I own a premium 360 and I play on an HD panel, but personally, I won't be touching the HD-DVD drive with a stick. There's just no incentive. I've built up a big DVD collection that looks OK as they are on my panel, so there's no real incentive to switch to HD-DVD. The drive is going to be expensive enough in it's own right (although not as much as HD-DVD players by a long way), the movies themselves are going to cost about £20 a piece at release I'd say (that's about $35), if they go anything like DVDs, and there'll be a shit selection.

I won't be buying into either of the 'next-gen formats' until there's a clear 'winner', and players and movies are cheap, and there'll need to be a lot of movies available.

As I see it, the incentive to switch just isn't there. The incentive to jump from VHS to DVD was huge - no more FF/Rewinding tapes, no tape jams, far better picture and sound, ability to jump between chapters, extra features, etc. Thing is, all HD-DVD and Blu Ray offer are slightly nicer quality pictures. I think I'll pass for now.

Although I'd appreciate using one less HD input on my TV, I'd much rather spend the money down the road on a dedicated box. So I can use it when I stop using my 360 (assuming I don't just get a new player.) So I get a better remote and probably better quality. So I don't need to hear the 360 exhaust while watching a movie.

So I have no real use for this.



And, for the record, before people complain:
MICROSOFT HAS ALREADY SAID THIS DOES NOT HAVE GAME-PLAYING CAPABILITIES. NO GAME WILL EVER USE THIS, MUCH LESS REQUIRE IT!

im not interested in HD movies but already owning a 360, if i was i would opt for the HD-DVD add on as i simply cant afford the PS3 at the moment

anybody know the ps3 price in £££'s (GBP)

I'm fine with DVD.

I don't think anyone really gives a damn about HD movie playback.

It's part of why I don't see why some of the more zealous PS3 fans are so adamant about having a Blu-Ray drive/player as a real feature.

There IS one thing I do like about the 360 HD-DVD peripheral...it's an addon. It's optional (meaning I can opt to pay for it or not) and it won't put any wear on my GAME console's drive.

I mean really, I buy a media player to play media...my console is for GAMING!

The first round of HD-DVD movies so far have been between 30 to 40 dollars. That means Bluray movies will be 40 to 50 dollars PER MOVIE if it's true that they cost more to make. This would make a $600 sytem that much more expensive! If M$ can hit the stores with a $150 add on. Then it's game over sony, especially if it has an HDMI out.

Im going to buy a stand alone HD DVD player when I need it. I have a 51" widescreen hdtv and dvd quality is good enough for now. Cant justify the cost of rebuying movies. I have hi def cable and so Im good to go.

600 euro is like 750 american dollars.

THANKS A LOT SONY,I LOVE YOU TOO!!!

no but seriously,sure we in europe is used to get bad pricing,but here in sweden i paid 3700 kronor for my xbox360 premium, thats like 480 dollars.

And btw with that 750 dollars,they havnt'e even included taxes here,750 dollars=5600 kronor,so probably 6000 swedish kronors with taxes.

basically i could buy a 360 + some games+controllers for the same price.

And Phil,wake up,you live in a dream world,600 euro and then buy a Nintendo wii?
You must talk about people with salary as big as yours,people like me who just turned 20,and doesnt make a lot of money and is studying,wont afford that.

nah,im going Xbox360+nintendo wii now.
Was thinking of gettinga Ps3 but that wont happend until 2008 earliest now...if i even get one.

I mean just look at these xbox360 AAA titles,why even bother.
And before someone writes how could you afford a xbox360,my dad paid it.

He thought xbox live arcade looked very fun for him and my mom.

But since ima honest person,my brother who works he said he will get both xbox360 and ps3 and you just need to start saving up from now until you can afford it.

But Dennis my brother hasn't even a 360 yet ;) so that bastard better save up some big money NOW!!!

Being the young family man that I am, it was hard enough to talk the little lady into letting me get a 360. It will be a while before I can find the money for an HDTV, so the HD-DVD add-on won't be on my purchase list for a long time, if at all.

Deep within the catacombs of Microsoft HQ in Redmond, WA, top-paid engineers continue their R&D for the XBox 360.

