Xbox wasn't showing up to TGS empty-handed, nosiree. They've finally stepped up with a couple of interesting, albeit expected, announcements. First up: the
Xbox 360 HD DVD drive finally has a price and
date of launch -- for Japan. The land that
forgot the Xbox are first to have their HD DVD add-on announced, due to hit overseas streets on November 17th for ¥19,800. That's about $170 US, which is not only an awesomely and unexepectedly low price for an HD DVD device (especially when bundled with a Xbox 360 Universal Media Remote), but it's also a good indication that the US version of the device should be around the $200 range when released in the US,
as we've been predicting. Part two: a software update this year will enable 1080p output on the friggin' Xbox 360! Your rig will finally benefit by pushing the full 60 megapixels per second of visuals to your compatible HDTV. Sorry, no HDMI cable yet (or ever?), though, this is only over component and VGA. Users can expect 1080p upscaling immediately on current games and DVDs and native 1080p on compatible HD DVD titles, but Microsoft hasn't yet announced future games that will rock 1080p natively. Watch out Sony, that whole
1080p song and dance isn't such a marketing edge for you guys anymore.
P.S. -Just to sate your curiosity, we were chatting with
Shane Kim about this stuff and asked specifically about
360s with an internal HD DVD. Microsoft's answer is and continues to be a staunch no. That whole thing about paying only for what you need, etc.
Update: It would appear there's some contradictory information already --
Reuters is reporting that it'll be November 22nd for ¥20,790 (about $180 US). Our press release and conversation with Shane Kim are both pretty straight up about November 17th for ¥19,800, so we'll see how it unfurls. Ultimately it shouldn't matter too much to those reading this post, we're still talking about the Japanese release of the device.
Update 2: Microsoft let us know there was a flub in their press release -- it's definitely the 22nd for Japan.
posted Sep 20th 2006 3:01AM
The Hd-DVD and Blue-Ray war is over, and the winner is : BLUE-RAY!.
Microsoft is going to realize it's failure? No more HD-DVD will be sold...that's a god thing for the users, one standard for everybody. I'm going to get a HDTv at
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000NVEG8S?ie=UTF8&tag=chbifithbede-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B000NVEG8S
or at
http://www.cheaphdtv.biz
Haaaaahahahahahahaha
I thought HD-DVD topped at 1080i, and the big selling point of Blu-Ray was 1080p?
Is it just an de-interlacer? That would be worst...
1st gen HD-DVD players could only output 1080i, but all of the HD-DVD movies support 1080p. The 2nd gen Toshiba HD-DVD players being released in October for US and 1st gen players for Europe can output 1080p.
Sure, badly de-interlaced 1080i (from a video source) would look awful. But as we're talking film-based material here, and there's no difference whatsoever between 1080p/24 material output in 1080i/60 and properly deinterlaced and 1080p/24 material output in 1080p/60.
1080p is, for the time being, mostly a marketing fad. Plug a blu-ray player on a decent 1080p display, and you won't be able to see a difference when you switch the output of the player between 1080p and 1080i, because on the screen there won't be any.
All the HD-DVD movies are encoded at 1080p24, and the player can choose to output whatever resolution it chooses to. This is no different from what Blu-Ray does. It was FUD spread by Blu-Ray idiots that HD-DVD was limited to 720p/1080i while Blu-Ray was at 1080p. NOT TRUE !!
The first generation HD-DVD players from Toshiba converted the 1080p24 on disc to 1080i60 and output as such. The Blu-Ray players announced from Samsung, Sony, Pioneer and Panasonic also do the same, but after converting it to 1080i60, they use another chip to deinterlace and output 1080p60. Toshiba chose to let a user's 1080p TV do the deinterlace, or give the option for the user to use an external video processor to scale the video to match their display's native resolution.
In all these cases, neither HD-DVD players or Blu-Ray players announced so far are outputting pure 1080p. It is only going to be deinterlaced 1080i. The next time an idiot in Best Buy or Circuit City pushes bullshiat at you and says HD-DVD is not full HD whereas Blu-Ray is true HD 1080p, call his bluff.
Either way, I will get it, and the format war is over in my house when I get the PS3...
