Once Again, No Blu-Ray for Xbox
Wednesday night, Techflash.com’s author, Todd Bishop, had the chance to interview Robbie Bach, president of Microsoft’s Entertainment & Devices Division, at the Consumer Electronics Show. In his interview Todd asked a bunch of questions, most of which we won’t talk about. One question, however, that came up has been brought up many times and is still in question today.
The question is in regards to whether or not the Xbox will ever get a Blu-Ray drive. When asked when Microsoft was going to stop that BS about “Digital Downloads” and get some actual hardware into the Xbox, Robbie responded “We have no plan to do that.”
When asked why not Robbie gave “A lot of reasons” (well 3 reasons at least). First according to Robbie, “It’s not a feature we get a ton of requests for.” Now I find that hard to believe but apparently it’s “way down on the list.”
Second, adding a Blu-Ray drive does not add to what an Xbox is, a Video game System, “We can’t have publishers produce games on Blu-ray disc. Because then they won’t play on the 28 million Xbox’s we’ve already shipped. So it doesn’t help us in the core gaming space.”
Third it costs a lot of money. “And so the scenario is, OK, let me get this straight: I’m going to add something to the product that’s going to raise the cost, which means the price goes up, consumers aren’t asking for it, and by the way, my game developers can’t use it.”
Instead Robbie plugs a current Xbox feature “Oh, and by the way, I have an even better way for you to get high-definition content straight to your TV, between the combination of what we’re doing with Netflix, what we’re doing with (video on demand), we have a great Xbox Live solution.”
I can’t speak for you but even after all of that, I still think we could see a Blu-Ray player. If you think about what he said about adding the the Xbox as a Game System, his excuse is that publishers can’t produce games on Blu-Ray. But if that is true then why did Microsoft put out an HD-DVD player in the first place? And who wouldn’t want to be able to watch Blu-Ray on their Xbox? Again, how many people asked for an HD-DVD player ad-on for their Xbox? It seems like Microsoft is trying to find any excuse not to add a Blu-Ray player other then how they are jealous that HD-DVD lost to Blu-Ray.
Via: GayGamer.net
January 10th, 2009 at 8:30 am
i think microsoft feels they made the wrong decision on making an add-on player. Not that they “chose” hd-dvd over blu-ray. Its not like Sony “chose” blu-ray. The gaming team was probably forced into it by Sony’s home video department for a synergy effort. Sony probably went to Microsoft and offered a blu-ray drive, which would have delayed their system by a year since the tech was not ready. the two sides could have made a deal that saw microsoft use an add-on drive to purport the hddvd-bluray war even further. This “war” was never real, and was only used to convince the public that blu-ray was “the consumer’s choice.” The yare pushing technology that is already dead, discs are of the past. Steam is proving we don’t need discs for sales. I may cry conspiracy, but that’s what it is, from a consumer standpoint.
January 10th, 2009 at 8:37 pm
This is exactly what was the dealbreaker for me on my recent (last week) purchase of a PS3. I was looking at decent commodity BD players and the pricepoints just weren’t convincing when compared to the price of the PS3 – which is *also* a rather kickass gaming system.
I never owned a PS1 nor a PS2, and my only experience with a PS2 was actually rather negative, so I was and am far from a Sony fanboi. It just didn’t make sense, nor make *any* kind of sale with my wife to bring up a 360 which holds no benefit of any kind for the rest of the family. We’ve got a huge tv, our DVD player is crap and needs to be replace, BD looks incredible, and my daughter and wife love watching media.
This comes at a price, however. There are about 3 games that I know I want to play online, and due to the console war I’ll never be able to play them versus my brothers-in-law who both play on the XBOX network. (Rockband2, GuitarHero4, COD4:MW). So far, I’m kind of shocked at the horrible voice chat implementation in RB2 (voices come out of the TV speaker – UM OK… but works fine on xboxlive). Otherwise, I just deal with playing with random folks until I can find some PS owners.
Still – not having to pay for access to the network, and not having to buy both the console and a separate BD player are huge points. Is the PS3 perfect on both accounts? No, of course not. It’s got its quirks, but the system is definitely more than the sum of its parts.
PSN: UsedManatee
Oh, and Little Big Planet doesn’t hurt either.
January 10th, 2009 at 8:51 pm
digital downloads are a joke and a scam, physical media trumps it EVERY time. Digital Downloads are consumer unfriendly.
January 11th, 2009 at 12:13 am
haha
January 14th, 2009 at 6:42 am
Sony might have offered the blu-ray drive to Microsoft at first, however the problem with thinking that Microsoft would have taken it if it didn’t delay the system is sorta skewed. Microsoft was part of the HD-DVD alliance and one of the main creators of the format so they would never have put a Blu-ray drive into their system in the middle of the HD format wars.
And in regards to downloads…I don’t understand why even Netflix keeps claiming that their downloads are HD quality because they’re simply not. The amount of bandwidth it would take to stream a truly 720 or 1080p video over broadband would be impossible to achieve with today’s US broadband rates and bandwidth caps. I agree that downloads are the way of the future…I just think people are being unrealistic in their ideal that it can be ahieved, or even that it is being achieved, with the state of US broadband service. Physical media will still be around for awhile yet.