19 replies to this topic

[JamesD]

http://www.engadget....e-by-september/

<edit>
BTW, Walmart was credited with a huge part of the reason for HD-DVD's demise... and now I can barely even buy a Blue Ray disk there. 12 titles at my local Walmart. That's it.
If they weren't going to support either they should have just said so!

Edited by JamesD, Mon May 5, 2008 7:14 PM.

[JamesD]

And more denials.
http://www.engadget....orts-yet-again/

[pmpddytim]

JamesD, on Mon May 5, 2008 9:11 PM, said:

http://www.engadget....e-by-september/

<edit>
BTW, Walmart was credited with a huge part of the reason for HD-DVD's demise... and now I can barely even buy a Blue Ray disk there. 12 titles at my local Walmart. That's it.
If they weren't going to support either they should have just said so!

Heh, I don't know if this will go through or not but I think its kinda funny that at launch Microsoft tried to downplay the importance of HDMI and HD optical drives and now they could be offering both. I'm not bashing the 360 I love mine, I just find it kinda funny. I wonder how much a 360 with hdmi and bluray would cost? And if Sony would undercut them on price as soon as it was released. They should go ahead and add wifi while they are at it, make it match the PS3 feature for feature....Except of course online play where the 360 is king.

-T

[moycon]

Until Blu-Ray becomes the standard, there won't be any Blu-Ray driven Xboxes. You guys know MS would have to pay Sony to release an Xbox with a Blu-Ray drive in it...right? To the best of my knowledge, even with HD DVD it's only competitor gone, Blu-Ray players and disks still aren't even selling all that great. There are more PS3s in consumers living rooms than stand alone Blu-Ray players. Naturally the PS3 counts as a stand alone Blu-Ray player,although I'm not sure why anyone would assume 100% of PS3 owners support Blu-Ray. Some folks bought the Playstation to play videogames....not watch movies. Blu-Ray has an uphill battle now that HD DVD has thrown in the towel. I'm not saying it's impossible, but I'm thinking Blu-Ray will have to become the standard before MS seriously considers it.

[Gregory DG]

Shoot, MS might be smart to license the HD-DVD tech for the next Xbox so they can have more data per disc but without getting screwed by Sony. Plus since it'd basically be a proprietary format, it'd be less likely to be pirated. (I know it would anyway, but still.)

[HammR25]

I'd suspect the typical Wal-Mart crowd can't afford an HD TV so neither Blu-ray or HD-DVD would sell very well there yet.

[Video]

Your right about walmart. they never supported either format worth a damn. And now, our walmart is gettig rid of HD (both, not just HDDVD) To bad I'm not really interested in either. I got a HDDVD for X-box just out of curiosity, but it'll probably never see much use, assuming I ever even open it. The whole lineup of titles I have for it play on regular players anyways, so what's the point.

I think the thing is....HD (at what? 6x the resolution of DVD) just doesn't impress me any, especially considering many DVD players upconvert anyways (including the 360.

I'll waith for Inphaze or something. You get me 20-60X the resolution fo DVD, Then I will seriously consider an update to my DVD players.

[Bilnick]

Video, on Tue May 6, 2008 4:03 PM, said:

I think the thing is....HD (at what? 6x the resolution of DVD) just doesn't impress me any, especially considering many DVD players upconvert anyways (including the 360.

I'll waith for Inphaze or something. You get me 20-60X the resolution fo DVD, Then I will seriously consider an update to my DVD players.

What display are you going to use that can utilize that resolution?

Upconverted DVDs are nowhere near the quality of a good Blue Ray or HDDVD. Maybe on a 50" and below screen the difference isn't as great, but on my 73" HDTV, Blue Ray and HDDVD look awesome.

[liveinabin]

I think everyone buys a 360 for the games, not for the movies they can play on it. Dedicated players will be cheap enough soon so this will cease to be an issue. Heck, the Wii won't even play DVDs and that hasn't halted it's total world domination.

[Lord Helmet]

Yeah, but I'd rather have a small ad-on rather than another unit. I'm running out of inputs on my TV!

[cimerians]

If they do which I kind of think they will I may actually get another unit but I would prefer an add on since I already have a 360.

Now I'm hearing a new chip will be inserted in the 360 etc.
New Chips?

[JamesD]

The combined CPU GFX chip was already mentioned but they talked like it would be over a year off from the sound of it. Now they are talking about August. I believe they were originally waiting for 45nm but the 360 death rate and PS3 competition is pushing them to use 65nm.
That should cure any more defect problems caused by heat since the smaller die process will run cooler.

