Rumor: MSFT's E3 plans include $100 HD-DVD

With HD dvd players running in the $500 - $1000 mark. I def wouldnt hesitate on purchasing an add-on for only $100.

This E3 is gonna be very interesting....

"The real question this raisesis, up against the Revolution and the PS3, does Microsoft have this many tricks in its bag to keep all eyes on it?"

As much as I love my 360, the answer is...No.

They should re-release the 360 with an HD-DVD drive built in, and then sell the $100 system for people with the older one.

Of course - it'll be for movies only so people wont be screwed.

Wow, a $100 price decrease of the premium 360, and an $80 drop on the Core, in less than a year? Wow!

Also, HD-DVD for $100? I'm in, as long as I can be reasonably sold on the fact that HD-DVD isn't going to be going away anytime soon.

Good news if true.

man if the premium drops by 100 bones..that'd be a god-send...and hopefully it comes pre-installed with more capacity...

Wow that was fast, I go to joystiq see then new Xbox HD story with no comments quickly click the link and see that out of nowhere 4 comments pop up in something like 8 seconds wow.

I think M$oft have really screwed themselves here. They should have made the HD drive come with the X 360, it don't work well cause people will have a choice of HDDVD or DVD and I think most people will not buy it because it will be an extra hidden cost. This is why the PSnet was shit because it as an addon unlike Xbox which had internet out of the box. Stupid M$oft you should learnt from $ony's stupid mistakes which they make so much that it is trubling and brakes there reputation. That's why no-one cares about $ony anymoore.

$100?? Who's smokin' what??

I know all the electronics would be handled by the 360 and the add-on itself would basically just be a HD-DVD drive, but there's no way it's going to be $100. What manufacturer even makes a $100 HD-DVD drive?

Color me skeptical. I really, REALLY doubt that Microsoft is not only going to magically reduce it's console price by 20% less than a year after it's release, and sell an HD-DVD "add-on" for $100 when the cheapest player is 5x that. I call shenanigans.

Every commentator from every site has agreed 100-150 for the add on, so it isnt outrages, the onyl reason the stand alones are so much is because the insides are basically computers, same parts same setup, so teh 360 has all the expensive parts in it.

#5: You can't include hardware THAT DOESN'T EXIST. The first HD-DVD drives are just hitting the market NOW. The 360 released months ago.

Want to hazard a guess as to one of the reasons why the PS3 is running late? Dumbass.

If the HD-DVD add-on is, indeed, $100 then Blu-Ray can wave bye-bye. It will lose to the horde of people who pick up their next-gen video playback device for $100 add on to their already-made investment of a 360.

Since the HD-DVD is an add on, MS will not sell it for a loss. In fact, like other accessories they would want to maintain a fairly hefty margin on it. I highly doubt that the HD-DVD drive will retail for less than 200 USD.

An add-on optical drive for the XBOX360 will as successful as a DVD drive (video only) for the Dreamcast.

im just glad the HD-DVD isnt the main function of the unit and just an accessory...if they made it for games..then it wud really flop the 360 ( a la sega cd etc) but since its limited to movies..i dont really care..since i beleive both formats are doomed anyway...

I meant to comment back when joystiq was "guessing" the cost of the revo service.

One on the inital and ongoing content plans for the 360 was a tiered subscription service VERY similar to Yahoo Games on Demand and Gametap (btw great services i personally love them both however wish they offered better monthly game updates) Anyway many people look at the Infinium Labs Phantom as a sheenanigan to gain and embezzle money. The reality is, in many circles that Infinium was a testing ground for the concept of subscription based gaming via digital distribution. On of the things MS plans to do is place its ENTIRE back catalog of xbox 1 games (likely first party and greatest hits) on the digital distribution with access for a monthly fee. The reason they have not began the extent of what they plan is they must FIRST generate a large install base before the bite the retailers they are trying hard to build good relationships with. Lets think about it. Retailers will promote and stock merchandise they know they can gain even more sells from digital distribution offers them nothing. However thats a sidepoint. Expect and incredible live experience in the next few years as the full extent of MS plans have not even began to scratch the surface.

Well I dont think people are realizing that the hd-dvd add on will be just a bare bones drive, the 360 already has all the media capabilities needed otherwise

No way im attaching any kind of cd drive to my 360 thats retarted and a $100 price drop... isnt Xbox still $170. Sounds like microsoft has to update a lot of the components just to equal what PS3 has. Either way ill have both.

Why is it so hard from someone to believe that they would sell the add-on drive for only 100 dollars? The Hardware in the XBOX 360 should already be able to handle all the decoding and playback functions... the drive itself is just a drive.

