Microsoft has "no plans" to release HD-DVD Xbox 360

by Vladimir Cole { Dec 15th 2005 at 10:40AM }

Microsoft has issued a two-part statement denying the possibility of HD-DVD in the Xbox 360 after rumors that the company had begun finalizing plans to release an updated Xbox 360 as early as next spring.

The first part of the response, as quoted by IGN: "Microsoft, in both America and Japan, has not announced anything regarding the possibility of a next generation DVD drive being placed in the Xbox 360." (Not strictly true. In an interview with him, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer told us, "Look, for us to say we're going to go through a whole generation without an HD capacity drive—I think that would be naive to assume that we'll be sitting here at the end of the Xbox 360 generation and no such device will have shipped."

The second part of Microsoft's reponse: "There are currently no plans to release an Xbox 360 equipped with a next generation DVD player." Whether that is true, none of us can know. Is taking their word for it naive?

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Derbeste @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM

Doesn't the answer seem obvious?

They said there may be a next generation drive...but that it won't be DVD or optical.

There are MANY new technologies up and coming that could fit that description.

Holagraphic ram, flash ram, external HD of sorts...

Or they could just go with there upcoming phillosophy of streaming content through a broadband netword connection.

Either way...I don't think that MS will stay behind the ball if the market demand for higher standards becomes lucrative.

isuma @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM

Of course they're going to be quiet on any new Xbox360 releases. They have to ship as many units out as possible before PS3 and Rev. comes out ... announcing a new model (HDDVD or otherwise) .. would cause some ppl to put off the purchase or (since its so soon after launch) show how premature the xbox360 release really is.

Tomahawk @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM

I agree it will probaly be some sort of Software/Hardware addon at a later date

Mazinkaiser @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM

I don't care either way to be honest; this media speculation gets too much attention in my opinion.

bulged eyes @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM

To a lesser extent, it's the Sega CD add-on all over again (although I understand it won't affect games). Geez, Peter Moore really likes to live in the past, doesn't he?
I'm a firm believer in that a company should stick by the product they initially launched to avoid alienating anyone. If Microsoft made the decision to ship without an HD-DVD drive, it should stick by that move. Understandably, I'm not the biggest fan of their core and premium packaging.
As an example, the PSP came out to challenge Nintendo's stranglehold in the handheld market with a beautiful screen, much more power, the ability to play music and movies, but you didn't see Nintendo shitting its pants in light of it.
Nintendo's stuck to its guns and, now, the DS is easily trouncing the PSP in almost all markets. Hell, I own both and the PSP almost never gets played anymore.
No one saw that coming.
�Microsoft, in both America and Japan, has not announced anything regarding the possibility of a next generation DVD drive being placed in the Xbox 360.�
I can translate that statement: It's coming, we just haven't made it official.
Anyone who believes Microsoft is not shipping new units next year with the new drives is dumber than my little cousin Jeff.
Microsoft should stop second-guessing itself and changing its mind every month. You didn't include an HD-DVD drive when you launched, too fucking bad. Deal with it.
Spend your time where it counts: the games.
If Microsoft didn't have Bungie and the Halo franchise behind it, I'd have jumped ship a LONG time ago.

Pip @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM

Microsoft will have to ship an HD-DVD version if they want to compete with the PS3.

Fans will be angry over games not being ported to the 360 when they find out the reason is because the latest version of GTA takes up 35 Gig.

What you're hearing now is probably pillowtalk.

SuicideNinja @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM

Microsoft will provide an appropriate method of increasing space if the need arises. Right now it really isn't a big deal, no matter what the media attention claims.

Also, we do not know how reliable these HD drives will be. We all assume proper testing is done. I'd trust Toshiba and company more than Sony after things like ps2settlement.com. They strike out in the laser department especially with burned discs.

Besides, since the Xbox 360 is so easy to open they may even let consumers upgrade theirs or take it in to a gaming store to have it done. If not, then some 3rd party company will supply a drive.

People act like they will have to switch disks every 10 minutes or something. Nope. Remember Final Fantasy 7 & 8? The disk swap wasn't bothersome; it just showed that you needed a break after several hours of play!

riffgod @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM

Microsoft's hastiness to ship the 360 may end up it's downfall rather than foodhold if they keep pulling crap like this. These little things that mean the difference between shipping a "next-gen" piece of hardware and a peice of hardware with "next-gen" potential could alienate their audience. I'm sure this is just giving Sony and Nintendo more to smile about.

