is very true and they should be very obvious to anybody who thinks about it for a little bit.
If they allow you to re-download the game from your account after you buy it, how many people are going to pass around their account login information freely on the internet for all to access? It’s login information that would lead to their personal information such as name, address, credit card, etc.
Let's say that some idiot did decide to "take one for the team" and pass around his information or better yet he steals somebody's credit card and information and makes an account. Next in the line of defenses from abuse would be restricting login to one IP at a time, so now you've got 1 person downloading the game and everybody else waiting until he is done and logs off.
Ok, no big deal you say, people can still pirate a game over the first few weeks, free is free. Well here's another potential brick wall for you. An automated system could easily trace IPs to geographical locations and compare their distances. If, all in the same day or even week, one account is downloading from New York, Los Angeles, Miami, and Seattle, well it's sort of obvious that the account has been compromised.
And if that's not enough, let's not forget about a third and pretty powerful potential protection. Accounts could be locked in a two-part system. First they could be locked to the Xbox 360 console itself and second they could be locked to the removable hard drive. You could be required to have one or the other present to access your library of purchased media. That covers the fair use argument, because if you've got one or the other then that's proof of your purchase.
What if you lose your Xbox 360 in a strange twist of fate? Easy, recover your account. Could people exploit account recovery to get access to games on multiple Xbox 360s? Not likely, that's easy to protect against also. Microsoft just has to register the console and hard drive identification criteria on the account server, purging the old system's information (and thus locking it out) before adding the new system's information.
What if you buy a new hard drive and want your game on it? That's fine, that's the reason the protection is two-part; you have your console so that proves you purchased the goods and as a result you're allowed to download onto the new hard drive. "Ha!" you exclaim. Not so fast, your friend could bring his hard drive over and download the game and take it back home, that's true; however, you'll recall potential protection number two, locking an account to one IP at a time.
Ok, but they surely won’t make you stay logged on to play a single player game and offline multiplayer modes. Well, they could – everybody has Live for free and it’s going to require broadband meaning it won’t be in the way of people making calls. It could be assumed it’s an always-on appliance. Even if they didn’t, and they probably won’t, the two-part potential protection could work magic here too.
Single player games could require that you’re on both the system and hard drive you purchased the game on. That kills you taking it to a friend’s house, but the game is designed for a single player. What about co-op and offline multiplayer? That’s easy; just verify that no two systems on the network have the same system identifier (the one that’s tied to your account). The system identifier could be written to the hard drive with the game to say what system it was connected to when the game was downloaded – this value would also be checked.
In the end, as you can see, it’s pretty easy to detect and counter a lot of piracy-related activities with the digital distribution system; I typed this list in about 10 minutes, including the thought process behind each protection, so I realize it isn’t an exhaustive analysis. It is a huge leap over the status-quo of game piracy which simply requires a half-wit to go to a P2P network or newsgroups to obtain their warez.
Nick
chris @ Dec 18th 2005 9:05PM
2 words: On Demand.
My broadband has gone from 56k - 512k - 1mb - 2mb in less the 2 years and next year there will be 8mb and 24mb in the UK. In parts of London you can now get 24mb with 4mb upstream for £29.99
I think in a couple of years everything will be hooked to your broadband and you can view things on demand. So if you want to watch a new movie you pay £2 and it's streamed to you. If you want to watch it again it's just streamed over and over. So you own it but you don't have to store it since you can stream it so fast it's like watching TV.
And with things like Bittorrent and Microsoft's unnamed version of Bittorrent as a way of sending files it really is something to think about. I mean why store you movie or game when you can turn on your TV, choose the game or movie you want and it's sent to you instantly.
And as for BG. when he said he would put a computer in everyones house they laughed... ha ha ha they said.
Now as he sits there in he chair in the biggest most important company in the world counting his BILLIONS... who got the last laugh.
The man is a thinker and sees things you can't even dream of.
World of Warcraft @ Dec 18th 2005 9:05PM
I wonder if Bill is shooting himself in the foot with this one. "Internet gaming is just a fad" -Nintendo..sounds similiar.
Enemtee @ Dec 18th 2005 9:05PM
It's all about streaming media. Every album, movie, game you buy will stream directly to you. If you want, then you load it over or even stream it from your portable player. The only thing you really own is licenses of different buyable things from services like this. Internet will be the center of where you get and have your buyable entertainment. Thanks Bill, you are locked onto the right stuff.
jc @ Dec 18th 2005 9:05PM
If this was any other product, would it be acceptable?
Look at some of the entertainment items around your house and ask yourself if you are prepared to use them only when you have internet access available... books, music, movies, games, etc
Personally I don't trust the security of MS enough to give them full financial control over my money. I also want to be able to read a book at the beach, or play games at the cottage. I want to be able to have the freedom to do what I want, where I want. I need the security to back up my important information (music, data, pictures, movies) and for that I need the next generation of storage media.
Basically, unless internet becomes an essential service it is not going to be stable, reliable or connected to enough people to make this twisted dream of corporations having total control over my life, a reality.
plus... I like shiny things
Icelawn @ Dec 18th 2005 9:05PM
I didnt read everything that everyone had to say on here so forgive me if I happen to say the same thing that someone may have said. I have to points to put out there.
1. This is a stong possibility of happening. the problem with it is that by the time they have enough penetration into the market (broadband)combined with the high speed internet, our 8gig game will be 30 gigs (give or take a few gigs).
2. To fight that I dont see why gaming companys cant release one level at a time or something like that. Or downlod applications of games as they are completed. it would not only cut down a huge 30 gig download but the consumer can see the game being developed right on the hard drive. Of course you would have to deal with the hackers and shit but thats for another day.
Vidar @ Dec 18th 2005 9:05PM
"My broadband has gone from 56k - 512k - 1mb - 2mb in less the 2 years and next year there will be 8mb and 24mb in the UK. In parts of London you can now get 24mb with 4mb upstream for £29.99"
Haha, that's almost ridiculus... Here in sweden the Broadband Company "Bredbandsbolaget" recently upgraded the connection for all their 10mbps-customers to 100mbps (that's 100mbps up and downstream). Even via vdsl you get 24mbps (1mbps upstream) for just £28.00 (that's including free IP-telephony to all BBB-customers).
Looks like some of us still has some way to go... Im off to download HL2 off steam, in just under 2 minutes. :D
Glenn @ Dec 18th 2005 9:05PM
Wicked cool