I hope these rumors are true. However, I think the DVD player will cost $150.00, not $100.00. Furthermore, I do not think Toshiba is going to sit by and let the PS3 with a Blu-Ray gain marketshare without a fight; so it makes sense for MS to launch a HDDVD player and Toshiba to start selling cheaper players as well.

I would love a $100 HD-DVD drive.
Microsoft would probably lose a ton of money at that price, though.

I really wonder how much they are ready to bleed in order to kill Sony and Nintendo. At this time, it looks like they have no limit.

I hope it works out for them.

Why are people expecting a $100 price drop less than a year after the XBox360 is released? The earliest price drop I see coming for the XBox360 is the PS3 release date, when there will be actual competition for Microsoft. The only other way that Microsoft would drop the price is if sales slowed to the point where a price drop would be almost required. Come on guys, Microsoft is a business. They spent 4 billion dollars getting into the business (money lost on the original XBox). They have gotten in, and now they are looking to profit.

As for the 100gb hard drive. Sounds great. Except that they are charging $100 for the 20gb hard drive right now. Microsoft won't be giving away 100gb hard drives for next to nothing. 100gb 2.5" hard drives are still fairly expensive, so I wouldn't expect a low price for it.

I can't see them charging less than $150 for the HD-DVD drive. Again, they are a business, looking to milk all of us, the consumers, for as much money as they can. And even at $150, the drive will still be a bargain.

Everything else seems pretty plausible though.

MS is almost certainly losing money on the 360 I can't see them cutting the price. Everyone's predicting the PS3 will be more expensive than the 360. MS pricing startegy will depend on what Sony does. If it comes out the PS3 is priced lower MS would probably match. Otherwise $400 is likely going to be with us for at least another year.

The reason, in my eyes, that they would do the price drop and the cheaper HD-DVD right around oh lets say... NOVEMBER... would STEAL! the marketplace completely.

What's interesting is that Xbox fanboys say "WOW THIS IS GREAT NEWS!!11" but they say the opposite for PS3. lol

it would make sense for x360 to be priced lower than ps3 becuz its obviously the crappier system

Why would microsoft sell hd dvd drives for $100? It makes no sense to sell a PERIPHERAL (eg NOT required for games) at a considerable loss. If anything I would think $200 to $300 to be far more reasonable.

I wonder if these HD-DVD players will play regular DVDs as well. It would be neat to pick up a Japanese HD-DVD add-on for the 360...then my 360 will kind of be a multi-region DVD player.

"Why would microsoft sell hd dvd drives for $100? It makes no sense to sell a PERIPHERAL (eg NOT required for games) at a considerable loss. If anything I would think $200 to $300 to be far more reasonable"

It's a way of Microsoft saying: "ME TOO!!! ME 2 ROFLZ!!". You know, like they've always done.

I think any such $100 price cuts would either smack of desperation, or smack of an overpriced initial release.

There is a very genuine possibility that MS is still losing over $100 per premium unit (and slightly more on core). Lowering the price even $50 on either SKU seems pushing it.

E3 will be interesting, because anything besides these outrageous claims would be a very uninteresting E3 for 360. Seriously, what's left for them to suprise us with? Viva Pinata: The Redemption? Too Human Part 2: Behind Closed Doors? "New Untitled Over The Sholder Shooter Franchise"? powered by unreal 3.5 engine?

Will anyone, ANYONE be suprised by Halo 3?

I think they've blown their load ever so slightly too early.

Well, SONY Fanboys will DIE if MS gets the GTA series.

"Well, SONY Fanboys will DIE if MS gets the GTA series."

Uh... MS already has GTA.

And this HD-DVD drive will not be $100. There's really nothing more to say about it. Feel free to check this thread again during E3 and tell me how right I was.

MS already said they will have a price cut every year, so 100 by october/november is perfect since its withing a year and the ps3 will launch soon after.

Yeah...i read that link and the list of things to come for the 360. Seems to me like half of it was BS. The 360 is gaining momentum, and since they accutally have them stores, even though some are over heating, they are haveing no problems selling them. No need to resort to crazy talk about stuff that ain't gonna happen. That price drop would be a good idea, even though they aren't making any money by selling the system.

why dont you just call this website www.reiteration-of-the-obvious.com, ugh, old news so much now, this site has some good stuff but more and more crap keeps coming up

the sega games on revo. are in NO WAY exclusive to the Revolution. I've said this a MILLION times before. Greg Canessa, the guy in charge of XBOX live! arcade said that Sega game like Sonic, Golden Axe, etc. would be on live! arcade before the 360 was even launched at last years Digital Life expo. Sega was officially stated as an OFFICIAL development/publishing partner for Live! Arcade before the 360 was even launched. Yet, for some reason, because the big wigs at Nintendo make a big deal out of it, they get all the credit.

http://blogs.mercurynews.com/aei/2005/10/microsoft_unvei.html

there was also a video of the interview on 1up.com, but it's since been taken down.


