Xbox to be Blu
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Around the Internet, we hear that Sony and Microsoft are in talks over an Xbox Blu-ray disc drive. No surprises here, HD-DVD lost and Xbox picking up Blu-ray will force the consoles to battle on the merits of their games.
This all seems still a little up-in-the-air, non-confirmed and liquid but I did hear a little rumor from another source – scribbled on my whiteboard when I got into work! Apparently they’ll be here by Christmas and cost NZD$400 – a whopping $150 more expensive than their HD-DVD drives. Also, they’ll work on your Vista PC over a USB connection, as the HD-DVD drive did.
If true, this levels the playing field between PS3 and Xbox360 a little. Although PS3 will still be the cheapest BD-Live (Profile 2.0) player. Xbox360 Arcade edition + BD player will be ~$750 when the PS3 is around about $650 at the moment. Should be interesting to see if anything comes of this and if my whiteboard was correct, or just making things up.
3 Comments
BigBob
March 15th, 2008
at 1:25pm
Donno about Microsoft’s support for blu-ray (i think it will be a good year or so before they even bother, no money in it for them right now plus manufacturing costs will half when everyones supporting it by christmas).
All i know is i really wouldn’t wanna be Toshiba right now, Ouch!
http://www.tomshardware.com/2008/03/14/toshiba_s_1_billion_hd_dvd_adventure_/
BigBob
March 15th, 2008
at 4:18pm
It’s got nothing to do with Blu-ray but did ya see this pudd?
http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/industry/4217348.html
Pretty sick stuff, can’t wait to get one in my living room
Chris
March 17th, 2008
at 11:44am
Aye, you could be right about them waiting it out. Apparently this whiteboard scribble came from a friend of a friend at MS NZ so take it with a pinch of salt and all that
Toshiba did eat a huge deficit with HD-DVD, they should have cut their losses earlier as Sony and the Blu-ray disc association had the better product, campaign and strategy from the beginning.
And yeah, the Microsoft Surface looks pretty sweet
They announced that about a year ago (May ’07) I think. Definitely a cool idea and refreshing to see things like that coming out of the Microsoft camp, but it requires integration between all real-life products before it becomes useful. Cell phones, credit cards etc… Keeping an eye on it though.