The future of the XBOX 360?

[Armadillo-002]

As you probably heard Toshiba have called it a day with the HD-DVD format, quite a short lived format, but not the last. With Microsoft backing HD format till now what happens to the XBOX 360 that has a HD drive, and will sony allow the license of the blu-ray to microsoft.

your thoughts please

[Lenny]

Seeing as the HD-DVD drive was an optional add-on, I can't see this affecting Microsoft too badly. At worst, they'll stop production and sale of the add-on (which was selling far less strongly than anticipated).

As for Sony allowing the license of the Blu-ray drive to Microsoft, why not? It's a win-win situation for them. Being one of the founding members of the Blu-ray Association, and the Blu-ray top dog, they get a nice cut of royalties from every single Blu-ray related item sold - whether it be a drive, recordable discs, or films. By allowing Microsoft to release a Blu-ray add-on (which is a high probaility) Sony make money. Win #1. Win #2 is that every single 360 owner who buys the [probable] Blu-ray add-on is just one more person added to the Blu-ray install base. The more people in the install base, the bigger the sales, the more money Sony makes.

Just to throw out a few numbers - the current install base of the PS3 is around 10.5 million, so that's 10.5 million Blu-ray players. The install base of the Xbox 360 is about 17 million.

I personally think that if Microsoft had backed HD-DVD more than they did (it seems to be a failing of Microsoft that if something isn't their own, they'll back it weakly), say an HD-DVD drive in every console rather than a standard DVD drive (with games being released on HD-DVDs), whether it just be in the Elite (which, like the HD-DVD add-on, isn't selling as well as hoped - maybe if they'd not announced that every new 360 console would have an HDMI port, rather than just the Elite's having one it would have sold better), the Premium, or from the very start in both the Core, Premium, and then the Elite later down the line, we could be seeing a different story in which Sony collapses under the defeat of their superior, but unsupported format (a repeat of Betamax, but with far greater consequences), and ultimately the annihilation of their next-gen console.

So, in short - Toshiba's discontinuation of HD-DVD has, in my eyes, neglible effect on Microsoft. And Sony would be fools to not allow the licensing of a Blu-ray drive to Microsoft as in the long run it will serve to strengthen Blu-ray's foundations as the successor to DVD, which should start to be phased out in the next few years.

[Lucien21]

I fully expect that Microsoft will release a Blu-Ray add on for the 360 sooner rather than later.

I wouldn't be surprised if the next 360 Elite console has a Blu-Ray built in.