Hasn't anybody noticed what microsoft is doing. The xbox 360 is know more expensive than ps3. $499 plus $170 comes out to be $670. You got to be kidding me. Mircosoft is trying to pull a wool over our eyes. them ps3 is a better buy do the math you self nice marketing scam mircosoft. Trying to make the xbox seem cheaper
Do your math the highest priced 360 it $449 and thats the elite.
You don't have to have a 360 HD-dvd drive, but with the ps3 you have to have blu-ray
idiot
first
i never knew that component cables supported 1080p
Yes they do. Check wikipedia for details. Component can handle 1080p at 60 fps (have to specify because someone is bound to disagree) and so can VGA. Looking forward to a PS3 on my 46" Sony Bravia XBR3 in full HD! w00t
1080p is not a problem for component cables. The problem with using component for 1080p content is that in the future with the image constraint token being active, you won't be able to view 1080p content on a non digital or non-HDCP-capable cable. You would have to use a DVI-HDCP or HDMI cable.
While my HDTV does not support 1080p, I am interested to know if the HD-DVD will also upscale DVDs to 1080i and 720p. I would assume so...any word on that?
No HDMI = no upscaling regular DVDs.
That's built into the CSS copy protection in commercial DVDs.
Maybe 120 megapixels per second?
So, 1080p on the 360 is pretty useless unless a game is designed for 1080p. Yippee, no surprise there. Considering the original intent was not to run games at 1080p, I'm not sure we'll see any 1080p games in the near future until developers improve their optimization skills. At least the PS3 was designed with 1080p in mind. Kind of sad that MS is essentially admitting that they were wrong about "1080p not this generation." This is, of course, assuming the claims in this article are substantiated.
Games will be rendered in 720p and upscaled to 1080p. In fact, most PS3 games will behave exactly this way, because the PS3 ain't that much more powerful than the 360 and 1080p is much much more pixels than 720p.
My impression of Acheeze:
FIRST! DERRR! *grumble grumble* Uhhhhrrppll *drools on self*
You are a retared, is this all you do? Going around engadget and make fun of people who make mistakes in their comments. You are truely pathetic, please spare us all and kill yourself.
"Users can expect 1080p upscaling immediately on current games and DVDs"
Woah, wait, the 360 will be able to do upscaling? Or is that a typo? Please tell me it's not, because I would love it if my 360 could upscale.
Oozer, is your set 1080p? If not I wouldn't worry about the upscaling ablity. I maybe even go as far as to say even if you have a 1080p set you probably shouldn't care about upscaling. You'll always want to give you picture it's native rez for the the best picture. If you set is 720p and you're giving it a 1080i signal then you're set is converting it to 720p. In most cases the scalers for 1080i to 720p actually only take 540 lines and scale it up, so you're WAY better setting you box to 720p. If you do have a set that's 1080p then I'm sure it scales as well, but maybe the xbox does it better.
Scaling the final image up isn't the same as the game rendering at 1080p, which is not what's going on here. However, the fact that the HD-DVD can output the full 1080p is cool.
Well it looks like the price for the PS3 looks like more of a bargain now. the 20GB PS3 model is now cheaper than the 360 with HD-DVD add on sweet. Also the 599.99 model is a couple of bucks more and has HDMI and no upscaling.
300+180=480
480
300+180=480
480 is smaller than 500.
400+180=580
580 is smaller than 600.
Do not pass go. Do not collect HD-DVD add-on.
Also:
"It's perfect. Sony releases their new console and they walk right into... an HD-DVD add-on."
;)
And then add in a harddrive, since hte cheap Xbox 360 has one, and look now:
300 + 180 + 100 = 580.
Also lets add live so that we can play online, lets only get a year though, sicne we don't want to hurt our wallet to much:
580 + 50 = 630.
Ups, I guess that we should add in 4 mroe years until Xbox 679456854 comes out...
630 + 200 = 830.
So lets see, I can ahve xbox 360 for 830, or I can buy a PS3 for 500 or 600. Which woudl I rather have??? PS3!!!!
That's awesome news for everyone waiting for this thing in the states. That should put it at no more than $250, which is a very fair price considering stand alone players start at $500.
If they decide to sell it for less at $200, it becomes an "impulse buy" and really puts Sony's Blu-Ray format on it's heels.
Does anyone else find this to be quite ugly? Then again, any kind of add-on is going to look odd.