It seems this information is coming at a time when Microsoft is needing you to keep 360 on the foreground of your thoughts. With little more anticipation for the 360 left, and also with anticipation building for PS3 and Revolution consoles; Microsoft needs to put their name in your head so that they can sell their 360s. The question remains is announcing something like this (or that you xbox division is expanding beyond video game entertainment) going to put that thought in your head or is it going to cause you to question the consoles early release and bring you doubt as to whether or not to purchase one at all. I think their banking on the old addage that "there is no such thing as bad publicity"....but is there?

Observer @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM

If you look at it from MS's point of view, an HD-DVD drive will only increase the price the Xbox360 and most likely put them on the losing side of the upcoming high def battle. That would be a bad gamble.

RocketPunch @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM

Exactly! Why would anyone in their right mind think that 4.5GB is not enough?? Those people who think that an true HD next gen video games will need more disk space is crazy.

pennywise969 @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM

#10, agreed. Especially since a dual layer disk, which is pretty standard, holds 9gb. This whole thing is dumb.

Gin @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM

no HD-DVD for Xbox 360? anytime soon? ... that is just sad ;-; *sniffles and crys huggling his neglected hd-dvd-less 360*

Jago @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM

There is no way they wouldn't be able to ship a HD-DVD version of the X360. Why?

B/c not only will it piss off and confuse consumers, but it will also piss off developers. Why? HD-DVD games wouldn't be able to be played on the standard DVD-ROM drives.

It's not rocket science people...

"People act like they will have to switch disks every 10 minutes or something. Nope. Remember Final Fantasy 7 & 8? The disk swap wasn't bothersome;"

True...but at the time there wasn't an affordable alternative to CD-ROMS. But now, MS could have used HD-DVD instead and eatin the cost for a while (the same way Sony did with using a DVD-ROM drive in the PS2.)

Art Guy @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM

Unless you have alot of pre-recorded video, 9GB is plenty of space. How many multiple DVD PC games are there?

Big Drizzle @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM

In early November there was a post that the Japanese arm of XBOX said that their was gonna be a drive(HD-DVD) but it wouldn't be for games, it would only be for movie play back.,., stupid I think, but at least they are thinking about it

I think it would have made more sense for MS to put the higher capacity drive into their next gen system( along with including a harddrive with every system, would have made more sense)., but I guess thier headstart was more important.,. lets hope they do more with it than they have so far

Art Guy @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM

Jago - There isn't a current affordable alternative to DVDs. Sony can sell the PS3 for a loss since they will make money on every Blu-Ray movie made, while MicroSoft would just be subsidising HD-DVD for Toshiba's gain.

Adding a HD-DVD drive would make the 360 cost at least a $100 more, and come out later than they wanted. Seeing as there are only a handfull of PC games that need more than one DVD, making everyone pay a premium for storage that few games will take advantage of would be a bad business decision. Having 3-4 games needing to have multiple disks isn't that big of a deal.

isuma @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM

Using PC games as a comparison is unfair ... the game data is heavily compressed and needs to be unpacked before its installed.

Console games need to be run off the CD/DVD with some data trasnfered to RAM ... decrypting on the fly is possible, but, takes processor power and becomes inefficient (on the fly).

Aikinai @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM

There's no contradiction here; we don't have to decide who to believe. There are currently no plans for another drive, but Ballmer thinks it'd be stupid to think there never will be. Just because they realize it will probably happen doesn't mean they already have plans.

Art Guy @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM

isuma - It's probably not the best possible comparison, but it is fair. How large is an average uncompressed PC game on your hard drive? Serious question, I'd love to see a list of top PC games and how much space they require.

The largest I have at work is 5.4GB, Unreal Tournament 2004, and thats with a bunch of mods and levels added. I'm not sure how big it is with a clean install.

xbair @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM

RocketPunch-
Because Microsoft's disc compression algorithms can put 18gb onto a dual layer dvd. *That* is why it is not a big deal.