If half or even 1/4 of the stuff on this list is true, things are going to be looking much brighter for the 360.

It has to be cheap. To get a system like the PS3, you'd need to spend $100 on wifi adapter and whatever it costs for the HD-DVD drive, plus the PS3 will have a larger hdd. Add all that up and you could be looking at a $700+ system. MS needs to update the premium system to include wifi and HD-DVD, plus a bigger hdd. Then make upgrading to those specs more reasonable for those of us with a 360 already. If they did this, I'd just sell my 360 and get a new one.

I would buy the HD-DVD drive if it cost $200. $100 is a no-brainer in my book.

$100 for the HD-DVD will be about on Par what the first generation HD-DVD drives will cost when they come out. This news is plausable IMO, MS wouldn't make any money off of the HD-DVD for 6 months but after that it would make a good profit.

Everyone must be thinking BLU-RAY drive prices not HD-DVD prices.

This is patently rediculous. Of course MS is not going to drop the price of their console $100 or $80. Especially when their competitor will have a console at $100 + more than the most Expensive 360 Premium bundle.

I think MS will keep prices the same this year but add something like a Game to add more value. For example...Xbox 360 core with free Kameo or PGR3.

It's not good business tactic to lower your price when demand is about to skyrocket as PS3 will be sold out everywhere and many will be looking for Xbox360 to fill it's shoes. Also 360's game portfolio by Christmas is going to be Outstanding...especially when compared to 10-15 launch titles for PS3...half of which are EA games that will be on 360 or already are on 360 (Fight Night Round 3).

I also think the HD-DVD add on will be priced somewhere around $199.00. Which still makes purchasing a 360 and drive cheaper than PS3 if it cost $500 or above.

awesome, because there has been plenty of successful addons....

Just a reminder:

MS has 34.7 billion in cash. Yes, cash.
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=MSFT

Don't worry about them losing money on anything. It's all relative.

Yeah...jump for joy you morons who think this is true. MS gets nothing by selling a $100 HD-DVD drive. Your telling me they will be making profit selling these at $100? Grow brains...Sony is doing it because they get royalties on every Blu-Ray disk used. MS gets nothing from HD-DVD. End of story.

A bigger HDD would be great, But I really dont want to hear the price tag...OUCH! Since they charge a "just plain rediculous" amount for the 20gb currently available. Most (PC) HDD's are like 50 cents per gig, microsoft should not go over doubling that!

BTW, the $100 tag on the HD-DVD is realistic, I think the people who think it isn't is thinking the drive will be available around E3...when it wont be until Oct/Nov, so they have time to mass produce it and get its tech cheaper. THe current HD-DVD players are $500, but I'd say around Oct/Nov there will be an "el' cheapo" version on the market for $300...and thats the whole player...so A drive at $100 sounds about right.

If they drop the price 100 bucks I will likely twist my own arm, and go out and buy one...But I REALLY wish they would start pumping them out in different flavors...I WANT IT IN BLACK MICROSOFT.

I think a Black console would sell better then a white one...just my opinion.

To number 38: If Microsoft can help HD-DVD win against Blu-Ray even if that means not making much of a profit on the HD-DVD drive, what do you think that will do to sony? Now who's the moron.

And if microsoft is including an HDMI connection with the add-on HD drive, I'm all in for one, even at 150.

This isn't your typical add-on, like the Hard Drive for PS2...MS has already stated that there will never be games on anything but normal DVD disc so this add on is simply for those that want to watch High Def Movies via 360. So comparing this to a failed console add on of 10yrs ago just doesn't make sense.

If no-one ever buys a single one of these...it won't matter at all as the drive has absolutely no bearing on anything other than watching HD-DVD movies.

I wander exactly how the 360 is going to incorporate HDMI? Will it just be a different connector on the 360 or will the drive have a built in HDMI port??? Will the 360 add on drive also allow for DVD upconversion like the new Toshiba player does with normal DVDs? Will it come with a Remote?

Errr...
"If no-one ever buys a single one of these...it won't matter at all as the drive has absolutely no bearing on anything other than watching HD-DVD movies."
Right. Except for all the money Microsoft will have lost developing, marketing, and producing the units. Remember kids, just because you have more money than you need doesn't mean it's OK to start setting it on fire!

