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[Xbox-Scene]

Microsoft Says Still No Blu-ray Addon Plans for the Xbox 360 Posted by XanTium | July 22 18:59 EST | News Category: Xbox360

From teamxbox.com: What happened to Toshiba? The Japanese corporation announced its exit of the HD DVD business and now, a year and half later, it is completely admitting the success of Blu-ray Disc by announcing plans to manufacture and sell Blu-ray Disc players. Toshiba plans to sell Blu-ray Disc players by the end of the year and will consider the production of Blu-ray Disc recorders. Peter Moore left the door open once. Microsoft has denied a Blu-ray Disc drive several times. Following Toshiba's announcement, we contacted Microsoft just to find out if they changed their mind. A Microsoft spokesperson provided the following statement: "As we have stated before, we have no plans to introduce a Blu-ray drive for Xbox 360. We have a long-standing high definition strategy that runs across gaming and premium content, and it's a strategy that continues to pay off for us. Today, we offer the largest library of blockbuster games and offer a growing library of nearly 20,000 movies and TV episodes on Xbox LIVE Video Marketplace (more than 5,000 in HD). In addition, people have access to 12,000 films and TV episodes on Netflix Instant watch. And coming this fall, Xbox LIVE will launch digital movies with instant on 1080p HD streaming so you can experience the best video quality with no disc, no download and no delay. " Full Story: teamxbox.com

[Mr.RedRing]

This topic needs to be dropped already.  This rumor is so old, and they just keep denying it.  Im pretty sure we would have seen an add-on for it by now.  If they really wanted to, they would have developed the add-on already.

However, if they do come out with a blu-ray add-on they've lost me as well as thousands of others.  I bought a PS3 for blu-ray, but if the 360 had an add-on I would have purchased that instead...it's far too late.

[cory1492]

Wouldn't an add-on be priced as high as a (likely) more capable standalone (or higher, knowing MS and their branding markups on the HDD addons) meaning low sales and thus no reason to produce it due to competing products? Not even mentioning... who really wants to see an RROD just because they were watching a blue ray from an addon when they could have just gotten a standalone.

[HotKnife420]

QUOTE(Mr.RedRing @ Jul 23 2009, 01:07 AM)

This topic needs to be dropped already.  This rumor is so old, and they just keep denying it.  Im pretty sure we would have seen an add-on for it by now.  If they really wanted to, they would have developed the add-on already.

However, if they do come out with a blu-ray add-on they've lost me as well as thousands of others.  I bought a PS3 for blu-ray, but if the 360 had an add-on I would have purchased that instead...it's far too late.

 That makes no sense. How can they lose you if they release a BD player add-on? I could understand maybe if it was a prephrial that you would be required to buy in order to play new games (which would still be kinda a bad reason to "leave"), but I refuse to believe that you, or anyone else, will sell their 360 and/or stop playing (at least) the games you already own simply because they may decide to release an add on.

QUOTE(cory1492 @ Jul 23 2009, 01:18 AM)

Wouldn't an add-on be priced as high as a (likely) more capable standalone (or higher, knowing MS and their branding markups on the HDD addons) meaning low sales and thus no reason to produce it due to competing products? Not even mentioning... who really wants to see an RROD just because they were watching a blue ray from an addon when they could have just gotten a standalone.

 Well, there are standalone players and even slim laptop drives (read BD, write CD/DVD+/-R/W/DL etc) that are around the $100 mark, so they could theoretically produce a drive around that price point. Perhaps they're certain that the device would sell very well, and they'd lose a lot of the revenue they currently generate via marketplace/netflix.

[K1LLERHORNET]

Microsoft will not make a Blu-ray add-on - it would just be counter productive; for many obvious reasons.

[Roupus]

I think they are golden going with movies online, for me its a better choice.  At this point in the game it will be
a waste of money to do the add-on, because everyone who wanted a blu-ray probably already has one by now.  I have one and it has collected dust for almost 2 years now, streaming and downloading is soo much better.

[Mr_Milenko]

They wont be releasing an addon for Blu-Ray for quite a few reasons, Microsoft backs digital distribution to the fullest, They are rolling out their streaming 1080 service, and they would have to pay Sony license fees for EVERY single one of those addons sold... Now why would MS want to pay its rival? They dont.

[Mr.RedRing]

QUOTE(HotKnife420 @ Jul 22 2009, 09:20 PM)

That makes no sense. How can they lose you if they release a BD player add-on? I could understand maybe if it was a prephrial that you would be required to buy in order to play new games (which would still be kinda a bad reason to "leave"), but I refuse to believe that you, or anyone else, will sell their 360 and/or stop playing (at least) the games you already own simply because they may decide to release an add on.
 Well, there are standalone players and even slim laptop drives (read BD, write CD/DVD+/-R/W/DL etc) that are around the $100 mark, so they could theoretically produce a drive around that price point. Perhaps they're certain that the device would sell very well, and they'd lose a lot of the revenue they currently generate via marketplace/netflix.

Sorry, that was a bit confusing.  I meant that if they were to come out with a blu-ray add-on they would have already lost me before it came out as they waited too long.  If they had developed one for the 360 a while back, I would have purchased that instead of a PS3, but one can only wait so long.

