Microsoft 6 months ago:

"We don't do Blu Ray - Digital Downloads are the future"! LOL

Maybe Sony aren't so daft afterall?

Seriously, an in-built blu-ray drive would add more to the buy it now price than that, and in-built has lower manufacturing costs.

Even at $150 that is sheer lunacy, and even more so as its a portable drive. For a portable Blu-Ray drive you would expect to see a minimum cost of $250-300 upwards.

The cost of the blu-ray diode sees that no Blu-Ray portable driver is EVER going to be as cheap as $150, well at least not in the next 5 or so years! The cost of manufacturing a blu-ray diode is too high.

Mog
Www.MogCast.coM

This rumour is more than likely to be true. to address point 1

The future undoubtedly is dig d/load.... not just MS saying this but Apple and others. But some people like hardware and physical media. This would cater for them. Based on HDDVD drive unit sales I bet MS aren't planing on selling lots of volume just giving choice.

on Mog's rubbish...... you can buy now RETAIL a BD ROM drive for approx. £120 in the UK or $130 in the states.

When you think what the wholsale cost must be and what MS could negotiate on a volume order of say 300k units then the price range mentioned is more than realistic. Don't forget that it would most likely be Vista enabled too.

i read an interview with a MS developer and he said blu ray would be dead in 3 years and downloads was the way forward, and MS were not interested in blu ray but the sheer size of the disc surely would help developers

I've never understood the argument "The future is in digital delivery". Internet Service Providers barely cope with decent speeds at the moment, let alone the gigabytes worth of data in some games, movies, applications etc. Surely full on digital delivery is a long way off.... possibly emerging by the end of Sony's "10 year plan".

Wouldn't be the first time that M$ have gone back on their word. Personally, im all for digital downloads, but as menthioned above, the realities of the UK infrastructure make this a nightmare (the complaints about bittorent from the ISP's have been replaced with them now whinging about everyone using BBC's iplayer for goodness sake . . . .).

But . . . . . choice is good at the end of the day. I personally think this is a good thing for Sony too. Wait for the add-on to come out, then drop the 80gb PS3 to under 200 quid, then people like me will see it as a viable option and have one sitting next to their 360's . . . . . . .

The future IS digital Downloads. But thats the future, its not now.

Physical media is still king, but. . .

People are aware of 'technology never stops' more now than ever. They know that Blu ray is a transient format, as VHS and DVD were before. So more and more people are looking to convert their video collections to Hard disk. The more this happens, the more likely and quickly Digital downloads will be accepted as the norm.

A download that takes a day or two to come down is no big deal, as long as the person doesn't pay for it untill they watch it. They could queue several films ready for the weekend. This model will work with todays infrastructure.

My bet albeit a wishful one, would be that Microsoft will eventually replace the internal drive of the 360 with a Blu Ray version. Contrary to the above, you can already buy a Blu Ray ROM from LG that reads Blu Ray discs and writes DVDs/CDs for UK£60 (ebuyer.com). So some new 'Home Theatre' 360 isn't such wild speculation imo.

I guess you have to look at it from Microsoft's point of view. To design and ready a Blu Ray drive for the 360 (either internal or external) takes time, not least to design but to test. The 360 Arcade sells in the UK on Amazon for UK£119 and it's selling well (currently ranked #87 in PC/Video Games). If Microsoft had said earlier this year 'we will be bringing out a Blu Ray drive ... eventually' it would kill sales dead whilst people waited for the new version. By the time the Blu Ray addon/console came to market people would have moved on and Microsoft's sales would have dried up.

I'd imagine that digital delivery is something that can only exist in parallel to solid media(?) delivery at the moment - that is unless Microsoft are planning to release a Terrabyte drive for the 360? You're still going to need both, or you're going to have to put the kettle on and wait for your game to download each time you want to play it.

Let's face it if Microsoft did release a Blu Ray add-on or drive they'd have the market sewn up, all Sony would be left with is a few exclusive licenses. And we know how 'exclusive' a license deal isn't, just ask Nintendo.

Seriously... if they do actually release a Blu-Ray Player for the 360 i will actually scream for about 40 minutes, Just because HD failed doesn't give them the right to stel Blu-Ray...

HI THERE I DONT THINK MICROSOFT IS TRYING TOO TAKE AWAY THE BLU-RAY BECUASE THE COMPUTION HAS A RIGHT FOR A COMPETIVE BLU-RAY AND IF THE THROUGH IN A REALY FAST SOLID STATE FLASH DRIVE OVER THERE SLOW HARD DRIVE THEY MAY WIN THE COMPUTION

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