Oh look, a 360 add-on.

[Shockeye]

Microsoft to offer HD-DVD drive as Xbox 360 accessory

Posted 1/4/2006 9:35 PM     Updated 1/4/2006 11:23 PM

By Mike Snider, USA TODAY

LAS VEGAS — In addition to leading the way in next-generation gaming, Microsoft is preparing to take a bigger stake in the high definition video wars. Later this year, Microsoft plans to offer an external HD-DVD drive as an accessory for its new Xbox 360, chairman Bill Gates announced Wednesday. No specifics such as price or release date were given.

The announcement widens the divide between Microsoft, which has supported the HD-DVD format, and Sony, which is helping develop the competing Blu-Ray Disc high-def format that will be used in the coming PlayStation 3.

Microsoft beat Sony to market with its new Xbox 360, but it remains to be seen which high-def format will arrive in stores first. In announcements at the Consumer Electronics Show, both camps are targeting spring for the release of new players and PC drives that play the new discs.

The new discs are essentially DVDs on steroids. Both formats use blue lasers, instead of DVD's red one, to read more tightly packed data stored on the discs. They will also read current DVDs.

But there are differences: HD-DVD supporters, including Toshiba and Universal, tout the less expensive production shift. The Blu-Ray group, which includes most electronics companies and major studios, boasts that its capacity is 50 Gigabytes vs. HD-DVD's 30 GB. (A current DVD holds 9.4 GB at most.)

And Blu-Ray's interactive features are based on Sun Microsystem's Java, while HD-DVD uses iHD, developed by Microsoft and Toshiba.

As for the Xbox 360, Gates says that so far, "demand far exceeded supply. And so we'll actually have shipped a pretty phenomenal number, over 5 million, before anyone else comes into the market. Then (Sony will) have a year where they're supply constrained most likely, unless the thing is a complete flop. I mean, every videogame that does decent at all is supply constrained for its first year. And so the first year that both we and they will not be supply constrained will actually be 2007."

Microsoft has not announced how many Xbox 360s have been shipped so far, but analysts put the figure at just over 1 million worldwide. Many customers who put down deposits on a system in the fall have yet to receive one.

Microsoft's goal remains to have shipped as many as 5.5 million by the end of June.

Whether or not a gamer has an Xbox 360 yet, Microsoft's announcement that it will release an HD-DVD add-on drive "will introduce a lot of concern on the part of consumers. It's going to make some quite skittish," says Geoff Keighley, a host on the G4TV game network and columnist for the Official Xbox Magazine. "I can't imagine how it's going to look elegant especially after Microsoft has spent so much time the last year on the look of the Xbox 360. And are people going to create games for HD-DVD? Is [Microsoft's drive] going to be cheaper to buy than other HD-DVD drives? They are not saying and it raises questions."

Those who have gotten an Xbox 360 are very likely to either have an HDTV or have one on their wish list. (All Xbox 360 games must support high-def video and will look strikingly more realistic on an HDTV.)

An independent survey of Xbox 360 owners found that 10% of HDTV owners bought their high-def set at the same time they bought an Xbox 360.

Sixty percent of Xbox 360 owners also have an HDTV — that's compared to nearly 20% of households that have a digital TV (some of which display video of less quality than full HD).

Overall, 90% of Xbox 360 owners either own or intend to buy an HDTV in the next six months.

The Xbox 360-HDTV relationship is "even higher than I think we thought it would be," says Microsoft's Peter Moore. "We obviously made a big push that the 360 makes high-definition entertainment. That has been foremost in our message and consumers who made all the pre-orders knew that in particular. It's given them plenty of time to prepare for (HDTV)."

In-store kiosks with Xbox 360s connected to Samsung high-definition displays have caught consumers' eyes, too, Moore says. "I think gamers walked in, saw those and it really opened their eyes to what HD means."

Best Buy's Mike Vitelli calls the 360 "one of the first pieces of high-definition content that is personal. You can play games in high-def whenever you want."

Another part of Microsoft's Xbox 360 strategy was to increase online participation. To that goal, Microsoft included free connectivity to its Xbox Live service with each new system and consumers can upgrade to a richer Xbox Live Gold service for $50.

More than half of all Xbox 360s sold so far have connected to Xbox Live, a much higher rate than the 1 in 10 Xboxs that connected.

Gamers are spending more time online, too, Moore says. On Xbox, the average Xbox Live member spent 10 hours a week online. On Xbox 360, the average user is currently spending more than 60 hours a week on Xbox Live.

