Xbox 360 Elite / HD-DVD bundle (plus 7 HD-DVDs) for $569 shipped

does the package include epoxy and duck tape ??? just wondering

Just a disclaimer, I own a 360, I prefer using it for games, and even I bought a PS3. For movies.

Potential HD DVD buyers, you need to read this before buying on this deal.

http://www.thedigitalbits.com/articles/soapbox/soap060107.html

I'm with Tron on this one, $400 bucks is already too expensive for a console with 1 controller imho. Now if the premium 360 is around 300 and the small-hdd PS3 is around 400 by this time next year, it will be an interesting choice.

It will also be funny to see where God of War will end up, since Universal owns the rights to the movie and they only release in HD-DVD. Not that they will still be doing that in 2-3 years when the disc is out, but ok..

if I didnt already have a 360...
I would give a relative for this.

sunami

Back up your claims of being biased. The article's author has repeatedly stated in the article the benefits of HD DVD. The sad fact is that Toshiba's gone about this the wrong way.

This isn't about who has the awesomer catalog, or how much space the HD DVD's hold vs BluRay. The rotted blurays are from a bad pressing anyway, sorry to deflate your ego. DVD suffers from the same issue, and since none of these formats have a long lifespan anyway, I highly doubt you can claim HD DVD's won't suffer from rot as well.

HD DVD will die because they got in bed with Microsoft. MS has this massive hard on for downloadable content. Their stake in HD DVD is for the VC-1 patent. That's it. They picked an HD DVD accessory for the same reason.

Facts are facts, sunami. Changing places and names for the sake of invalidating an argument are retarded.

Honestly, I wish HD DVD could've succeeded. HD DVD's offer better menu and feature options, they have the whole combo disc thing going on, and most importantly, to someone like me, HD DVD's are easier to design. They use a much less complex programming language to make the menus and special features work.

Also, Toshiba's persistence in driving hardware costs down is scaring away a lot of manufacturers. What kind of profit margin would Magnavox or Samsung have if they released a new HD movie player? Look at it from a business perspective. Not as someone who bought a HD DVD drive and has movies on HD DVD. A manufacturer sees their competitor's product priced from $500 to $300 (with $150 of free movies thrown in with purchase) in one year.

Or they can look at Sony, who's gone from $1000 to $500 (by years end on most models, also with $125 of free movies) Consider the profit margin for both sets of technology. $150 for HD DVD or $375 for BluRay. I hope you can look at this with slightly clearer eyes, Sunami. Your movie collection on HD DVD is NOT what these guys care about. They want money. They could care less about the technological features, availability of porn, or ease in manufacturing.

They want the fastest growing, highest profit margin product on the market. That, for better or worse, is BluRay.

My original post wasn't a snipe on HD DVD or a stunt for BluRay. Way to go in looking like a fanboi.

Good news for you though, even after Universal goes format neutral (and they will, GE or maybe Spielberg, will make them eventually) HD DVD's will enjoy a nice healthy release schedule for many years to come. New titles on laserdiscs were still being pressed well up to 2001. That's 4 years after DVD hit the scene.

Get off your soapbox sunami, HD DVD may not make it, but at least you won't suffer in your ability to find them.

@wedge

DVD players cost about the same this time back in 1998. Look at the adoption rates of DVD's back then. It took DVD's about 18 months until they brokethrough to sell through prices. BluRay's about a year old right now, and HD DVD is about 14 months.

In fact, I bought my first DVD player for $399.00 back in 1998. I bought my first BluRay player for $370.00 It's already cheaper in my book.

I think they're both performing about the same as DVD did on both formats.

Until HD is standard across the board, they won't capture audiences like DVD's did, so your assessment of "fail" is pretty narrow minded. This format is squarely aimed at HD adopters. I'm one of 'em, so both HD DVD and BluRay appealed to me. I was an early adopter for DVD as well, and I struggled in vain as a teenager to purchase a LD player (thankfully DVD got out there first...)

People DO actively choose to adopt new technology.



@sunami

The DRM thing is not that big of a deal. Believe me, you're preaching to the choir on the demerits of DRM. But as of right now, where else would you get HD content? They don't have a DRM free aisle at Best Buy. If they did, I'd be all over it. I refuse to support the XBLM, because I don't want to rent my movies for 24 hours at a time.

Most of my points were derived from that article as well as a few others I had read previously.

In so far as your choices, those are your own. I wanted an HD video format, and supporting a system that has such restrictions was not as bad as they make it out to be. I may not be able to copy the movies, but what would I need a copy for at this point? I have nothing to copy a 50 GB disc to.