As for the 360 vs. (insert console here) wars, it's not looking good for the big M$. The only REAL advantage 360 had over PS3 was X-box Live, and PS3 is going to debut with a similar service...only free. Owie. Depending on how well that service actually works, that could really put a knot in Microsoft's bonnet. (is that a real metaphor? oh well...)

Add that to the fact that PS3 will be region free on games, 100% backwards compatible, and play HD-DVDs out of the box, it's going to be rough sailing.

Keep an ear out for an official announcment of a FFVII remake for PS3. That's what we call in the buisness a "death knell". That single game, almost a shoe in, really, considering one of the earliest tech demos, will move more PS3s than you could believe.

Nintendo is looking at a fair share of the pie, as well, with a large chunk of gamers opting to buy one as their "second console", which is right where ninty wants to be right now.

Meanwhile we have 360, which, sadly, has just not announced any new fire. Their lineup is a big lackluster, and while I'd say they have a few AA titles, (Call of Duty, DoA 4) no real AAA titles have shown up.

Unless they show some footage of Halo 3 (Forerunner?) at E3, it's gonna be a masacre come November.

I think alot of the rumours are untrue. The price drop is totally wrong but as someone above said I can see a bundled game sweeterning the deal.

As for what MS get from HD-DVD, they gets loads. If HD-DVD "wins" it would be a huge huge blow to the Playstation, but by not betting the 360 on HD-DVD if blu-ray "wins" the impact isn't the same on Xbox 360.

Since the 360 already has the ability to handle HD video then the HD-DVD drive is just a data storage device, so it'll be alot cheaper than stand alone HD-DVD players, but I think $100 is a bit too cheap, unless MS are subsidising them.

I actually wouldn't be at all suprised if they announce a 360 with built in HD-DVD drive and ditch the core system. Leaving Consumers the simple choice Premium 360 or Premium 360 +HD-DVD. It would be much more sensible than doing a package including the add-on.

By giving customers choice PS3 could have some problems.

It is also possible that Toshiba will be subsidizing the HD-DVD drive, not Microsoft. Think about it; Toshiba has everything to gain and lose by having HD-DVD win the latest format war. They may see the Xbox 360 as a nice trojan horse and will offer the peripheral them selves at a loss. Technially, Microsoft can have almost nothing to do with this, other than providing the liscense for Toshiba to create an official peripheral.

That being said, I think most of these "predictions" are unfounded. A $100 price drop? That makes no sense. The prices won't come down until demand lowers to a certain level and hardware costs come down for the manufacturers. These are all part of someone's pipedream.

Hi Guys, what if Microsoft is planning a re-writable HD DVD drive for mass storage, that could be the winning ticket - double sided 30 gig HD DVD, how sweat would that be...

In my (humble) opinion the Xbox360 is too noisy for watching DVD's, so it's a close call between paying just $100 for an HD-DVD add-on and putting up with the noise or paying 5 times more for a nice HD-DVD player. Throw in the fact that the Xbox360 is a pretty poor DVD player and I begin to wonder how the quality of HD-DVD will compare to a standalone HD-DVD player (obviously not as good)

A general question... I've read a lot of reports that the Xbox360 can not output a digital signal - which is why we haven't seen an HDMI cable. To comply with the HD-DVD standard wouldn't it need to output via DVI/HDMI?

I was under the impression that unless you view HD-DVD or Blu-Ray via digital output the picture quality is automatically reduced because of the copy protection issues. (Apologies if I'm talking out of hat on this one)!

Finally, the $100 price cut of the Premium pack really does sound like a wild rumour. MS are much more likely to do a added value bundle before knocking money off the Premium or Core units. Wouldn't surprise me to see a Halo 3 bundle beforew a price drop.

Remember one thing folks.

WE KNOW NOTHING!

We know no real details of what the PS3 will actually pull off on their Network. We don't know what MS has up their sleve for E3. I know a few of the XBLA related announcements for E3 have me stoked. But I'll admit, no game really have me excited save for Mistwalker's games. But E3 is about new game announcements.

Microsoft could easily release the HD-DVD add-on for $100 and it would be a couop. Keep in mind that HD-DVD, from a drive standpoint, isn't all that different from DVD. The drive itself isn't where the big cost is. It's in the decoding hardware, which is where the 360 comes in. The add-on model is the smartest thing they could do. Why force consumers to pay extra for something that:

1. Most people can't take advantage of.

2. Won't make games ANY better.

Games will continue to be on DVD. People who want HD-DVD movies can get the addon.

As for the HDMI output, converting signals is easy. Microsoft will have no issues making this work.