The average number of gaming sessions on Xbox Live on Xbox 360 is currently at 25 a week, which is up dramatically from the average of 6 sessions a week on the original Xbox.

Once online, Xbox 360 users have explored the new service. More than 60% of users have downloaded content such as items to customize their desktop (interface) from the new Xbox Live Marketplace. And more than 40% have downloaded and played games from the new Xbox Live Arcade. "We have broken down the intimidation factor of online gaming," Moore added.

Moving forward, Microsoft expects to be able to leverage its online audience, which is made up primarily of 18-to-34-year-old males. "Xbox Live delivers that demographic that cinema and TV are finding it very hard to get to," he says.

A typical Xbox Live online audience amounts to 2.3 to 2.4 Nielsen ratings, or 2 million-plus connected homes, he says.

Movie studios, for instance, are making trailers available in high-definition over Xbox Live. "They see it as a distribution channel for programming."

Contributing: Edward C. Baig

So it isn't enough that you have a splintered market between those with hard drives and those without, you also set it up to have those with HD-DVD and those without. Microsoft, stop fucking the dog and standardize your shit.

[Sky]

I thought the 360 had an internal HD-DVD drive? The fuck?? A 720p device with a plainjane DVD?

I really hate to say this...but the PS3 looks better every day, since it (is supposed to) have an internal BluRay drive.

Which means games can ship on BluRay, which is huge. Sorry, bad pun.

[Alkiera]

I love how they go on about how the XBox 360 is 'changing culture/breaking barriers/blahblah'... right after they talk about how 'supply constrained' they are, and that there are people who've preordered for some time, who still don't have them.  Duh, the people that have them are the most likely to be hardcore gamers, the ones who, like Schild, have the time to go stand in line at store opening so they can get one of the 15 boxes on launch day.  Or those that bought them off ebay for exorbitant rates from people who did that.  I don't think you can really make any comparisons between the XBox market and the 360 market this close to launch.

Alkiera

[HaemishM]

I thought the 360 had an internal HD-DVD drive? The fuck?? A 720p device with a plainjane DVD?

Yep.

I fail to see why the fuck a game developer would want to develop a 360 game on HD-DVD. Go ahead and segment your player base EVEN FURTHER. Tools.

[Roac]

Wait, wait, wait.

On Xbox 360, the average user is currently spending more than 60 hours a week on Xbox Live.

...WTF?  Seriously?  That's like, 9 hours a day, every single day of the week.  Then again, if that high a percent of people are buying both HDTVs and 360s at the same point, they will have to be working hard to get their money's worth out of it.  But the AVERAGE user is spending 60h/wk on Live?

[MrHat]

Wait, wait, wait.

On Xbox 360, the average user is currently spending more than 60 hours a week on Xbox Live.

...WTF?  Seriously?  That's like, 9 hours a day, every single day of the week.  Then again, if that high a percent of people are buying both HDTVs and 360s at the same point, they will have to be working hard to get their money's worth out of it.  But the AVERAGE user is spending 60h/wk on Live?

Isn't XBOX360 always online?

[Dren]

Wait, wait, wait.

On Xbox 360, the average user is currently spending more than 60 hours a week on Xbox Live.

...WTF?  Seriously?  That's like, 9 hours a day, every single day of the week.  Then again, if that high a percent of people are buying both HDTVs and 360s at the same point, they will have to be working hard to get their money's worth out of it.  But the AVERAGE user is spending 60h/wk on Live?

You have to figure that per household though.  Multiple people in the household might bump the average up considerably. Dunno.  Otherwise, that is a whacked out number.  60 hours means they use every spare amount of free time they have per week playing.  Considering that is average, the possibilities there are extremely scary.

[HaemishM]

Remeber though that the only people who have probably gotten a 360 are the people willing to either pre-order months in advance with no guarantee they'll get one for months and months, or those who are waiting outside a store at midnight the previous evening in the hopes the store that MIGHT get some in the next day.

In other words, hardcore catasses with too much money and not necessarily any care for life outside their games.

[schild]

There's no way the average user is on Xbox Live 60 hours a week. It's a typo. Guaranteed. We're not even on it 60 hours a week. And I've yet to see a single person with a higher gamerscore than us ("us" being a house of 4 gamers, we're like a gamerscore sweatshop).

Edit: Oh, and the xbox is always on xbox live. I'm pretty sure there's no way the number could ever be accurate.

[Margalis]

Even if the XBox is always on live that's still 9 hours a day of the xbox being on.

MS is pretty strange with their market fragmentation strategy. 360 games are going to have to have system requirements on them.