Domingo @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM

I'd rather have a gigantic HD (or other read-write stoage medium) than HD-DVD and Blu-Ray combined. Give us a 300GB hard-drive upgrade option instead. They could then ship a game on 5-6 DVD's and you could "install" it just like a PC game if you don't want to change disks. It could store a TON of games/hd-movies/etc.
If you don't want to buy the new HD, then you can just swap the disks by hand.
Storage technology pricing is dropping by the day. That's the true future and I'd suspect it's the direction MS is looking in.

pennywise969 @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM

I think that all the games should come on like 50 3x5 floppies.

epobirs @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM

With both HD-DVD and Blu-ray supporting VC-1 (a codec derived from Windows Media) there is little reason for Microsoft to take sides in the format battle. HD-DVD's runtime environment is MS based while Blu-ray's is Java based but that is an issue to MS people outside of the division concerned with Xbox. They have a much more clear cut agenda and need only ask what will it add to our cost vs. the benefits.

The cost is quite substantial. Amajor against vote. The benefits aren't especially great. Primarily it means added storage capacity to allow a handful of games to avoid disk swapping. The great majority of games that exceed the capacity of DVD have enough linear elements to make changing from Disc 1 to Disc 2 and one-time event in the course of the game. If there are more discs it means a great deal of eye candy that rarely makes for complaints. (How many felt truly inconvenienced by FFIX's four discs?) Even GTA style games have scenes that can only be reached with a certain level of accomplishment, making for a linear progression and allowing for minimal disc switches.

The secondary benefit is playing HD movies. This could help sell consoles but could backfire if the consoles are used primarily for this function and not games because it is the least expensive HD-DVD player on the market. (As Sony intends for the PS3's Blu-ray functionality.) Since Microsoft doesn't own a major portion of the HD-DVD revenue stream this would be disastrous, similar to those people who bought the original Xbox for media center modding and not playing Xbox games.

At this stage there just isn't a good business argument for putting HD-DVD in the X360 as standard. (If was even available for mass production yet.) Down the road, releasing a special HD-DVD model of the system that doubled as a HD movie player but still solely used DVDs for games and carried a price point that covered the cost difference (perhaps even enough to lessen the amount MS already loses per console) while still offering a bargain compared to dedicated HD-DVD players, might be a viable move.

This model would be a specialty item that counted towards the X360's installed base but didnt complicate the job of game developers and publishers. Not terribly different from the JVC X'eye which put the Sega Genesis and Sega CD in a single unit with added karaoke functions, or the Panasonic version of the GameCube that also supported DVD movie playback.

Zo @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM

Maybe a litte perspective here, the Encyclopaedia Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite 2004, it�s THREE encyclopedias, plus more than 8,000 Year in Review articles from 1993-2002, plus Two Complete Dictionaries and Thesauruses, plus a World Atlas, a collection of historic Britannica Classics articles, a timeline resource with elementary, student, and adult reference packages; a research organizer; Britannica�s Knowledge Navigator interactive browser. IN total more than 100,000 articles plus an array of multimedia features incorporating 21,000 images, video, and audio -all on one DVD.

Also, just because something works in 1080p, does not mean it needs 50gig or more. Most games are real-time rendered not static images.

I am more apt to believe that someone at Sony was smart of enough to believe in the stupidity of fanboys and "use" them to pimp the Blu-Ray format so that they could force Hollywood into a new format for which they could make money off of every disk and so that they could force the issue of HD-DVD vs Blu-Ray by saying that X million people already have Blu-Ray in their homes.

So, they have used Fanboys as a great tool! to force their agenda so that they could make more money on "MOVIES" and not "GAMES". Recall that the PS2 is under the entertainment division and so the PS2 is a great trojan horse by making fanboys do the PR work for Sony (They already have millions of them and they are free as soon as they foam at the mouth). This is no different than the way they used Fanboys to push UMDs so that they could sell you the same license to the same IP over and over and over again at a higher price and force movie studio to pay Sony license to the UMD format.

Blu-ray has nothing to do with games, its all about making money on reusing Movie IP!!!! Blu-ray has more to do with the next movie format wars than with gaming.

I can't wait for the DRM issues on the PS3 and if you think you can pull off the multi-region tricks or PS2 hacks of today, good luck with Blu-ray!

epobirs @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM

#21

That would go over very poorly with most console gamers. If they wanted to deal with a lengthy instal process they'd be PC gamers, wouldn't they? And the large hard drive still creates the issue of greatly increased cost for the system. Plus you would still face capacity issues after just a few big games were installed. A game shipping on 5-6 DVDs hold 8.5 GB each is around 45 GB. It only takes a few of those to fill up a 300 GB drive.

You could reduce the space used by not copying stuff like long FMV sequences to the Hard drive but that means still dealing with multiple DVDs and having pretty much the situation we already expect from the biggest games.

