Microsoft threw a little pool-side party today in downtown Hollywood after their
press event let out. We were naturally in attendance, and took a chance to fool around a bit with the
Xbox 360's new peripherals -- well, the ones they let us touch, anyway. We were a little surprised they held out on us with the 360 HDMI cable we've all been waiting for, but in the same vein of high definition the first thing we wanted to see was their big add-on of choice for 2006: the
360 HD DVD drive. (You'll have to forgive the pictures, we had to sneak these ones since they wanted us to use only their press shots.) Click on for more.
Steel yourself for a shock, but the HD DVD drive was actually looking like it was just going to be a regular 5.25-inch HD DVD drive slapped in a 360-styled external enclosure. Now that you've collected yourself after that bit of hysteria, we can tell you the (non-functional) drive itself had only a power plug (which looked to be of the variety that runs to the wall, no adapter required), a mini USB host port for connecting to the 360, two full USB ports for the device to otherwise act as a USB hub, and a spot for your 360 WiFi adapter to latch on the back since it could possibly be displaced by the use of the rear USB port to get this thing running on the console.
Will you be able to buy their drive at a huge loss? If MS releases with a $200 or less MSRP to make the core pack compete with Sony's lowest-end PlayStation 3, you could. But will you be able to plug it into a computer and have a functioning HD DVD drive (either via USB or by tearing it down)? Will Microsoft introduce an integrated HD DVD drive into future "premium" 360 consoles? There are just way too many questions to be answered with this one people, but what we do know is that in one form or another this thing exists, and we can't wait to get our hands on the real deal.
posted May 9th 2006 10:22PM
comment 47........rofl, I think i Wii'd myself...
Of course usb is fast enough for hd, we currently stream hd content through USB via a wireless adapter.
ok u can choose to buy the hd-dvd drive as an option there not shoving it down ur throat liek sum other companies......and only the hardcore gamers and hardcore sony fanboys are goign to buy an 600 dollar ps3 me myself i am also goin to buy a ps3 and wii........i like the best of both worlds......and for graphics to me there the same..even soem game developers said so.....and lookin at this years e3..sony doesnt have that many exlcusives i mean only gt4 hd and mgs4(which i heard might even becoming to 360)the rest were just prettied-up videos(nice way to show off how ur system can play videos :)....all in all jus buy the dran drive if u want to or not.....and if ur a real gamer u dont choose sides.
I would like to point out that if the HD-DVD drive is $200, then M$ would be in trouble. Think of it this way:
$500 PS3 - Blu-ray = $400 X360 (meaning, say, you're paying $100 for BR in comparison).
$500 PS3 + Blu-ray = ($400 X360 + $200 HD-DVD) = $600
M$ better do some more viral marketing to make that stick. I would never purchase an add-on drive for a console... ever. The older people already know the horrible stories of the attempts.
Interesting that according to Phil Harrison at Sony, HD is only HD if it is 1080p - yet their lower end (but still expensive) version of the PS3 has no HDMI port. Without the HDMI port, you won't be getting 1080p since the component hookup can't deliver that much bandwidth. How do they explain that? According to Kaz Hirai at Sony, the difference between 1080p and 720p (or 1080i) is not noticeable to most users on most TVs so it really doesn't make a difference. Lol. They really need to talk to each other and get their stories straight.
And of course, nearly none of the demos ont eh show floor were in 1080p except GTHD which was a beautiful example of how 1080p output won't make crap textures look any better. Most developers are going to ignore 1080p in favor of having enough RAM and throughput to actually make a game.
Ok, I did not read threw all the threads just a main portion talking about games not coming out for HD-DVD...
Here's my thoughts, and I have been pretty accurate on alot of accounts.
Do you really think developers are going to sit on their hands and not making anything for HDDVD, I dont.
Here what I think, all personal opinions of course.
Most big titles come out in regular edition and collector's edition. So here you have it, this is the way developers are going to start making ppl by HDDVD players. Make the collector's edition on HD, that way, they will no longer have to have multiple disk, you can have your game, plus all the xtra content all on 1 disc. Seems to me to be a reasonable way of mainstreaming games on HDDVD.
Oh, and to all of you Sony fans, I am sorry if you decide to buy a $600 system. Read reviews and stuff. Not only can you buy a 360 and a Wii for the price of the PS3, they are also saying that HDDVD is going to win the format war, and they are alot of reasons for them saying that. But we shall see, best of luck to Sony this go around.