[schild]

When I watch a DVD on the 360, I'm on Xbox Live.

When I listen to music while I'm cleaning, I'm on Xbox Live.

When I'm downloading a 400MB 720p trailer, I'm on Xbox Live.

Basically, the only reason people aren't on xbox live 100% of the time is becuase they don't have an internet connection.

[Fabricated]

Ahahah, god, a console add-on. How quaint.

I'm sure it'll be as much of a smashing success as the Sega CD, the 32x, the Jaguar CD-ROM, and the PS2 HDD. Can a console get any more fucking expensive?

[Hanzii]

If you want really retarded, you should have seen Gates boxing Balmer on the 360 and Fight Night 3... allthough the game looked pretty cool.
(as did some of the other stuff he showed - but Gates and cool just doesn't work and Microsoft should please stop trying)

[Merusk]

Well, on the upside they're using the tech I expect will win-out in the end.  Sony has this jinx about them when it comes to competeing tech standards.

However, it is incredibly stupid that they're driving Consoles into the PC territory of 'you can only use if... '.   Then again, I'm sure that's where MS would love to see PCs go, since then they control the hardware and OS with an iron fist. Can't copy a DVD if there's no DVDwriter for your hardware.

[Fabricated]

I'll crack up if they try to push the upgrade by releasing Halo 3 only on HD-DVD or something like that.

[Trippy]

I don't see what the big deal is. This is not like the HD/no HD situation. For the vast majority of games (probably closer to 99%) this is simply going to be a quality of life issue -- either you'll have to swap DVDs or you'll just have the one HD-DVD (that is until multi-disc HD-DVD games arrive). Sure some publishers will probably make some HD-DVD versions the "Deluxe" edition with some bonus stuff on it but HD-DVD doesn't give the game developers any more functionality to play with like having a HD does.

[Strazos]

I'm thinking of trying to get ahold of a PS3 on launch, just to turn around and hawk it....

[Azazel]

Sixty percent of Xbox 360 owners also have an HDTV — that's compared to nearly 20% of households that have a digital TV (some of which display video of less quality than full HD).

Overall, 90% of Xbox 360 owners either own or intend to buy an HDTV in the next six months.
===============================================================

I thought that bit was interesting. I'm not trying to start the HD-TV/Not thread again, but I'm wondering how that press release can conjure up (uncredited) statistics like those. Is there a survey that pops up when you log onto XBL or something? Or are they just pulling magic numbers out of their asses?

[Merusk]

The 360 probably harvests TV info like Xp registration harvests compuer info and sends it via Xbox live.  So the important disclaimer is that folks using Xbox Live meet those stats, and the question is what percentage of buyers have their boxes hooked-up to the net.

[Azazel]

Well, even if it could do that, and I guess it'd be pretty trivial to detect which outputs are plugged in, I still can't see where the box itself and XBL can harvest the "or intend to buy" information from the box itself. That's why I was asking if they had an online pop-up poll or the like, because otherwise, those are some pretty nebulous uncredited statistics.

[HaemishM]

Well, even if it could do that, and I guess it'd be pretty trivial to detect which outputs are plugged in, I still can't see where the box itself and XBL can harvest the "or intend to buy" information from the box itself. That's why I was asking if they had an online pop-up poll or the like, because otherwise, those are some pretty nebulous uncredited statistics.

They probably paid some research firm to do a survey of like 1000 people. That's usually about all they need to make a claim like that.

[Strazos]

I still don't think a paltry 1000 people from a target population of a few million is really adequate. Especially if those 1000 people only came from a small, particular portion of the country.

[Merusk]

I still don't think a paltry 1000 people from a target population of a few million is really adequate. Especially if those 1000 people only came from a small, particular portion of the country.

Welcome to political polling. Only 1-2 thousand people are polled for most opinion political polls, so that should be more than adequate for an X-box poll.  The laws of statistics say it works, though it does seem like a surprisingly small number.

[Luxor]

Whats the point of this thing if it's just to play back movies and not to be used for games?

http://www.xbox360fanboy.com/2006/01/06/moore-hd-dvd-add-on-for-movies-not-games/

[schild]

Whats the point of this thing if it's just to play back movies and not to be used for games?

http://www.xbox360fanboy.com/2006/01/06/moore-hd-dvd-add-on-for-movies-not-games/

If they market it cheaper than a standalone player, people who already have 360s will buy it. If they market it cheap ENOUGH, people want a 360 will contemplate a 360 with the add on. If somehow, HD-DVD beats Blu-Ray, they'll be rolling in money hats. If, like the PC Market, publishers get over their DVD-Peen, I don't see why Microsoft wouldn't stop them from putting out DVD & HDDVD versions of multidisc DVD games. It wouldn't make financial sense. It would be another reason for people to buy HDDVD. So while Microsoft says it won't be used for playing games - they've specifically made sure not to say "it will never been an option for playing games."