"Hmm, how can we make the XBox 360 even more gargantuan?" questions one eager employee while nursing a Starbucks latté.

"Oh, I know, let's make a huge-ass, hard to manage secondary drive that plays HD movies, because technophiles don't have enough crap shoved into their strained entertainment centers," replies another pimply-faced, barely out of college Microsoft sentinel.

"Yes, that settles it. Bigger is better. Hey, maybe we can use this thing as a space heater as well..."

Will this plan come to fruition? Will Halo 3 have an actual ending? Is Sony the anti-christ? Tune in later this year. Same bat-time, same bat-channel.

still doesnt have that 40 extra gig, movie playback off the HD and built in wifi

Its been said before but i totally agree. HD DVD add on is a smooth move by Microsoft, but I (and I assume many others) will not be buying the add on. Ryan dont be so cynical, the ps3 will be huge one day. think about it, you know its better than the 360 and the wii, because it takes the best features from both. long live the xstation wii

"questions one eager employee while nursing a Starbucks latté."

OKAY. Completely unrelated, but since the Superbowl this has been irking me. Doesn't *everyone* in America drink coffee everyday?! At least people in urban areas? At least on tv they're all like "I need coffee omgggggg...". Starbucks started here, and yes it's everywhere, but I've been to California and New York and you people have pretty much the same amount of Starbucks as we do! I DO NOT GET THIS STEREOTYPE.

Sorry about the completely random tangent, I just snapped. I've been meaning to let that out forever. Whatever, at least I distracted people from the rabid fanboyish that's taken over this site. :(

Jackie Chan,

Do you have problems playing movies at the moment?

@ quezcatol: You forget the difference in taxes. In Europe it's 600? including taxes. In USA it's 600$ + taxes.

We still pay ~60$ more though. It depends on which country you live in, because of different taxes.

People, the visual difference between DVD and HD-DVD/Blu-ray is MUCH greater that the difference between VHS and DVD was back in 1997. Don't take my word for it, head over to HD Beat to get the info, but basically VHS (480i) is only slightly inferior to DVD (480p). DVD (480p) is vastly inferior to HD-DVD (1080i/p) and Blu-ray (1080p).

I personally cannot wait to see the pricing on this, because if it even remotely close to $100-$150, its a huge seller. The cheapest HD-DVD player costs around $500 now, and might drop a little as we approach the holiday season.

As I've commented before, if Blu-ray turns out to be the format that survives, I'm definitely buying a PS3, which is one-half to one-third the cost of standalone Blu-ray players, even at $600.

Next generation movies are equally important to MS and Sony, because these are just one more way they can sell the console to the non-gaming general public. MS and Sony will each be able to point to their respective devices, and then to the standalone players, and show how cheap their option is compared to others.

I wouldn't buy a dedicated HD DVD player at $500, but if Microsoft sells this at $100 or thereabouts, I would definately be interested in purchasing one. A cheap HD DVD player? Count me in.

I'm not interested in HD-DVD or Bluray. I'm with the others; DVD is fine. Hell, I still have a few tapes that I haven't replaced yet! Sittting it out and seeing if either format wins at all would be the best bet. I just don't see consumers clamoring for what little the formats have to offer over DVD.

One big problem is that these new formats essentially require new hardware: An HDTV and a DVI/HDMI connection that supports HDCP. With DVD, you needed composite inputs, which most TVs had at the time.

After you've dumped money into getting it set up, you end up with a slightly sharper picture.

I don't see the point.

We pay through the nose so you don't have to!
(all prices include tax)

PS3 Premium = £425 (price ive seen in shops for preorder) = £800

XBOX 360 Premium = £280 = $527
XBOX 20GB HD = £70 = $131
XBOX 360 Games = £50 = $92

PSP Value Pack = £150 = $282
PSP Games = £30 = $56
UMD Movies = £20 = $38
1GB ProDuo = £70 = £131

DS Phat = £90 = £169

I hope our American cousins appreciate what we do for them. Hopefully standing shoulder to shoulder with you will pay off soon...