Fanboyism has no place in this discussion. There are simply facts to be considered:
Assuming this article is spot on and the HD-DVD expansion will cost $180 (which will probably mean it's selling at a loss)...
To buy an apples-to-apples next-gen system will cost the following:
Xbox 360 with 20GB HD and high density optical drive
$399 + $180 = $579
PS3 with 20GB HD and high density optical drive
$499 + $0 = $499
Now if you want to spend $599 you will also get another 40GB in HD storage and an HDMI port.. that is up to you.
Will any 360 games make use of all this storage? We'll see, but considering the outcry whenever a game REQUIRES the optional HDD, I wouldn't expect many. PS3 games on the other hand will pretty much ALL use the HDD and once the need for storage exceeds 9GB, pretty much all games will come on 50GB bluray discs. I believe at the beginning of their life, I believe most xbox and PS2 games came on CD-ROM until their puny 640MB capacity demanded games be put on DVDs.
As for the "format war"... Most people will still use DVD's by and large for years to come. So the number of people who own a HD-DVD player or a stand-alone bluray player will probably be measured in the low thousands by November... Big deal... But come November 17, there will be an explosion in bluray players flying off the shelves and there will be no contest after that point. Whether people will decide to buy movies in high definition once they have the player in their homes is the million dollar question. We shall see. For me personally, if it costs me $10 more to buy a Spiderman movie in 1080p, I'll do it because I have a display which can support all those delicious extra pixels. But obviously this isn't going to really do much for the average Joe with his SDTV Zenith, who truth be told would probably get just as much out of just playing a PS2 or an xbox on it.
I have a question about this hd dvd drive. Does the 360 display the hd dvd movies in their native 1080p format or will it downgrade them to the xbox's maximum of 1080i? If it is able to display in 1080p, why can't it display games in that format? I recognize that very few people own TVs capable of 1080p and very few games coming out in the next year would support 1080p, but 3 or 4 years from now, that could be alot different.
Just to set the record straight, both the high-end stand alone high-def DVD players (Toshiba HD-XA1) and the Samsung BD-P1000 decode the 1080p dics to 1080i when the discs are read. The Toshiba HD DVD doesn't even currently offer 1080p output at all -- it's up to your 1080p display to deinterlace the 1080i signal. The Samsung outputs both, but reviewers were unable to tell the difference between the 1080p output and the 1080i output deinterlaced by a 1080p television. My point? I really don't think the $200 Sony HDD drive is going to be outputting 1080p with any degree of usefulness (if at all), if the flagship Toshiba HDD player doesn't even do it.
http://www.soundandvisionmag.com/equipment/1473/toshiba-hd-xa1-hd-dvd-player.html
http://www.soundandvisionmag.com/equipment/1683/samsung-bd-p1000-blu-ray-disc-player.html
I really appreciate your help.
http://www.edhardyclub.com/
LOL!!! Where do you see a Sony HD DVD Drive??? Boy did you set the record straight! Sony makes Blu-Ray genius!
I was referring to the XBOX 360's add on HDD drive, and the "Sony" was a typo -- was referring to Microsoft. You must be real intelligent not to have figured that out after reading the posts. Genius.
My xbox 360 HD-DVD no reding same HD-DVD format.Show me message:Can't play this content.Status code:C667000A.Please send me e-mail what happen is eny upgrade for this drive.
Thank You
Derek
I will buy this hd dvd drive, I have xbox360 attach with LCD Toshiba 32"WL66e and the picture very fantastic, you know the thing is HD dvd player will be more expensive than this drive, imagine if you already got the console and have to invest new hd dvd player which will cost you more than $800 and you will only get the same scale up to 1080p, it will be not much different with the features since xbox360 provide a way to install this by online, in must be in the future it will develop the software from time to time, it is walking technology that xbox360 will inject to the system when ever they have to follow what games should have
zadillo, If you have xbox live support then you xbox dvd drive does remember where it left off. it was in the latest update.
I would have made the connection the back of the 360 a SATA II hook up. USB 2.0 I don't think is fast enough. Its part of the addons that Xbox 360 could brought on to really give Playstation a good run.
Imagine: Xbox 360 with intergrated WIFI b/g, SATA II connection for HDDs and the HD DVD and an HDMI out, that would have been something!