The DRM will be cracked in time. I'm not to worried about it. No one cried wolf when DVD came out. It took about 3 years before DeCSS tools got properly implemented and became widespread.
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As someone who gave in, I struggled for a long time over which format to go with, because outside of title selection and studio support, they're identical visually.

Too many good games this fall. HD is sweet. God Bless materialistic society.

DVDDesign:

LD... hahahaha, the discs were freaking bigger than your head. They weren't exactly reliable or easy to use, and when it was released it cost enormous amounts more than VHS. Also, LD was never marketed to the public like DVDs, the marketing stragety was towards videophiles and not the mass market.

DivX was an encoding scheme... not a different disc. It made better compressions but required the codec to be included in the player to work... that's a whole different argument about codec standards.

DVD did have a competitor like I said before. MultiMedia Compact Disc, backed by Philips and Sony, and the Super Density disc, supported by Toshiba, Time Warner, Matsushita Electric, Hitachi, Mitsubishi Electric, Pioneer, Thomson, and JVC. They decided to pick a single standard to avoid the VHS/Betamax wars of before. Philips and Sony backed down and the Super Density disc became our current DVD standard. So yet again, DVD had no competitor when it was publicly sold, unlike our current HD war.

Even so, how do sales numbers from DVDs translate into Blue-ray winning? You just said yourself that it took DVD hitting a reasonable price point for it to take off:

"DVD's hit the big time in 2000. That was when they first hit around $200 for a new player..."

Toshiba HD-A2 is runnning $300 new... by holiday season that will be $200-250 (could be cheaper with sales)... I can buy it used for $200 now. There's your $200 player... how much is Blue-ray running?

Your PS3 was the cheapest available player... and it was used, at $370... the cheapest actual stand-alone player is the Sony BDP-S300 which runs $500, used they're going for $400. Even with gracious holiday price cuts and sales they won't be going for under $300.

So, you want to compare to DVD... by your standards HD-DVD will hit the "magic price point" long before Blue-ray players... How does that work with Blue-ray winning?

Right now, neither format has gone anywhere, it'll take a solid price point for them to take off. Blue-ray is only winning because of the PS3, but when stand-alone player sales take off and HD-DVD players are a couple hundred dollars cheaper than Blue-ray players... your standard consumer is going for the cheaper one.


PS. I own neither PS3 or 360, and I don't have a HD player because my computers all the HD I need atm. I also couldn't care less about who wins, I just think picking sides this early is a joke and like to argue.

@nyteshade

Used 20GB PS3. Reconditioned as new. Other than surface scratches, it works and acts like a brand new unit.

DVD's hit the big time in 2000. That was when they first hit around $200 for a new player, and I had gotten one for my parents at that price point for Xmas.

Comparing the two sales isn't moronic. The sales of DVD were equal back in 1998 to what they are now for HD and Blu combined. ONE year later, The Matrix became the first million selling title on DVD. It exploded from there. Within a year of the format's introduction, HD and Blu have both staked out decent sales. They're not exploding, but the adoption rate isn't astronomical. It probably won't be until the HDTV sales come down even more in price. I'd imagine that by the time we go all digital here in the states come 2009, BluRay will be in a pretty comparable position to where DVD was back in 1999.

Yeah, the fabled $200 HD DVD player. They're already here technically. With a $300 Toshiba you get 5 free movies. Discount those at $25 - $30 apiece and you'll see you're already getting a cheap player.

And this whole time, I haven't been discussing games, not at all. I don't think GAMING system came into my mind when I bought my PS3 two weeks ago. I shopped for the cheapest BluRay player I could find, and I got one. Nothing more, IMO.

DVD DID have a competitor. Divx. Divx persisted for well over 2-3 years before succumbing to the realities that people DON'T like to subscribe to their movies. Unfortunately for us this time, both formats are available in a variety of stores, so it's making things harder on the consumer.

Also, LD didn't require rewinding either. It also had the superior image quality over VHS as well, yet it did not succeed here in the States like DVD did.

People, if you don't want an HD format, fine don't buy one. I'm not rationalizing to you, and I wasn't trying to for anyone. I'm just attempting to inform people who DO want to take up this offer. I nearly did myself at several points earlier this year, but it seems like every time I got close to buying an HD DVD drive for my 360, I just couldn't. The article I linked to seemed to validate a lot of the concerns I was having towards going one way or the other. If you wanna buy an HD DVD drive, be my guest. If HD DVD ends up the winning format, I could care less either way. The PS3 could go up on ebay and I'd make most of my money back, if not all of it. It's just a machine. Unlike Mr. Destructoid, who is a sex machine. Therein lies the difference.