Personally, i like to play my dvds on a dvd player and my games on a games console.

I don't know why, it's a waste of money but i like things seperate.

Nope.
You add on taxes for us in europe.
However every store suddenly changed from 4000 kronor,to 3700-3500 to sell of their 360 first.
400 euro=3700 kronor,but with swedish taxes they took up to 4100 kronor,however since february(then i bought my 360 premium) they started to take 3500-3700 kronor.

Our xbox360 games cost $80 each.
Xbox live cost $50 dollar a year for Americans,for us here in sweden it cost $80 dollar.'

which is horrible cause...
Here you can get 24mb internet for 30 dollar a month,basically we have the best connection and is often the host in each game,but no,we get to pay most.

Btw we in europe and especially us scandinavians pay the highest taxes in the world.
We pay 33% for each thing at a store.
Dont compare scandinavian taxes with americans,we pay far more then you ever will.

And also our gov is for heavly taxes,hopefully that will change with having the liberal gov this september.

the problem lies with movies being a passive medium. does anyone care about seeing the individual blades of grass? or highly distinct pock-marks on brad pitt's face?

not really. you're involved in the plot. folks don't tend to pay attention to that type of thing.

however, in a video game, you have crosshairs leveled on a blur? or on some bastard's head? HUGE difference required in visual acuity.

i think it's pretty obvious nobody cares about dvd vs. high def dvd in terms of visual quality.

it'll be the features of a next gen format that drive sales. it was the menu items, the special features, the scene skip, the form factor, things like that that sold dvd over vhs.

it was not -- i repeat -- was not that dvd looked that much better. it was putting more control over the movie watching experience in people's hands.

nobody cares about how detailed the picture is. look at hdtv sales curves that have been happening since the 80's.

the ps3 is a boat anchor with no target audience.

m3mnoch.

Jackie Chan, the PS3 has to have wifi to connect to the PSP, just like the Wii does with the DS. The PS3 also needs a larger HD to cache games to since the Blue-ray drive is slower than a DVD-ROM.

I think Microsoft is selling the HD-DVD drive just to counter the Blu-Ray drive in the PS3. It wasn't until very late that Microsoft joined the HD-DVD camp. In fact Bill Gates himself has stated that he thinks downloads are the future. I actually plan on skipping the HD-DVD/Blu-Ray thing. I'd much rather buy the media off of the internet and then store it how ever I want to (hard drive, burned DVD, floppy disk RAID). As long as MS doesn't force people to buy the 360 with HD-DVD I'll be happy.

I speculate this coming Novemember, Thanksgiving holiday, Microsoft is going to plant the bomb on Sony.

PRICE DROP

Xbox Core $249 (from $299)
Xbox Premium $299 (from $399)

UNVEIL THE XBOX 360 add-on ACCESSORY

HD-DVD Drive $129

Sony will be owned this upcoming holiday you just wait and see.

the_game_master, actually you're wrong

its going to be

xbox core $99
xbox premium $199

hd-dvd add one $49

just wait and see.

"Don't take my word for it, head over to HD Beat to get the info, but basically VHS (480i) is only slightly inferior to DVD (480p). DVD (480p) is vastly inferior to HD-DVD (1080i/p) and Blu-ray (1080p)."

To say VHS was 480i is a bit incorrect. It was analog. It was spotchy. I don't know how old you are, but don't you remember watching VHS? Don't you remember tracking issues? Remember warping? Not to mentiong rewinding and fast forwarding.

VHS to DVD was a revolution.
DVD to next-gen DVD is an evolution.

Think going from tapes to CD. Huge. Then think about CD to SuperCD. Not so huge. Sure, it's better, but it isn't mind-blowingly so.


""Hmm, how can we make the XBox 360 even more gargantuan?" "

Buddy. The 360 is smaller than the PS2 (well, minus that power strip.)
Even the original Xbox was only 8 lbs.
The PS3 is 11 lbs.
Which one is gargantuan?

"i think it's pretty obvious nobody cares about dvd vs. high def dvd in terms of visual quality."

I just can't believe that anyone would agree with this. Joystiq, can we get a poll going?