Fortunately, there aren't going to be a lagre number of such games. Those that do appear will use most of that space for cinemas and have enough linearity to make disc changes during the game minimal.

So it really doesn't make sense to throw money at a problem that doesn't exist.

epobirs @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM

#24

I think you're attributing cynicism to Sony that isn't really there. Recall that the PS2's DVD playback capability was a hugely successful tacti in Japan. The format had yet to reach a fraction of the market it had achieved in the US and players were significantly more costly in Japan. PS2 broke the floodgates and sales of DVDs went from minor to huge in the year following the PS2 launch. Everybody with a financial interest in the popularity of DVD benefitted from this. Retailers, movie studios and distributors, even makers of competing DVD players as the acceptance of the format creat more demand for their products as well.

Sony isn't forcing Hollywood to do anything. A movie studio doesn't care if Sony loses a $Billion seeding the market with PS3 Blu-ray players. They just see a big opportunity to move product. Their cost to test the waters of a new format is very low compared to the massive amount Sony has riding on the venture. The movies are going to be mastered for HD regardless since the cable and satellite markets already create demand for such. Once you have the high bit-rate master of a movie creating version at various lower rates for different targets is a minor expense and increasingly automated.

None of this requires fanboys. Sony is making a perfectly valid value proposition for the PS3 and Blu-ray. They are the one company in the world that is positioned to do so. It would be terribly dumb for them not to exploit their strengths. It is the job of competing game console makers to play to their own strengths.

It is wrong to claim that Blu-ray has nothing to offer games. Added storage capacity is always useful. While I don't think there are going to be a great number of Xbox 360 games on multiple DVDs there will be far more time needed by developers to keep games from overruning the capacity of a single disc. The cost of a second disc in a package is small but it does increase the sales needed to make a game profitable, so a game that overruns a single disc by just a small amount is going to possibly see some features cut out.

A great portion of the original Playstation's library didn't come close to filling a single CD-ROM. But having all of that space made life easier for the developers. They could have plenty of Red Book uncompressed audio and not have to devote processor time to decompressing or use stuff like MIDI sound sets instead of real recorded musicians for their music. Sound effect sets could be much larger and diverse rather than requiring a small set to be recycled throughout the game. Games like Resident Evil II on the N64 showed you could do a lot with compression but that also came out several years after the game had been a big hit on the more convenient PS1 platform.

Time spent tweaking compression and reworking video and audio files to see how much more they can be squeezed before unacceptable quality loss adds time and therefore expense to a project. Unless the publisher faces a substantially higher cost per BD-ROM disc compared to DVDs they are going to welcome the opportunity to just through their stuff on there at full quality and minor compression.

Developers are never going to disfavor more capacity. Thir greater concern is whether Sony sells enough machines to make the platform worth effort, even if that is reduced by the capacity of the disc.

don_sf @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM

xbox 360 fans, lol.

sony could take complete control of the portable video (and audio) market in the next few years.

they are releasing a new media player, which almost definately has to make used of UMDs and memory stick duos.

you already see umd movies selling well in lots of outlets (even i was suprised by that), and when this media player is out you can imagine the impact on UMD movies and normal songs.

this is going to have some kind of connection with ps3.

while ds and psp are both great, i can see sony dominate in the portable entertainment.

apoc06 @ Dec 18th 2005 9:06PM

lets see. GTA:SA almost filled a dvd9 and if im not mistaken, god of war filled a dvd9. gran turismo required 2 dvd9's. this was last generation.

the problem is that people are thinking... "games wont need 30 gigs of space...". and those that say that are probably right. however, thats not the argument to worry about. what needs to be worried about is when a game needs 10 gigs of space, or maybe 15. games like final fantasy worked because each disc was separated by what FMV was on it. with games that require backtracking or large textural layouts in high resolution textures, i can see only nine gigs of space becoming a problem. sure enterprising programmers could try to work around this shortcoming, and probably will. however, games like ninja gaiden which require backtracking will be hindered greatly.

what you will see/ hear is lots of levels being cut from games because they made the game too large, etc... code is negligible, but cinematics and textures and music can grow rather large quite quickly. and you have to remember that this generation of consoles is past the level of pc games you are accustomed to. thus requiring more space. this is a "generation jump"; akin to the ps1 -> ps2 jump. im sure many people may have assumed that they could still fit ps2 games on cd roms too, back then. look at how stiffled they would have been. even the nintendo media solution acknowledged that they would have needed more than 700mb worth of space, and they still underestimated!