Also, what is the resolution of 1080p? Isn't the VGA cable already capable of putting out higher resolutions? The only thing I wondered is if it currently isn't doing 1080p as in progressive scan. Is progressive scan something typical computer monitors do?
Yes, VGA can output 1080p resolution, but it's still an analog signal. Nothing beats pure digital from DVI or HDMI.
1080p is 1920x1080.
1080p is 1920x1080. Computer monitors have been progressive scan forever. Some of the early CGA graphic IBM PC/XTs had interlaced monitors, and that's going back 15-20 years.
i dunno, i really think this is a way better bargin then the ps3 for 1 reason.
If HD-DVD fails horribly microsoft can make a blue ray disk drive and no harm no foul. They really left them selves open to expand and allow people who dont want to commit to a format yet take their time and ease into it. Hell im not ready to rebuy my dvds, and im glade microsoft is going to give me an option of either paying for it or not unlike sony who is forcing the blue ray format(which isnt a bad thing considering what sony is trying to do) I just enjoy the route microsoft is taking and the normal average person isnt ready to rebuy their dvds. Plus if say half the movie studios decide to back blue ray, and other half decide to back hd-dvd they again will benefit by making a blue ray disk drive. Sony created the format they dont own it. Hence the xbox360 could eb the cheapest machine to play both hd dvd and blue ray and its overall giving us the opitions which is the best part.
I did research (googled) on component cables a while ago when I started buying my HD TVs and I read in several places that they could not do 1080p.
I'm gonna have to look at that wikipedia entry. I'm just not buying this.
It may be your TV that doesn't accept 1080p on its component inputs. That doesn't mean component cables do not support 1080p. Most likely, the limitation on your HDTV only allows 1080p over HDMI and/or DVI because of HDCP.
With a good set of component video cables it is possible to have 1080p video look just as good as if it had come from a digital source such as HDMI or DVI.
Whoever designed this needs to be fired. It's going to look stupid on top of the 360. Sure the drive bay matches... but really... it should have had a curved bottom so you could lay it on top of the system. Then all they would have needed is four rubber half spheres or something (hell even make them green), and put them on the bottom if you want to lay it separately.
You can tell this thing has the same body design as the 360. But... that is from the side of this unit... which then it would look great and matching... but you would have to access the disc from the side.
Long story short.. BAD DESIGN.
I'm going to call it..."Warped Book" because it is a curved, f'd up looking book.
"Whoever designed this needs to be fired. It's going to look stupid on top of the 360. Sure the drive bay matches... but really... it should have had a curved bottom so you could lay it on top of the system. Then all they would have needed is four rubber half spheres or something (hell even make them green), and put them on the bottom if you want to lay it separately. "
If you think outside of the box, you'd see that maybe this thing was meant to put on the side of the Xbox or somewhere else instead of only on top.
Has anyone considered that the blueray drive on the playstation is going to be used for both DVD and Game All that use is goin to end the drive's life quickly. On the 360 movies on one drive, games on the other. Sounds good to me. Killed one original xboxes and two playstations watching movies.
Ryan..
actually both right.Reuters report with tax included, but Shane without..
"Well it looks like the price for the PS3 looks like more of a bargain now."
*snorts coffee out of nose onto screen*
Japan has a 5% consumption tax - 19800 JPY * 1.05 = 20790 JPY
For those who don't know this already: A link to the HD-DVD product page on Xbox.com. It has a good size comparison and overall looks of the product with the Xbox 360
http://www.xbox.com/hddvd
what is the point of suporting 1080p when half the games I have seem to struggle at 720p? Saints Row jerks and even Dead Rising has chugged a few times when theres a lot going on. I'd rather have 720p with vsync and 60fps please.. there is no need for 1080p for a lot of us, esp in Europe.
I dont think any companies would release games on hd-dvd they would be cutting out a lot of audience if they did. The atachement seems purely for video playback.
All tho MS can go with a blueray atachement IF BD wins the format war it would still only be a functional playback device not a gaming accessory. Also if any company does release a game using HD disc and this atachment MS would be locked into this as an accesory not able to do BD in the future.
The PS3 is a gaming platform trying to be a BD trojan horse as well. Even if the format flopps for film all the games will be BD.