Next gen High Def formats should be left to early adopters. Thank God I have a choice with the 360.

PS3 is looking to be a joke. It's not any better than the 360 in terms of Graphics capability and the 360 is gearing up to have some amazing AAA titles...many of which are new Franchises. PS3 is the same old bull crap. Crapy Japanese RPG's that don't make sense to us in the west. GTA is no longer exclusive. And I'll take Splinter Cell over Metal Gear any day.

Halo 3 and Gears of War will be awesome, much better than a mythical KillZone (a total no show at this years E3)
Forza is looking to dominate Grand Turismo this time around.

Mass Effect and Too Human are also looking amazing.

Sreiously, for the ones who whine about the HD-DVD drive. DONT BUY IT.

I for one want it BAD and cant't wait for it to come out. HD is FAR superior to standard dvd.

Remember for every person who dont want there is someone els who does.

Ppl who bought 360's to play on thier 20" analog crap TV is like buying an exotic car only to never drive it over 30 mph down dirt roads. your simply wasting money not taking advatage of the power.

#15

You're overrating the VHS resolution by nearly four times. While it uses a 480i analog display, the actually output of VHS is very similar to what passed for high res in computers of that era without the processing limitations on color depth, roughly around 320x240. VHS does a bit better than that and is usually treated as being around 255 horizontal lines.

Yes, 1080i is a major improvement but most people simply haven't seen a decent demonstration of this in action and are accustomed to a lifetime of NTSC/PAL viewing.

Microsoft making the decision not to include the drive to keep the price down was genious and looks to be the Sony killer in the end. Blu-ray makes the ps3 way too much money.

Now stop whining that you dont want it and thank god you have a decision to buy it seperate and not force it down our throats.

why would you want an hd-dvd "dongle" for the xbox 360? it cant be any cheaper to produce than a standard hd-dvd player.. can it?
and if the games aren't going to be on it, then i'm fairly certain the play quality and number of options will be lackluster as well.

this seems like a waste of resources and time. hey microsoft, howabout instead of making an hd-dvd drive for the sole purpose of watching movies you work on the dashboard and shrinking that power supply?

oh and i personally think that it looks very very ugly. is that the final design?

I think the main issue here is, who wants another box added to their already big collection? What about transformer packs and cables? Microsoft has a tendency to use cables with a width suitable for use in cross-continental data links.

patrick, haven't you ever heard of processing power?

A standalone HD-DVD players needs the processing power to handle the HD video, not to mention the video outputs, power supplies, etc. The HD-DVD addon for the 360 is basically an external drive enclosure like you see with PCs.

I would like to see what the specs are for a PC to play an HD-DVD disc.

heh. i should also qualify it that 'nobody' really means the large majority. not absolutely no one.

m3mnoch.

unless microsoft takes a huge loss on each drive, the hd-dvd add-on will not be no where near that cheap.

think about the engineering behind the product. HD-DVD also is subject to AACS/ HDCP/ ICT [the DRM is the exact same as Blu-Ray]. usb is /NOT/ HDCP compliant. which means in order to enable the drive to actually play back future restricted content you have to have an HDMI port on the device as well. we were told that the drive connects to the x360 via USB, right?

the x360 does not have an hdmi port, so the port would have to be built into the external drive. that means that data read from disk would have to be sent to the x360 via USB to be unencrypted and decoded, and then back to the device to be broadcast to the TV. USB2 tops out at 480Mb per second, but the default mpg2 bitrate is 300Mb/s; using the highest default compression scheme for HDDVD requires a bitrate of 960Mb/s.

keep in mind that means literally (300x2)Mb/s or (960x2)Mb/s need to travel through the USB2 cable and through the x360 bus for decoding and transmission.

these two issues would be a non-issue if the x360 drive was user serviceable or at the least removable like a normal laptop drive. the required addition of a HDMI port requires additional circuitry to be built into the drive to enable proper output.

this will be annoying to users who realize that now the x360 takes up two inputs on their HDTV. EVEN IF they decide to avoid HDMI requirements and transmit via the x360's native output. your movie is a waste since you never will be able to get 1080p output. also, more importantly users will always be under the gun in case the ICT flag is put into use.

