Wal-Mart goes Blu-Ray Exclusive

Word, as far as the 360 HD-DVD add on goes...nothing more then an expensive paper weight....

No need to report about these at all, the 360 is not HD-DVD, HD-DVD is merely an accessory to the 360.

your an idiot, they will have a Blue Ray add on, not built in, i know your thinking that itll have built in so that there's space for more content, but youre wrong, Sony and Toshiba designed the Blue Ray so its the other way around, Microsoft is Screwed, they would be givin Sony the cash

sad news for you,blu-ray is sony's so you wont see any microsoft product having blu-ray on it any time soon :(

Sony gets royalties from everyone using Blu-ray. Somehow I doubt they're just going to ignore the potential millions of buyers of a Blu-ray add-on just to try and screw their competition in the video game market Sony isn't just a videogame company.

@ mojo

Bluray isn't "sony's"

Your going to be waiting a long time for affordable holographic storage media. While it is certainly superior to dvd, hd-dvd and blu-ray as of now its only good for big corporations who have massive storage needs. in fact, by the time holographic media is as affordable as the expensive blu-ray digital downloads will be on the horizon.

Have fun waiting hours to get a barely high-def version without true surround sound, and no special features.

Actually, you can get damned high quality 720p and 1080p rips with DTS and Dolby Digital now a days. But yes, you'll still have to wait for it.

jeez man what gives?

The PS3 hasn't won anything. The console "wars" aren't even a war. Why the fcuk are people figthing over consoles? Is Microsoft going to send you a check if Sony discontinues the PS3? Will your life be complete if the PS3 and Wii dies off? Does it really make you happy Microsoft made 2 Billion as you say? Quit being such an idiot and get a grip. If you like the 360 then good for you. Learn to be a fan of games and not consoles you fcuking retard.

You know as well as I do thats just rhetoric. The consumer chose Blu-Ray and thats why movie studious jumped onboard for blu-ray exclusivity. I think that HD-DVD was the more open standard and most likely better for consumers. But, I also think between the two blu-ray is the technically superior format. In the end its good we have 1 format so true competetion can begin in the HD market.

Sony made a huge gamble putting blu-ray in the PS3 and it paid off. i think if Microsoft put a built in HD-DVD drive from the start the format "war" would have been very different. You would be looking at a huge number amount of HD install base with the 1 year jump and better storage media for games (see lost odyssey 5 disc's)

This is great news. Now consumers can get off the fence and buy Blu-ray with confidence. I'm glad I sold my HD DVD add on last Sept. I noticed all year long how the market was going and I made the right choice by picking up a PS3 60gb for mainly Blu-ray playback. This is the first time in my life to own all 3 current gen consoles and I can say it doesn't bother me a bit.

.....dude HDDVD maxes out at 30GB dual layer, Blu Ray maxes out at 50, however I believe Blu Ray has a lower read speed thus why PS3 games have the install option to help lessen load times assumably. Also I think I heard either their audio format or video format has slightly less quality than HD DVD. That's how they were diffrent and Blu Ray already had a headstart out of the box with capacity alone. It made more sense(I backed HD DVD by the way so I'm just stating the truth here about Blu Ray as best I can) as a movie format, a storage format and a video game format. A dual layer Blu Ray disc could hold a small hard drive's worth of data(for example my Dell Inspiron's 50 GBish hard drive. So that made it a clear choice on storage, movie wise, you can fit more features and episodes onto boxsets on a blu ray disc and for games you could clearly put more content on there.

@Sky Shark
Sorry, you've been misinformed.
Here is something:
Blu-Ray/HD DVD both have higher read speeds than DVD, but unfortunately they aren't at the same spin speed yet (DVD 12/16x vs HD DVD/Blu-Ray 2x/4x) Once either format (most likely Blu-Ray now since Toshiba might phase out HD DVD) hits a constant 4x read speed - it out reads DVD. Factor in Constant versus Variable read speeds, and it could do it at 3x.

Blu-Ray is a better product in terms of spec. However, HD DVD (thanks to Microsoft and HDi - but Microsoft bailed on HD DVD @ CES '08) launched with a stronger list of features.

As it stands HD DVD does PiP and Web Enabled, and Blu-Ray (only @ Profile 1.1, which is still hard to find in SALs) only does PiP. We'd have to wait for Profile 2.0 to match what HD DVD can do out of the box.

As for Audio, HD DVD's file capacity (which you stated DL-30GB versus DL-50GB) has caused studios (Paramount/Univesral - see American Gansta/Beowulf/Transformers) to use lossy audio (not High Definition) while Blu-Ray movies all have lossless audio (high definition.) HD DVD doesn't have better audio, but lots of people argue that the lossy audio is just as good as the lossless, so it boils down to opinion. Spec wise Lossless greater than Lossy.

More sales = more 3rd party support = better games.

Simple math. Sony touting the PS3 as a Blu-ray/Multimedia/Game system will help, and no matter how many people may buy a PS3 'just for Blu-ray', those people factor into the amount of consoles sold. Game makers see that, and know they have a larger audience.