Toshiba: MS not including HD-DVD in 360 as not to 'limit user's experience'

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11:51 AM on 10.24.2007, Nick Chester

33 comments | 4959 views

Toshiba: MS not including HD-DVD in 360 as not to 'limit user's experience' photo

#HD #Microsoft #Rumors #Xbox 360

If Microsoft truly have any plans to include an HD-DVD drive with their Xbox 360, Toshiba ain't talking. In fact, they're outright denying it.

Rumors circulated last week that Microsoft would finally man up and include the HD-DVD drive in (yet another) revision of the console. Right before they made him pose with Victoria Beckham in lingerie, an unnamed Toshiba exec told Stuff that's not in the cards.

"It's got nothing to do with us," the mystery exec said. "But we know Microsoft doesn't want to include the HD-DVD so as not to limit the user's experience."

Wait, what? "Limit the users experience" how, exactly? By giving them more functionality? Whatever the fuzzy logic may be, Xbox 360 owners itching to watch Transformers: The Movie in high definition can pick up the drive seperately whenever they damned well feel like it. Hey, I hear there are some good deals going on right now.

[Via Games Industry]

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32 comments | showing # 1 to 32

Spykron

well i think what they mean by "limiting user experience" is referring to all the people who have a non HD 360. they wouldnt be able to play the new HDDVD games.

Nubc4kes

Well, everyone know more is less.

?

xmetninjax

watching DVD's on my 1920x1200 monitor is really starting to kill my eyes. I might just cave in and get one of these for christmas.

DanGale

@Spykron

well i think what they mean by "limiting user experience" is referring to all the people who have a non HD 360. they wouldnt be able to play the new HDDVD games.

Let's hope that never happens. I don't want to get to the stage where you can walk into a store and buy a 360 game that won't work on your 360.

JACK of No Trades

Next year before the holidays it will happen and it will be priced at $400 or 450.

B-Radicate

Whether or not Microsoft includes an HD-DVD in the console or not has nothing to do with HD-DVD-enabled games. They have been adamant about never putting GAMES on the discs (and after seeing how much they crammed into the Orange Box they damn well don't need to).

All they would be doing was putting the drive in the system to allow for movie playback out of the box. HD-DVD drives play normal DVDs, so all the old games would work fine. I don't see where the limitation would be.

Oh, and awesome caption. I laughed... across water.

Joe Burling

I highly doubt a 360 will be released with an HD-DVD player built in. Now if HD-DVD was the only HD format, I'd change my tune.

brainderailment

They don't want to limit their users to non-blu-ray movies.

king3vbo

Thats right, Jack would know. Jack is god of all things MS

HarassmentPanda

I completely agree with Spykron's assessment of that statement.

If games were put on HD-DVD I wouldn't mind as long as a firmware update would allow me to play them from my HD-DVD add-on. Currently, the HD-DVD add-on is very limited in its functionality. While it will play HD-DVDs and DVDs flawlessly, it will not playback mp4s burned to a DVD like the built-in 360 drive will and it certainly won't read my game discs. Yes, I'm lazy enough that I wish I could put Halo 3 in one drive and Orange Box in the other and never have to change a disc.

Snaileb

lol That caption was amazing.

I don't really mind having a choice.

bhive01

"Victoria Beckham in lingerie"

Why is this not a clickable link?

I'm disappointed...

vexed alex

They're not talking about HD-DVD games. They can't do that. That would completely splinter their market. And does anyone want an HD-DVD player? Granted, their are some good deals, but if HD-DVD does turn into the next betamax, isn't that a bad investment?

I'm still waiting on the whole HD movie player until the smoke clears and their's a clear goddamn winner. Fow now I think I'll continue to download movies off Marketplace. They need a better selection, though.

Sharpless

I still don't think they're ready for a built-in player. If HD-DVD fails, God forbid, many will be stuck with an obselete player. In the next generation, they'll need that extra disc space for games, though.

Lynx

Anyone else take the quickest split-second-glance at that picture, think "NES" and then look back in disappointment? Probably not, maybe I'm just losing it.

Cheeburga

That's so stupid.

Taicho

Gamers don't care about movies! Don't shove your propietary format down MY throat! I bought my console to play games! Waaahhh!!

TheStripe

Do the currently available HDDVD drives support 16x or 32x read on DVD 9? Because if putting on an HDDVD drive at this juncture means longer load times, then that would be limiting the user experience.

Besides, I already have the HDDVD add-on. :)

brainderailment

@Taicho: I guess they shouldn't have put a dvd drive in your 360 because it CAN ALSO play movies.

Taicho

I'm just being sarcastic and echoing the sentiments of people who bash the Ps3 for having a high def drive claiming a console purpose is to play games. I love more funcionality out of my gadgets as long as it's implemented well.

StriderS

Meh. I don't care about HD and bluray and all those other formats I don't know much about.

grrza

Limit the experience of getting to buy peripherals maybe?

Necros

To be fair, I'd prefer to have one built-in, not for HDDVD games, but just for movies. It'd be nicer than the add-on. Oh well, as long as this doesn't actually happen, I won't feel bad when I finally buy a 360 this weekend.

Capn Birdseye

I don't understand the problem. So what if there is a HD DVD player in there? you will still be able to watch regular DVDs and play regular games... ?

Holyetheline

It's the wave of the future... Microsoft always conforms to the wave of the future...

Sharpless

Think of it this way: Would you want to have Betamax permanently installed in your system? Not if you're smart. Especially when you know damn well that it's going to bump up the cost of the system.

akathatoneguy

The Betamax thing doesn't really apply here. What will most likely happen is that multi-format players will be released and both formats will live on. The only way you're really gonna end up getting screwed is if you buy an expensive HD-DVD or Blu-Ray player, only to find that later, combo players become the norm. Right now, so many studios are going with each, that it's hard for either to take a true lead. Plus, even though Blu-Ray is doing better, neither format has a real foothold compared to regular DVD sales. By the time people really start getting into next-gen movies, combo players will be the norm. I'm not really going to be that sad about having spent $180 on a HD-DVD add-on, since I got more than that amount back in free movies with the deals available now anyway.

moot button

yeah, but you'll all buy it or the hd-periph when they announce "Halo 4: finish the fight for really reals this time (only for hd-dvd)". Or they'll make a windows "bug" until you buy in... MS has us all by the balls

brainderailment

@akathatoneguy, you might be correct, because that's what happened between the 45 and 33&1/3 rpm vinyls back in the day, everyone bought the combo players and everyone won. I really don't think that this will happen, I just don't see any point in them doing it. For sony, they wanted to utilize the extra space for games just like they did with their first two systems. But if they will never put xbox360 games on hd-dvds, it would just alienate 98% of their userbase because of incompatibility. BUT, I wouldn't ever put it completely past microsoft for making a new product that doesn't allow you to use software that is less than a year old.

braulio09

you know, chris angel could probably DO combine them and make them spit fire...

just sayin'

Sharpless

I'm just saying, I wouldn't want to shell out an extra $100 (or whatever it would end up costing us) for a mandatory piece of equipment which may or may not be obsolete in a year's time. It's better as an option. (Until the next gen, of course, when I expect that most games will require the additional disc space. Then, I'll be ready to see this happen.)

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