Can someone find me a TV which accepts 1080p over component?? And 1080p only really effects people with a full HD set (which here in Australia is about 5 people ATM :)). A 1080p TV would upscale a 720p input to the native 1080p anyway, so whats the difference here? Better smoothing of textures? This sounds just like a bullet point that MS wants but will not have a large impact in terms of developers or even features that most consumers want.
The Westinghouse 42" 1080p monitor accepts 1080p over component. If you don't believe me, here's a review:
http://www.audioholics.com/productreviews/avhardware/westinghouse-LVM-42w2p1.php
This is great news imo. The 360 is beginning to look a little more future proof. I have two 720p HDTVs in my flat but when I get a big 1080p TV next year I was wondering whether my 360 game were going to look really bad.
I don't know what you guys are on about... games don't have to be explicitly written for 1080p. The resolution for 1080p is exactly the same as 1080i... 1080p is not a new resolution, it's only a designation for how the resoltion is displayed by the physical display device (i.e. your TV).
Both 1080i and 1080p have 1920x1080 (WxH) pixels... if a game is written to run in 1080i, then it has the same number of pixels as it would if it were 1080p... the only difference is the way in which your TV reconstructs the image.
btw who is selling HD-DVD content.
where can I buy em, or it is just to create the OooooooOO! factor
"btw who is selling HD-DVD content."
Amazon
http://tinyurl.com/r5g6y
DeepDiscountDVD
http://www.deepdiscountdvd.com/format.cfm?classID=1
Wal Mart
http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product_listing.gsp?cat=486303
...
What is the point of having HD-DVD without HDMI? LOL What are they all freaking idiots? WITHOUT HDMI you have NO HDCP (copy protection support). The entertainment industry has been leaving out HDCP on HD-DVD discs just temporarily while they are all new, for hold over of 3 year old systems that only except component input. As christmas season hits both blu-ray and HD-DVD will be hot items, both will have HDCP. And that means that most HD-DVD discs will play at dvd resolution instead of high-def in your xbox which is absolutely pointless.
Nice stunt Microsoft!
i know this is an xbox360 addon, but my question is, will this thing be able to connect to a PC, or maybe even to a tv directly like a standalone player? that would make this a definitely better deal over PS3 or any other blueray player.
1080P over component is a great addition, but I don't think that 1080P HDTV's that accept 1080P over component are very common. I think most that can do 1080P take it over HDMI. My brand spanking new 60" Sony A2000 does not take 1080P over component for instance.
I've got a samsung HLS 6187 and it accepts 1080p over component... this is going to be great! No need to buy a new upscaling DVD player now.
holy shit, sony is screwed, but this is awesome i never thought id get 1080p on my 360 SWEET
How much of a picture quality improvement would an HDMI be over component? as my projector has both. This is, both at 720p.
Sanchez - I think you'd be observant if yo ucould tell the difference between HDMI and good quality component.
...and now the 360 market becomes even MORE fragmented...
At least Sony had the smarts to put all the essential hardware in both system packages; and now, even Microsoft's pricing arguements are basically invalid.
Sorry 360, but I hope you're prepared for your trouncing in '07.
1080i and 1080p are only really interchangable for movies, which are 1080p/24 sourced.
For video games, developers could do 1080p/30 or even 1080p/60, which is much better than 1080i - twice as good in fact. 1080p/60 is 60 1920x1080 frames per second. 1080i is 60 fields or 30 frames per second, plus you have to deal with the interlacing.
Very few HDTV sets accept 1080p over component. It's more common to do 1080p over HDMI. Which is itself pretty rare, though increasingly supported.
"Court Kizer @ Sep 20th 2006 5:51AM
The entertainment industry has been leaving out HDCP on HD-DVD discs just temporarily while they are all new, for hold over of 3 year old systems that only except component input. As christmas season hits both blu-ray and HD-DVD will be hot items, both will have HDCP. And that means that most HD-DVD discs will play at dvd resolution instead of high-def in your xbox which is absolutely pointless.
Nice stunt Microsoft!"