[viperware]

"Xbox LIVE will launch digital movies with instant on 1080p HD streaming so you can experience the best video quality with no disc, no download and no delay."

I don't know who they are fooling with this statement, but the best video quality comes from the least compressed source, where capacity does not hinder the bitrate of the video. Unless they are going to stream you 20GB+ of data, the video quality absolutely will not be higher than that on an HD-DVD or a BluRay Disc. This is fact.

[CollinstheClown]

QUOTE(viperware @ Jul 23 2009, 12:50 AM)

"Xbox LIVE will launch digital movies with instant on 1080p HD streaming so you can experience the best video quality with no disc, no download and no delay."

I don't know who they are fooling with this statement, but the best video quality comes from the least compressed source, where capacity does not hinder the bitrate of the video. Unless they are going to stream you 20GB+ of data, the video quality absolutely will not be higher than that on an HD-DVD or a BluRay Disc. This is fact.

Agreed. Not to mention everyone would have to pay for a faster connection, because streaming that high res video would bog down any network. They always talk about the video though, leads me to thik that the audio will be crap quality... I bet they are going to charge for each time you view it too.

I prefer to own a physical copy of something.




-CollinstheClown

[tbb033]

QUOTE(CollinstheClown @ Jul 23 2009, 01:23 AM)

Agreed. Not to mention everyone would have to pay for a faster connection, because streaming that high res video would bog down any network.

Also not to mention all the ISP's that have been tinkering with capped downloads recently. Or the ones in countries where that's already the norm.

"Oh, the big new hit movie I wanted to see but missed in theaters comes out today, time to do download it in super duper deluxe-o-rama def from MS.... CRAP, I hit my ISP limit for the month halfway through the download, now I can't watch it, why didn't I just take an hour to go to the store and buy it on disc?!?"

[WarriorSan]

QUOTE(CollinstheClown @ Jul 23 2009, 08:23 AM)

Agreed. Not to mention everyone would have to pay for a faster connection, because streaming that high res video would bog down any network. They always talk about the video though, leads me to thik that the audio will be crap quality... I bet they are going to charge for each time you view it too.

I prefer to own a physical copy of something.
-CollinstheClown

Yep for streaming 1920 x 1080 / 30 using microsoft VC-1 codec you need at least 15 ~ 20 Mbit/s for good quality..everything below that is more compressed. For almost transparent quality 1080p you need at least 45 Mbit/s...So quality video /sound will suffer.

[BoNg420]

QUOTE(tbb033 @ Jul 23 2009, 04:03 AM)

Also not to mention all the ISP's that have been tinkering with capped downloads recently. Or the ones in countries where that's already the norm.

"Oh, the big new hit movie I wanted to see but missed in theaters comes out today, time to do download it in super duper deluxe-o-rama def from MS.... CRAP, I hit my ISP limit for the month halfway through the download, now I can't watch it, why didn't I just take an hour to go to the store and buy it on disc?!?"

They are capping downloads to prevent people from downloading stuff they shouldn't.  I imagine they will probably start losing customers to services who don't cap and then they will change things.  If you are with a service where you are in a contract, if you started service and they gave u unlimited download a month and then started capping, you could probably get out of your contract with no penalty to you.

[sinister slipknot]

QUOTE(BoNg420 @ Jul 23 2009, 12:36 PM)

They are capping downloads to prevent people from downloading stuff they shouldn't.  I imagine they will probably start losing customers to services who don't cap and then they will change things.  If you are with a service where you are in a contract, if you started service and they gave u unlimited download a month and then started capping, you could probably get out of your contract with no penalty to you.

Virgin media in the UK caps downloads on their unlimited services, there is a daily threshold and if you break it, no matter what your using your connection for, then the 1/4 your speed for 5 hours.


In any case, uncompressed media from discs will always be greater than media downloaded, always.

[Grumbledock]

QUOTE(WarriorSan @ Jul 23 2009, 12:28 PM)

Yep for streaming 1920 x 1080 / 30 using microsoft VC-1 codec you need at least 15 ~ 20 Mbit/s for good quality..everything below that is more compressed. For almost transparent quality 1080p you need at least 45 Mbit/s...So quality video /sound will suffer.

Well, since I've got 100Mbit/s I would have no problems?
Streaming is so much smoother, and easier, even though you can get better quality on a harddrive or a disc, with more space to store the movies, hell, 1080p is not the best you can get and blu-ray will get replaced given time. Streaming maybe only gives 2.1 or 5.1 sound, but it smooth, fast (no 30sec-2min before you can watch your blu-ray disc), it's cheaper than buying and it takes less space in your living room.

I'll probably buy a blu-ray later on, when they are cheap, have all their standards worked out (internet, hdmi 1,3 etc.) and they have a decent quality on all the movies (still too many crappy blu-ray releases). An addon to the 360 with blu-ray support would be to late, to expensive, and of course stupid (license money to sony). I think I'll go with streming from the net or getting a cheap media extender (like twixer or something) tyo watch all  those movies in "full quality" XD
Everything better than dvd is av victory according to me