Edited by JamesD, Thu May 8, 2008 7:32 PM.

[Atarifever]

What's a Blu-Ray? Oh sorry; minor mistake. I thought this was a thread from two years in the future.

[AtticGamer]

Blu-Ray isn't needed in the Xbox 360 as new standalone players are becoming cheaper than the PS3 and are probably better and well featured.
Plus I don't get the whole Blu-Ray thing, VHS to DVD was a substancial improvement in image quality, chapters, compact form, etc but these new formats are just more defined and I think Hard Drive wins over Blu-Ray anytime.

If Microsoft can manage to get a download/pay system for HD movies they don't have anything to worry about.

Edited by Atari_kid, Sat May 10, 2008 12:42 PM.

[Lord Helmet]

Atari_kid, on Sat May 10, 2008 12:42 PM, said:

If Microsoft can manage to get a download/pay system for HD movies they don't have anything to worry about.

They've had this for quite some time

[AtticGamer]

So, I don't need BR.

[Atarifever]

Atari_kid, on Mon May 12, 2008 3:49 PM, said:

So, I don't need BR.

No one needs Blu-Ray. It's like saying you need a zip drive or the steam powered cell phone. It's a silly technology that competed with another silly technology to see who was the king of useless. Blu-Ray was found to be second worst, so HDVD got the crown. As winner it gets to die more quickly and, thus, with less humiliating time on the market. It'll be another year or two before Blu-Ray gets to finally bow out having completely disgraced itself when a real replacement format for DVD is announced.

[moycon]

Atarifever, on Mon May 12, 2008 2:29 PM, said:

Blu-Ray was found to be second worst, so HDVD got the crown. As winner it gets to die more quickly and, thus, with less humiliating time on the market. It'll be another year or two before Blu-Ray gets to finally bow out having completely disgraced itself when a real replacement format for DVD is announced.

Actually besides disk space they were about the same. I think Blu-Ray won because Sony disguised a Blu-Ray player as their next videogame machine and automatically captured the HD disk market because every PS3 also counted as a Blu-Ray player. During that time people that owned a PS3 probably went out and bought a Blu-Ray or two to check out the format as well so sales of Blu-Ray shot up there for a bit. The picture is nice on both formats…but it’s not $24-$35 a movie nice. I have a large collection but it’s because I took advantage of the buy one get one free deals that were going on during the “war“. I think Toshiba realized that the HD disk wasn’t what consumers were interested in and bowed out early before losing any more $$ on the disk.

[Atarifever]

moycon, on Mon May 12, 2008 5:00 PM, said:

The picture is nice on both formats…but it’s not $24-$35 a movie nice.

My thoughts exactly. Here's the deal Joe Regular consumer sees:

- Some new formats with funny names are on the market, and there are two of them, on top of DVD.

- One of them died completely, and he knows a guy who knows a guy who wasted $300 because of that

- If the sales person manages to explain it so it interests him at all, he is made aware that the only upgrade over DVD is a clearer picture, and then only if he spends a lot more money and buys himself one of those fancy new TVs

- The sales person also, because of his training, tries to convince the guy that in order to see this upgrade he needs to buy expensive cables (this being a complete lie, but Joe Regular doesn't know that).

- Joe regular looks through the selection of movies and notices it is much, much smaller than the selection on DVD

- Joe Regular looks through the selection and realizes it is much, much more expensive than DVD (which, because of the huge catalog and wide acceptance has hundreds of movies at discount for $5).

- Joe Regular lives in the world's biggest consumer market and is worried about his money because of the huge housing crisis. He doesn't have a lot of extra cash for a new expensive TV, and if he does he doesn't have the cash for a new player, and if he does he doesn't have the cash for the "required" expensive cables, and if he does he doesn't feel like spending two or three times more for many of the movies, and if he does he already has a DVD player in every room of his house and isn't that interested in replacing all of them.

- Just as players get cheap enough, cheap cables are shown to be as good as expensive ones on the local news Joe watches, the library becomes sizeable, there are many movies in the bargain bin, the recession ends, and Joe has upgraded to high def TV anyway a real replacement format emerges that Joe sees the advantage of right away. You can record to it, it remembers your place if you take the movie out and put another one in, it lets you add your own bookmarks and keeps those bookmarks in any player you put it in, plus it is high def.

[JamesD]

Well... while you can barely buy an HD video disk at my local WalMart in Denver, the one in rural Nebraska near my parents has HD-DVD and Blue Ray disks in stock. They probably have at least twice the titles as the Denver store.