I dont think so, the whole HDCP thing has been basically put on hold for a full 5 years and just temporaily as you put it, as the lions share of HDTV sets were made before either HDMI/DVI sockets were brought in that could support HDCP, dont you think Microsoft would not know this and go ahead and make a HDDVD player that couldnt play any movie passed 2006?! also you forget Sony's 20gb model that doesnt have HDMI, they too would be screwed....
look at like this...ps3 with 20g hard drive and without hdmi. $499...xbox 360 with 20g hard drive $399 plus approximately $200 for hd-dvd also without hdmi = $599. while top of the line ps3 has 60g hard drive and hdmi for $599. so now you ask yourself, which is the better bargain?
look at like this...ps3 with 20g hard drive and without hdmi. $499...xbox 360 with 20g hard drive $399 plus approximately $200 for hd-dvd also without hdmi = $599. while top of the line ps3 has 60g hard drive and hdmi for $599. so now you ask yourself, which is the better bargain?
If HD-DVD becomes a big hit, it's pretty cool for current X-box owners. If you're chosing now between PS3 and Xbox360+HD, I assume the question (of how cool this is) is a bit more complex.
wow dam good deal!! okay lets see xbox 360 cdn 500 oh lets even go 450 becuase price drop okay 450. hd dvd drive 275 cdn =725 okay = 20gb hard drive , no wirless okay i am not fanboy but just pointing this out
60gb ps3
60gb hd
wirless
blu ray =650cdn so 650 - 725 man thats a good deal for 360 if u wanna watch any hd dvd isnt it
This is a really good deal. But really, anyone who buys their console with plans that it will be a great system for watching movies is an idiot.
Who cares?
Really?
The update to 1080p is newsworthy alone, but buying into ANY new disc format, especially when there's 2 of them right now that don't plan on giving up anytime soon, is pointless.
Now I can actually plan on purchasing a 1080p TV in the next few years.
I love how people are complaining that the XBox360 has no HDMI, when
the BASE PS3 HAS NO HDMI either, and according to Sony it will never
have it!
Two Words: Media Center. If you guys haven't connected your 360 to a media center pc, you don't even have a clue what it's capable of... phat chance the ps3 will do all that (note: I'll be getting a ps3 anyways, cause... I can)
I'd be alot more excited about the 360 as a Media Center extender if it supported Dynamic disks. It maybe a limitation of XP, and will be corrected with Vista, I dont know. But it makes the MC features of the 360 useless to me.
I love my 360, but it irks me that their stuff doesnt play together better.
If you bothered to pick up a HD DVD disc you'd see that the content is in 1080p. It's the chips in the player that control the output.
The Samsung Blu-ray player is a joke since it doesn't output true 1080p; it just line doubles 1080i.
1080p native resolution is 1920x1080, non-interlaced -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1080p
I like the sound of 1080p. Still don't really care about the HD-DVD though.
Remember the controversy over Gotham Racing 3 and that it's internal resolution was lower than the display resolution (720p)? If there is no performance hit by the scaling hardware, then all games, even a tic-tac-toe game, can advertise 1080p support. Both 360 and ps3 will support scaling their games to 1080p... but will the developers tell you the internal resolution of the game? Basically, announcing 1080p support just means that your 1080p native TV will not have to do the work of scaling a 720p or 1080i signal, which is good if the scaler in your TV sucks.
*ahem*
To those comparing PS3 price with X360+HD-DVD and saying LMAONSTER WHICH IS BETTER DEAL NOW NOOB!!!1one1oneelevenone:
You must also take into account the games, and online services, that each system provides, if you want to make it a real descision of better deals. Playstation 3 will have next to nothing at launch in terms of good games, unless you're an MGS fanboy or something.. for some god-awful reason. ZOMG I NEED ALL THREE VERSIONS OF FFXIII *DIES* Okay, so buy a PS3 if you don't like crap like Halo (Read: I don't, though Halo 3 is looking to change that, making it more like CS), Dead Rising (Read: AWESOME), and Enchanted Arms (Look at this too: Better than the last 5 FF's, Square-Enix has gone to crap when it comes to the FF family of games, just making the same crap over and over "And this time it plays itself!")
So yeah.. please take into account EVERYTHING that makes a good deal. You're basically saying that $599 for HDMI Blu-Ray with crappy games is a better deal than $599 no HDMI HD-DVD (Pay attention here too: Winning the war) and GOOD games. Great logic you sony fanboys have.. And no, I'm not an Xbox fan, aamof I hate it just as much as you do, but I'm not one to throw away my common sense to make an argument about something stupid like this.