this creates same issue many have with the the ps3 "core" unit. you are subject to being downsampled at any given moment. however there is another significant disadvantage that the x360 has in this situation.

the studios that remain in the HD-DVD camp havent moved fully in the blu-ray camp, because the blu_ray camp doesnt want to enable HDCP requirements fully. warner and co. wish to set the ICT flag on every single movie they release in HD-DVD from day one. [what did you think the real holdup was during all those talks they had over the last year? other than this one point, both formats are nearly the same at least data/codec/DRM/ and managed copy-wise]

HDMI output is NOT cheap. the drive itself is NOT cheap. the cables alone can run anywhere from $20 - 200! if MS included the cheapest possible cables, that means they would be selling the unit for ~$70. if the drive requires additional circuitry dedicated to mpg2/mpg4 and vc-1 decoding youre looking at $250 retail for the external drive [and thats still with microsoft selling at a loss]. the advantage that the ps3 has in this area is that due to having decryption and decoding done with the cell via software, it saves on the additional specialized circuitry which drives standalone drive prices skyhigh. that and the drive pulls doubleduty with the backwards compatibility as well.

oh! and a third possible option: the external drive REQUIRES the harddrive. its possible that the drive reads the data and caches it onto disk in order to be played. this would be the cheapest option for MS, but is still susceptible to AACS/HDCP/ICT, and youll never get your 1080p output.

reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HD_DVD#Copy_restriction_technology
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264/MPEG-4_AVC#Levels
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MPEG-2#Profiles_and_Levels

you're assuming it supports hdmi. hdmi isn't visibly better quality than analog out. however, it does come with the added feature of drm.

you'll only watch what they allow you to watch with hdmi. those of us with analog component cables can always, always get a high def picture.

so, go ahead and support hdmi, just like the mpaa tells you to.

m3mnoch.

Someone put a white book next to the 360. There should be an HD-DVD drive there.
[/joke]

Microsoft would be stupid to charge over 149 for the unit, why would gamers want to buy an add-on kit, when they can buy the ps3 and have both:

ps3 + HD movies + xbox 360

or xbox 360 + hd dvd player

ZildjianKX,

no i haven't ever heard of processing power. the xbox 360 is obviously the best way to watch hd movies. what was i thinking.

love,
pat

i agree with jon.

With the PS3 they are forcing you to buy the Blu-ray drive which brings up the cost a lot, but with the 360 you have a choice if you want the HD-DVD or not, it's simply up to you. You can decide weather you want to wait to see who wins the format battle or just get it when it's released.

I predict the drive will be $150, it is nothing more than an external USB drive. I am so happy that MS has given it's customers CHOICE on the matter. Being that the whole HD-DVD vs. Blu-ray thing is being left to CONSUMER CHOICE on deciding the matter. MS still allows us to choose what we want in the matter, rather than cramming it down our throats like sony. Sony may win out with blu-ray, but they won't have done it by letting the consumers decide, they will have done it by forcing the technology. MS has gained alot of respect from me as a consumer for taking this path.

GTG said it best. It's all about choice, and if I do get one, at least I'm not wearing down my GAMING drive.

Honestly, I don't really think gamers WANT HD movie playback. We are at a point in the industry where gamers want GAMES, GOOD WORTHY GAMES...not DVR functionality, not a built in web-browser, not home brew applications, not HD movies, they want GAMES. We want new fresh ideas, new stories, and innovations in gameplay. Sony fans pretend that they want blu-ray because they think it gives them a leg-up in the my console is better than yours pissing match. No one cares about blu-ray and no one cares about HDDVD. You'd still be loving the PS3 just as much if it didn't have blu-ray, and to be honest, I think alot of other would be talking about getting one as well, as the price tag would be on the level of the 360.

MS is doing a good job of trying to shed the cocky corporate super power image that they have among gamers, and Sony is slowly starting to take the shape of the evil corporate super power.

