HD DVD will be available for Xbox 360
There’s a good news for all console fans: Microsoft has expanded on its plans to launch an HD DVD drive for its Xbox 360 console to markets in North America and Europe. The drive will be available in mid-November in North America, the U.K., France, and Germany, and will cost US$200 in North America, €200 in France and Germany and £130 in the U.K. The add-on drive was first announced in Japan last week ahead of the annual Tokyo Games Show and Microsoft said it would hit Japanese retail shelves from Nov. 22 and cost Â¥19,800 (US$168).
And why is that so interesting? With the drive Xbox 360 owners will be able to watch high-definition HD DVD movies on their television through the console. Microsoft launched the Xbox 360 just under a year ago with a standard DVD drive and in adding the HD DVD option is making its console more competitive with Sony’s PlayStation 3, which will go on sale in Japan and North America in November and which features a drive for the rival Blu-ray Disc format. At the same event Microsoft also said it is partnering with Academy Award-winning writer, director, and producer Peter Jackson. Jackson, best known for his adaptations of the “Lord of the Ringsâ€? trilogy and “King Kong,â€? will make two interactive entertainment series exclusively for Xbox 360 and Xbox Live. The first will be a collaborative effort with Bungie Studios to create a further chapter in the Halo series and the second will see a new game created. I’m really looking forward to see the quality of this high-definition movies…
Comments(8)
Ohhhh, the empire strikes back ehhh???
I dunno, for me, if I just paid out like 500$ for an xbox, choking down another 200$ for a drive is murder.
Whereas the sony will ship with bluray. Things are about to get interesting
)
I can’t wait to rip my first HD-dvd heheh
Hm well a new X-Box 360 is now at 399$, the Core version even at 299$ + 200$ for the HD-DVD drive. The PS3 will be 600$ and wont be available everywhere because of its fuckn low production count… well yeah, i’d rather geht a X-Box then. Sony has lost all its kudos anyway for their fucked up firm policies… oh and after all the Wii is much more promissing then all this crap here together.
I wouldn’t be so smug about the PS3 shipping with Blu-Ray. The 360 is a gaming machine at the end of the day and it has one hell of a lead over the Sony. The Sony doesn’t need to ship with Blu-Ray. Sony have done this as an exercise to try and penetrate the market with their alternative Blu-Ray standard. Mr Phish smells of fanboy once again.
Look dudes, I’m not being smug about anything. I’ve been lucky enuff to get alot of playtime on my friends 360, and yeah it’s kickass, but they need to start pushing it, because they are lagging behind pcs that aren’t nearly as high end as the 360.
Personally, i think hd and blue ray will be a waste of money for another year or so, but whatever.
Yes, both – blueray and hd-dvd are a waste of money, totally. Thats even more a reason why i would stick with a X-Box 360 since i have the chance to CHOOSE if i want HD-DVD or not. With the PS3 i can’t and HAVE to buy the over-priced and useless BlueRay crap.
Well useless is the wrong term. 25 gigs of storage on a single layer blue ray disc is nothing to smirk at, I could get a lot of use out of that.
I just think they are jumping the gun. This is what I expect for most of the ps3 blueray games. A game that could have fit on a standard dvd, with the rest of the space taken up by crappy demos and videos for other games.
The tony hawk series has always had a game demo tucked away in the options pages, usually that mat hoffman garbage. I expect to see the extra space used for that, because I can’t really see them NEEDING all that space.
Give it a year or two and we’ll all change our tunes.
But you are correct, it makes much more sense to grab the 360 for cheaper. The difference being, if you already got one, you are stuck without the hddrive, and ahve to buy it as an addon, with the ps3, it ships with blueray, but I guess the price basically evens itself out between the 2.
Personally, I’d rather pay it in 1 lump sum
Since the HD-DVD drive won’t play games I don’t give ma damn..Hi-Res games or bust.. if a game looks last-gen, it’s usually because the texture resolutions are low as all hell, imagine 2048×2048 UVmaps on everything. (Except for the terrain and other big textures, those could be bigger) It would make the game look sharper and I think all that space Sony is going to have with Blu-Ray will lead to higher resolutions of all sorts, HD video, Hi-Res textures and movies, all Hi-Res, if there’s one thing that makes PC games nowadays show age, it’s when I get close to a texture and see it blur, hopefully, games like Timeshift with the Texture-Under-A-Texture method will change this.