"...and now the 360 market becomes even MORE fragmented...
At least Sony had the smarts to put all the essential hardware in both system packages; and now, even Microsoft's pricing arguements are basically invalid.
Sorry 360, but I hope you're prepared for your trouncing in '07."
The 360 HD DVD drive is made for movie playback. Nothing more. This fragments nothing at all. All the "essentials" are in the 360 and will continue to work just fine with or without the HD DVD add-on.
"look at like this...ps3 with 20g hard drive and without hdmi. $499...xbox 360 with 20g hard drive $399 plus approximately $200 for hd-dvd also without hdmi = $599. while top of the line ps3 has 60g hard drive and hdmi for $599. so now you ask yourself, which is the better bargain?"
And here we go with this again...
The Xbox 360 is $300 or $400. If you WANT an HD DVD drive you can buy one when you want it. The PS3 is $400 or $500 and you are forced to buy Blu Ray with it. Nevermind the fact that Blu Ray may very well not win this format war. Hell all signs currently point to them losing. HD DVD so far is better looking, more affordable and has pretty damned good studio support.
Oh and look at the track record Sony has with new formats. NONE of the new Sony formats have taken off. Every freaking one of them has failed. Why should anyone think Blu Ray will be any different.
Now assuming Blu Ray follows this trend and fails. You now have a very expensive machine that lost it's biggest selling point. Games will cost more still, because Blu Ray has to be produced on different lines than DVD, so that premium will not go away. Unless Sony decides to allow games to be made on regular DVD, which they may if Blu Ray fails. Either way you have spent a premium on the system, and what you spent said premium on is now worthless.
Now back to the 360, IF you buy the HD DVD add-on and HD DVD fails. You spent $200 on something now worthless. However no one forced you to buy this. You knew when you purchased it that it may go the way of the Dodo, and it was your choice 100%.
So yeah in my opinion the 360 w/ HD DVD add-on is still a better bargain than the PS3.
Well played, as well, man. ^^
Actually the PS3 is 500 and 600 instead of 400 and 500.
Now I wouldn't be so sure about this. After all they are allowing for the next 5 years of an 1080p, 1080i, 720p playback from HD-DVD and Blu-Ray with the Image Constraint Token. Who's to say they won't allow for Upscaling DVD?
It's certainly a possibility and there are a few DVD players on the market that will do this already (OPPO).
to Pete-
the 360 already upconverts DVD's to 720p if you have it connected via the VGA cables. It was part of the Spring Update.
Thanks for playing.
1080P is fully supported over component video it always has been. infact the easliest 1080p tvs only could except 1080p through component and not their HDMI ports. component video is capable of great video quality even if analog the only reason HDMI came out is for copyright protection nothing to do with actual quality. But if the xbox can upscale reg dvds then thats gonna be awsome. although it is against some laws or something to upscale over component dvds that is.
lol "the 360 wont have any native 1080p games when the upgrade comes"
umm ya... and what does the ps3 have thats 1080p? Last i checked VirtuaTennis and GT-HD were the only games actually in 1080p all the rest resorted to 720p and 1080i to keep performance from being pure sh*t
The fact is this just leveled the playing field that if a developer is making a simple game like VirtuaTennis they can opt to do it 1080p native, but still most will choose to be 720p
HDDVD is 1080p it was just the first players that were 720p/1080i the new ones are all now 1080p native. And for 180$ im definitily getting one of these... and if it works on my PC im REALLY REALLY getting a few of these.
The fact is Microsoft just killed sonys "ya but we support 1080p" and they killed the "bluray is a must" now the hidef format that really isnt required is optional to 360 users since quite alot don't want to be involved in the format war right away, and even more that don't even have HD or any HD content to even need a HDDVD or Bluray, so i agree with microsofts choice to go optional on the hddvd for those that actually want to be involved in the war.
Keep in mind that there are FAR MORE HD-DVD titles available on Blockbuster.com for rent that Beta-Ray titles. And the reviews of HD-DVD titles vs. Blunder-Ray titles have been far better. And from what I've seen, HD-DVD is cheaper.
MS will get around to releasing an HDMI cable with HDCP soon enough more than likely. There's no urgency right now since there's no constraint token in place. This is an awesome deal.