[Hoax]

That is a really good avatar, scared the shit out of me for a second.

Ok microsoft sux blahblah console console carry on.

[schild]

It's from an anime called Yakitate Japan! A.....bread baking anime. Actually it's one of the best anime I've seen in years. That said, it's very obviously a rotoscoped Brad Pitt from Meet Joe Black. There's a couple positively brilliant things like that in the anime. But this one takes the cake. Possibly the funniest thing I'd seen in any show ever.

[Alkiera]

It's from an anime called Yakitate Japan! A.....bread baking anime. Actually it's one of the best anime I've seen in years. That said, it's very obviously a rotoscoped Brad Pitt from Meet Joe Black. There's a couple positively brilliant things like that in the anime. But this one takes the cake. Possibly the funniest thing I'd seen in any show ever.

Is this a show about a kid who has particularly warm hands, or some such, and has made every kind of bread known to the world and numbers them, because he doesn't know the 'real' names?  He's always in competitions 'cause he works for the Japanese equivilent to Panera Bread or some such.  A friend of mine is an anime nut, was telling me about this.  The character once made a bread so good the people who ate it died, went to heaven, and then came back like 20 minutes later.

Alkiera

[schild]

It's from an anime called Yakitate Japan! A.....bread baking anime. Actually it's one of the best anime I've seen in years. That said, it's very obviously a rotoscoped Brad Pitt from Meet Joe Black. There's a couple positively brilliant things like that in the anime. But this one takes the cake. Possibly the funniest thing I'd seen in any show ever.

Is this a show about a kid who has particularly warm hands, or some such, and has made every kind of bread known to the world and numbers them, because he doesn't know the 'real' names?  He's always in competitions 'cause he works for the Japanese equivilent to Panera Bread or some such.  A friend of mine is an anime nut, was telling me about this.  The character once made a bread so good the people who ate it died, went to heaven, and then came back like 20 minutes later.

Correct. And Japan #62 was Cannabis Japan. The second bread that can send you to heaven. But this one is supposed to be a guaranteed bus to heaven unlike Japan #44. Yes, I remember the Japan #s for the bread. Mostly because I watched 51 episodes in like 3 days.

[Glazius]

It's from an anime called Yakitate Japan! A.....bread baking anime. Actually it's one of the best anime I've seen in years. That said, it's very obviously a rotoscoped Brad Pitt from Meet Joe Black. There's a couple positively brilliant things like that in the anime. But this one takes the cake. Possibly the funniest thing I'd seen in any show ever.

Is this a show about a kid who has particularly warm hands, or some such, and has made every kind of bread known to the world and numbers them, because he doesn't know the 'real' names?  He's always in competitions 'cause he works for the Japanese equivilent to Panera Bread or some such.  A friend of mine is an anime nut, was telling me about this.  The character once made a bread so good the people who ate it died, went to heaven, and then came back like 20 minutes later.

Correct. And Japan #62 was Cannabis Japan. The second bread that can send you to heaven. But this one is supposed to be a guaranteed bus to heaven unlike Japan #44. Yes, I remember the Japan #s for the bread. Mostly because I watched 51 episodes in like 3 days.

Heaven is a cabaret. Lord but that series is on crack. Bread so awesome it changes the art style!

--GF

[Kageru]

"Solar hands". And from memory he numbers them because they're experiments towards the true national bread, he's largely ignorant of foriegn breads even if he's rediscovered their secrets independently. I've got a review of it (review) but I could tell it was going to go on forever so moved on.

Slightly more on topic it boggles the mind that microsoft has managed to sell an unexpandable PC with a lobotomy and get people excited about it. Being able to upgrade a peripheral when a new format comes on the market counts as something novel?

[Yegolev]

I'll crack up if they try to push the upgrade by releasing Halo 3 only on HD-DVD or something like that.

Go ahead and order that ribcage cast.

[Hanzii]

Correct. And Japan #62 was Cannabis Japan. The second bread that can send you to heaven. But this one is supposed to be a guaranteed bus to heaven unlike Japan #44. Yes, I remember the Japan #s for the bread. Mostly because I watched 51 episodes in like 3 days.

And people spend this much time on this why?
Unless an episode is like 2 minutes.

[schild]

Because it's visual cocaine.