Following Toshiba's decision to pull out of the HD-DVD playing market, Microsoft was left with no choice but to follow. The company has released the following statement, confirming what everybody thought would be the case.
"As a result of recent decisions made by Toshiba, Hollywood studios, and retailers, Microsoft plans to withdraw from HD DVD. Xbox will no longer manufacture new HD DVD players for the Xbox 360, but we will continue to provide standard product and warranty support for all Xbox 360 HD DVD Players in the market.
"As we stated earlier, we do not believe this decision will have any material impact on the Xbox 360 platform or our position in the marketplace. HD DVD is one of the several ways we offer a high definition experience to consumers and we will continue to give consumers the choice to enjoy digital distribution of high definition movies and TV shows directly to their living room, along with playback of the DVD movies they already own."
So that leaves the question of whether Microsoft will bite the bullet and release a Blu-ray player or concentrate its full firepower on digital downloads via 360's Video Store? Could we see Blu-ray for the next Xbox though?
Only reason i held off buying one was because i was waiting for a black one to match my elite. Should be able to pick one up for about £40 so i can watch the bourne trilogy in HD.
While I'm gutted that HDDVD is no more I'm glad that this format war has come to end. Now I hope MS will release a Blu Ray player so that I can continue collecting HD movies. Marketplace is all well and good...but right now the UKs marketplace isn't very up to date nor does it have many HD movies. (most of the 47 are in standard def).
This is actually quite good news... in a way. I held off buying one, mostly through lack of money and the films themselves being silly amounts. But now I can see the HD-DVD add-on being lowered in price quite abit, and the films should follow suit.
I don't want every film I own in HD. So If there's a film out there I do want in HD, if I'm a big fan of it or it's a special effects bonaza, then I'll be able to pick it up for cheap
But yes, I think the only way to go for Microsoft's next machine will be to include a Blu-Ray drive built in.
Only reason i held off buying one was because i was waiting for a black one to match my elite. Should be able to pick one up for about £40 so i can watch the bourne trilogy in HD.
The Bourne Trilogy is a good reason to buy one if you get it cheap enough. An excellent set of movies. Although if you search enough you will pick up a stand alone HD Dvd player for next to nothing soon. That means you can watch the movies without the noise from the console distracting you. Microsoft should seriouly consider buying the HD Dvd technology off Toshiba and using it in the next generation Xbox. I did think it was a waste of time releasing it as an add on for the 360 and releasing a Blu Ray add on is a stupid idea as well. If it's not there from the start its pointless.
No surprise here then. It won't really do the Xbox much harm-it was only really an add-on but i think it will give the competition a small boost. Granted that Blu-Ray is not as big a deal as DVD (i feel Blu Ray and HD was forced upon us with HDTV's, personally i'd have been fine with DVD or a few more years) but i think a few people will go looking for a Blu Ray player now...like a PS3. Though not a significant amount.
I'm not surprised and I'm not disappointed. It was only an add-on. They might release a Blu-ray addon but only to stand up to competition. It's not that big a deal, they always marketed the xbox as a games console before anything else.
I don't regret buying one, I only paid £90 for mine and its given me the priviledge of watching HD films that I wouldn't be able to see on BD like The Thing, Serenity, Children of Men, Transformers and Hot Fuzz.
On a side note, I am disappointed that the format has been dropped. Being a keen advocate of all things HD, meaning that I own a Blu-Ray player and HD-DVD, I still think Hd-DVD discs are superior. They're far more polished with more interesting features. It really ticks me off that so many Blu-Ray discs don't even include the bookmarking feature, let alone the fancy U-Control stuff.
Let's just hope this means we'll see the development of Blu-ray games for the 360. I'm still pimping the idea of Mass Effect 2 with 25Gb of content instead of 8. /drool
So get that 360 firmware patched so we can have 'em!
The decline of HD-DVD was suprisingly rapid this year...I know it kinda struggled for a while but 2008 just amazed me....definitely gonna pick up a HD-DVD add on though for my 360, and as many films as I can get hold of!!!
I dont think we'll see Blu-Ray on Xbox anytime soon, but who knows??? As for downloads etc, I think we need to give that another few years so that speeds can be raised on the internet side, It would take ages for the average broadband user to download that amount of data....plus storage is an issue too.
I'm just glad this format war is over. Why on earth consoles were forced into it I don't know... As for a Blu-Ray add-on for 360, I can't see it happening. MS will instead look to push forward their digital distribution format and will more than likley look at using Blu-Ray next gen when it's actually needed for games.
I don't regret buying one, I only paid £90 for mine and its given me the priviledge of watching HD films that I wouldn't be able to see on BD like The Thing, Serenity, Children of Men, Transformers and Hot Fuzz.
On a side note, I am disappointed that the format has been dropped. Being a keen advocate of all things HD, meaning that I own a Blu-Ray player and HD-DVD, I still think Hd-DVD discs are superior. They're far more polished with more interesting features. It really ticks me off that so many Blu-Ray discs don't even include the bookmarking feature, let alone the fancy U-Control stuff.
I don't understand this. Clearly The Thing, Serenity, Children of Men, Transformers and Hot Fuzz will all now be coming out on BluRay.
Plus I guess, for a lot of people £90 for a quickly defunct format is a bit of a rip off.
You do have BluRay too, though, so I guess you can't lose in that respect.
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