To PS3 fanboys, you'll be lucky to even get your hands on one this year or early next for $499. And your machine won't connect with a media center PC the way the 360 can. Think of everything the 360 can do when connected to a Media Center PC.
1. Record and playback TV shows, in upscaled 1080p now and once Vista and ATI's cable card drop, 360 owners will be recording and playing back HDTV through their 360.
2. View photos stored on PC
3. Stream music stored on PC
4. Connect easily with devices like Gigabeat S that feature the same easy-to-use interface.
5. Xbox Live
You're right Rex. I'm at work and trying to be sneaky and make these posts quick. So thanks for the correction.
Here is the deal. HD-DVD is capable of 1080p...BUT, as far as I know, you can only get 1080p from a HD-DVD disc through a digital (HDMI) port. The reason has to due with copy-prevention stuff. So, even though component video is capable of 1080p (through VGA), it won't play a 1080p HD-DVD. Also, if we are talking about normal "component cables" then I don't know of a single TV that supports 1080p over component cable (VGA...yes, but this is usually reserved for computers). All of these new 1080p TVs are designed to watch 1080p through the HDMI port because a digital signal is required to accomodate the Blu-Ray and HD-DVD copy-prevention stream.
Basically you are not going to be getting 1080p, unless you use a VGA adapter.
Upscaling is ridiculous. That's hardly a benefit aesthetically. DVDs and such don't gain any resolution when upscaled. Thats great that they are doing upscaling, but it isn't really that big of a feature. I have a 1080p TV, and I haven't noticed hardly any difference when upscaling a 720p image (I had a 720p tv prior to this one).
I don't anticipate many games taking use of 1080p just yet. It seems like games are just now starting to run on 720p smoothly. I would imagine that graphically simplistic games (like the arcade games) could take advanatge of 1080p immidiately. But, it will take a while (I think) until a full-on Xbox 360 title can be optimized enough to be ran at true 1080p.
Either way, this is great news for Xbox 360 owners (like myself). Even if there might be a few bottle-necks in setup, at least they are starting to clear some of them out.
Anybody else want to complain about the PS3's price? Microsoft must have Larry, Moe, and Curly leading the Xbox division. With the internet ablaze with how much Sony sucks and the PS3 is too expensive you...
#1 Annouce 1080p support which you yourself was not needed this gen and...
#2 Announce an HD-DVD drive that makes your console MORE EXPENSIVE than the PS3 if 360 owners want to have the same basic functionality of the PS3.
What are you guys thinking? Sony was doing a darn good job of burying themselves, you just gave them a leg up. What you should have done is hold this back until you got a better idea how the PS3 did with the masses. If after a year it's doing gang busters you bring out 1080p support and the HD-DVD at a price that undercuts the PS3's price.
Now you've given shoppers more of a reason to get a PS3. The average guy in circuit city is going to see you side by side and say "why buy all these components when I can get the whole package for less in a single enclosure?"
What about the kids who say. I don't want to spend all this money now. I'll get the 360, and in 6 months if I want to watch a HD-DVD disk, I'll come back and get the HD-DVD drive. Or even better. Parents that are looking at the two boxes. One has a price of $299 and the other $399, they will not see the difference and just buy the cheaper one.
Has anyone mentioned here that the HD-DVD add-on is not needed to display 1080p content? The upgrade is through software download! I look forward to 1080p marketplace content as soon s the fall software update is dropped. I am really excited about this! This is just one of the advantages of owning a console from a software centered company!
I have no idea why they are releasing in Japan first :/
So much misinformation!
1080i passes the exact same amount of information to the display as 1080p, Only it does so buy sending twice the information half as quickly.
ALL LCD, Plasma etc... displays capable of 1080 ONLY display 1080P, All digital displays are progressive by their very nature - All it does is take the 1080i information which is half 1080p sent twice as quickly as 1080p and turn it into a 1080p image.
there is absolutely NO DIFFERENCE in the amount of inormation sent, or the VIDEO seen.
think of it like this, 500kb (1080i) sent twice a second is identical to 1,000 kb (1080p) sent once a second, especially when the display basically waits and builds up the 1,000kb (1080p) display from the 500kb/s (1080i) sent twice as quickly.