The addition of the add-on unit is a perfect idea and concept for this generation for MS. Without the HDDVD add-on, the core unit is at a price unit that can compete with the Wii. This meets the demand of the budget minded non-HD gamers. With the add-on the 360 is still slightly cheaper than the PS3, and can do basically everything it can. This meets the needs of the less budget minded HD equipped gamers. There in a perfect middle ground.

#34

A few things to consider:

It wouldn't be Microsoft selling the HD-DVD add-on and accompanying license for a loss. It would be Toshiba. Toshiba is already taking a hit on their $500 deck. Taking a similar hit on creating an additional installed base of HD-DVD players would just be an extension of that plan. The loss would likely be a good deal less since the Xbox would be performing the heavy lifting for decryption and decompression. If you look at what is inside the Toshiba deck, you'll see that this task is well within the capabilites of the Xbox 360 CPUs and GPU.

The real question is whether the Xbox 360 video port can support an HDMI connection. Microsoft has suggested this is doable but had previous reason to market a cable. HD-DVD support changes that and makes the cable a viable and necessary product.

Without the ability to connect to HDMI through the existing video out port, there simply isn't a product here. Besides the bandwidth issues, sending the ready to display data stream through USB would be unacceptable under the AACS license requirements.

The hard drive would likely be needed but not for caching or copy protection issues. Rather, the interactivity layer (which isn't in shipping HD-DVD decks yet) will likely be too large for a 64 MB memory card. It may be a reason for the upcoming 256 memory card's introduction.

What's important here is that, if MS does make this HD-DVD bundle available (and optional), and it turns out cheaper than the PS3, they will be doing the right thing ethically, unlike Sony, who's just Trojan horsing around, if you'll pardon the bad pun.

I feel sorry for all of those people that believe Blu-ray is going to be the "next gen" DVD. HD DVD has all of the right components to beat out the competition. HD DVD players are far cheaper: Toshiba has them for 799.99 and 499.99 compared to Sony's at 1000.00. The physical media for HD DVD is cheaper to manufacture. Not a lot of funding needed to change the manufacturing process as well. Toshiba's HD DVD players have already been in the market. Ethernet input for firmware upgrade, Sony's player doesn't have that. The name "HD DVD" is consumer friendly. Triple layer HD DVD can hold 45GB. HD DVD is accepted by the DVD Forum. Several companies claiming blu-ray exclusivness have switched to both camps.

All of these factors lead me to forsee HD DVD as the winner. REMEBER VHS VS SONY BETA-MAX?

memnoch, you have to read ALL of my long post. i presented three possible options that MS could take. i gave you the data for 1080p bitrates to be used in HD-DVD. USB2.0 simply can not handle more than 480 Mb/s. they are fine if the movies are encoded in mpg2 unless they add on a HDMI port. at that point they need USB2 to handle 600Mb/s worth of bandwidth. NOT HAPPENING! so its unlikely they can add in HDMI without expensive additional drive circuitry.

they could go the same route as the core ps3, and only give you component output for HD. the x360 is incapable of 1080p output, so you lose one of the biggest pulls for HD movie content. and HD-DVD partners wish to enable the ICT flag on EVERY single release, not just at least waiting years down the line. so your HD-DVD player would be effectively only outputting downgraded HD content.

and finally, MS could possibly enable movie caching. where the movie is written to the harddrive and decrypted from there. but who in their right mind want to "install" a movie each time you want to watch it? last but not least, but streaming technology just isnt there on a bandwidth crunch like USB2 either.

I'm beginning to think that you bloggers are on the payroll of MS.

Either that, or you hold your values and ethics as reporters really poorly. This is why Newspapers work hard to seperate opinion from reporting. Look, the PS3 will cost $549 CAD, compared to $500 CAD for the 360, they will both offer similar options. Besides, I don't remember you guys being so critical of the two-tier system for MS. Please, grow some balls and try to be subjective.

I'd do this shit for you, but then again I like a challenge in my job, not just copying and pasting news articles from other sites to your own accompanied by a neat description and some objectivity.

Please, grow some nuts or for the opposite sex - grow some ovaries.

I dunno, doesn't quite sound right.