No, you are the one spreading false information. Anybody who knows anything about high definition displays knows that 1080p sends twice as much data/second as 1080i. This is why 1080i has only slightly more bandwidth than 720p. henning was right when he said 1080p/60 is 60 frames per second while 1080i/60 is 60 fields per second. A field is only half of a frame, therefore even if the signal is deinterlaced you only get 30 full progressive frames/second from a 1080i source. There is a good graphic in Crutchfield catalogs that show the difference in bandwidth between 720p, 1080i, and 1080p.
Guys... a simple explanation about the pricing... perhaps both are correct...
Y19,800 + 5% tax = Y20,790
:-)
I'll be getting the ps3 as a gift, I'll wait til next year to pick this up..
HAahahahahahahahahahahaaa!! Sony, you are screwed.
Sony, you Fail.
This thing alone is as big as the Wii.
Regardless of whether or not this thing plays 1080p...it's a standalone movie disc player only, not games too. The games can only be played on the 360, so there shouldn't be any calls for how cool or great the games will look when played via this player.
Excellent! More upscaling, the better.
So im guessing the U.S. Version will be in on 2007 Feb? So f...%^*%%%$@#$ ridiculous.
This is amazing news.
If you remember back when the 360
launched there were quite a few people upset at the fact that the DVD drive was NOT an upscaling drive..... well to all of those that
complained... maybe Microsoft was listening???
THANK YOU Microsoft!
This ad-on is the lamest thing. Sure it's a cheap way to be able to watch HD-DVDs if you already own a 360, but since it's an option, it will never be used for games since no developer will waste time making a game that (potentially) no one can even play. So it's just a fancy option for cinephiles. The PS3, which, as many people have pointed out already, costs the same as the 360 after you factor in all these "options", but it has the "next-gen" Blu-Ray format out of the box, meaning developers will actually be able to make games that use the format and will be as soon as the system launches. This isn't Microsoft catching up to Sony, it's Microsoft trying to make consumers think it's catching up. The 360 will be the dreamcast of this generation and PS3 will be sitting pretty just like it was last time around, released second with scores of hot games coming out for it.
As for people saying the PS3 has no good launch titles, take a good long look at the previews for Resistance: Fall of Man. Not that it means much, but I guarantee that it will be the best shooter of 2006 (yes, better than Gears of War) and I don't think even Halo 3 has a chance against it. Insomniac's track record is too good and from the videos and screenshots, you can see they're not going to disappoint this time either. Anyway, the 360 STILL doesn't have any must have games except for Oblivion which is on (and plays better on) PC anyway. The first potential must-have game is gears of war, but as I just noted, it's got competition that's looking as good , if not better.
To the lunatic who said the last x number of FF games have sucked, don't even begin to compare a mediocre game like Enchanted Arms (developed by a company who makes nothing BUT mediocre games) to a proven franchise like Final Fantasy. Also, FFXII is just about to come out and for those who haven't heard yet, it's one of only seven games to get a 40/40 from Famitsu magazine and since I've personally imported it I can assure you, aside from graphics (though the art and character design in XII totally KILL Enchanted Arms), FFXII will make you eat those words. Of course, you can only play FFXII on PS2 or the fully (unlike the 360 that can only play, what, like 35% of the xbox games) backwards-compatible PS3.
In closing I'd like to remind all of you that the internet services for the PS3 will be FREE, so after two years of use, the PS3 will actually be $100 cheaper than the "bargain" that is the 360...
Daft, swing and a miss! Games aren't developed for BluRay or HD-DVD discs. They're developed for a specific platform like the PS3 or 360. How that game is stored on a disc is mostly arbitrary as long as it's big enough to hold the data (not a problem for either format). What you're saying makes just as little sense as expecting a game shipped on a DVD to be better than the same game shipped on a CD.
"So it's just a fancy option for cinephiles"
I thought that was pretty obvious. This add-on has *nothing* to do with playing games. That's what the upcoming Software Update for the 360 is for.
so if there's no HDMI output, does the 1080p just go through the current cords? i guess i'm not as up to date as i thought i was...what's the positive effects of HDMI over the current cords that are used? they're both 1080p, is there's a better quality 1080p and a lesser quality 1080p?
but can it (ps3)play my ripped dvd's from my media center? I am a more features the merrier kinda guy... a how much bang for my buck... kinda guy...