Xbox 360 built-in Blu-ray drive or external?
Filed under: Gaming, Xbox 360 | By: Daniel
Posted on: June 27, 2008 | 22 Comments
There still seems to be a lot of confusion to what a DVD can do on the Xbox 360 and what it cannot, some people believe that if Microsoft were to upgrade their 360 games console with a Blu-Ray drive, then game developers would not be limited to the storage capacity of a DVD.
Microsoft knew this in part and that’s why they added an external HD-DVD drive, but as HD-DVD is now defunct, Blu-ray is the next obvious step and many owners of the Xbox 360 cannot wait for this to happen. One issue that might be obvious, if this is the case Xbox 360 owners want an external Blu-ray drive and new 360 buyers would want a built-in Blu-ray.
So lets raise a couple of questions, would you want an Xbox 360 to have a built-in Blu-ray drive like the Sony PS3 or an external version? and also let us know why you make that choice.
Some people will never want a Blu-ray drive and they feel that the 360 does not need it, its hard to believe that a DVD can handle all that is needed in today’s advanced games, but still some gamers believe a DVD does just fine. In the end, it does seem logical that Microsoft will add the Blu-ray option and it will likely be in both an external for existing owners and a built-in Blu-ray for new buyers.
Are you happy to keep having DVD’s for games that you buy for the Xbox 360 or do you see a need for Blu-ray discs?
CLICK HERE to keep updated with the latest news, share a comment or problems with products and services. Follow us on twitter or read more Blu-ray drive news.
Microsoft will never have a Blu-ray player for games. Maybe they will for movies but never for games. Youd end up with a two tier customer base. Those that could get the biggest games on Blu-ray and those that still had the DVD drives.
That defeats the point of a console. I left the PC because I was fed up upgrading for the latest games. Now when I go into a shop I know 100% that the game will work as the developers intended on my hardware.
The 360 is already fairly mature in its lifespan. What’s the likely release date of the 720 (or whatever)? 3 or 4 years? Maybe 5 max. Is it worth telling everybody that they need to spend more money to play the latest games for that period of time?
The PS3 has Blu-ray. Have the games been vastly bigger or superior than the 360 versions? Needing Blu-ray for games was a Sony marketing campaign lets face it.
Maybe it would be beneficial but I’ve loads of games on my 360 that play just as well (if not better) than my friends Blu-ray equivalents. Until we see an earth shattering game on the PS3 that shows us why we need that storage I’ll be happy with my 9Gb.
Blu-ray is tanking right now. Why would MS spend $100 million develop an internal (or external) drive software stack, spend a fortune per player for blu-ray, BD-J, BD+, and al the other royalties, just so they can sell 100k units of an external drive, or an internal drive that drives the cost of the 360 up to the PS3???
That’s insane. They will never do it. Instead, google “WG12 DVD” and find out that MS, Panasonic and Toshiba are instead looking to extend DVD to HD and networking.
I think Microsoft should do a external blu-ray drive because there is too much people that already own a 360 so making a internal is not fair on the people who already have a 360. It does need one like your article said, games are getting more advance and they need a lot more room on a disc and the blu-ray drive should be able to play games.
Another joe shmoe who hasn`t got a clue what he`s taking about posts a staggeringly pointless “article” on product reviews.
A tip:: If you don`t have a reasonable understanding of the games industry, and the technology surrounding it, then don`t write about it. All you`re doing is wasting everyone`s time.
There really is no guarantee that BluRay will survive, all forcasts from the Experts (maybe being paid by SONY?) say it will but I don’t see anyone buyning the players or discs. For now I am staying with upconverting DVD movies. I only play Solitare on my PC and I don’t own any game consoles. With Gasoline burning up all my current none comitted resources I don’t expect I ever will.
From what I’ve read, MS is looking into ways of incorporating its HD DVD technology into delivering movies to the 360 by way of the Marketplace. From a business standpoint, it makes more sense to try to recoup some return on the initial investment than to dump even more money into a R&D for a new product in a market for which there is already a dominant player.
For “mcm”, the DVD Forum WG-12 group has nothing to do with HD, it is studying the implementation of HDi (interactive layer) in the DVD format (which would require re-issuing DVDs and compatible players - yeah right).
What Toshiba (being the sore losers they are, and preoccupied by their royalties in the DVD market) is preparing, is another version of “upscaling” DVDs, that they call Super Upscaling and that in theory can deliver 960p-type images from 480i, then upscaled to 1080p.
Needless to say that this “Super Upscale” would be a step backwards compared to Blu Ray, and is thus useless.
Aside from that, and as far as movies, support for BR games, and DATA go, Blu Ray is doing fine, thank you
Last, and back on topic.
For the current gen of Xbox, aka the 360, re-releasing a console with integrated drive would be silly, as you could not use those for games anyway, without creating a split in your user base.
So, if it will even happen, it’ll probably be an external drive, geared toward movie playback.
Now, for the next gen of Xbox, an integrated drive -would- make sense.
There’s a reason why the BDA doesn’t like to give the actual numbers of Blu-ray discs or players sold.
Things are not going well.
People just don’t think it’s worth paying for Blu-ray over upscale.
So why would Microsoft lift a finger to help give Sony a life-line?
What for anyways?
There’s little or no difference between the XBox 360 & the PS3 and what they can do.
One is a tiny bit better in one respect and the other is a tiny bit better in another.
Big deal.
DVD has done nothing but good for XBox and Blu-ray has been an incredibvly costly mistake for Sony & the rest of the BDA (this week saw a report saying the PS3 so far has cost Sony $3.3 Billion USD).
It may not happen until the somewhat distant future, but eventually Blu-Ray will pay for itself over and over again. The fact that they [SONY] installed this advanced drive in a gaming console from the get-go is amazing and shows a great deal of foresight into the future. Recognizing that eventually a DVD’s space will become limited due to High Definition graphics and enhanced game-play deserves much credit. Microsoft’s rush to market with the XBOX 360 won great short-term gains for domestic [USA] market-share, but at what cost?
Yes, the multiple SKUs for the PlayStation 3 and XBOX 360 have been annoying (confusing?), but when it comes down to it, every single version of each console can play their respective, current “Next-Generation” titles. Eventually the Cell Processor’s currently unused cores will begin to be used for computing and visual asthetics in games; i.e. KillZone2 should see vast improvements over current “Next-Generation” games, including (but not limited to) a sharp increase in Frames-Per-Second. The increase in storage requirements for game improvement is easily handled by the “Next-Generation” optical drive found in SONY’s console, but what is Microsoft to do?
The new “hardware upgrades/enhancements” will undoubtedly reduce the cost of each XBOX 360, mainly due to the the 65nm fabrication process of their processors, and I can’t wait until the XBOX 360 gets quiet(er) now! Yes, bringing an improved XBOX 360 to market will boost confidence among loyal customers, but what is Microsoft going to do about the limitations of their current optical drive? Blu-Ray does seem logical, but will they risk alienating all of the current XBOX 360 owners by adopting the new standard?
In my opinion, Microsoft should make an external add-on option available, along with including the new drive in all new XBOX 360 consoles. Yes, having two separate storage mediums for one console may not make sense to some, but one must consider that the game content will not change, just what type of disk the game is stored on. Eventually, if Blu-Ray versions of games begin to outsell DVD versions by a 3:1 ratio (or whatever ratio they see fit), Microsoft can begin limiting the number of games released on DVD and then eliminate game releases on that format entirely. Microsoft could expidite the number of Blu-Ray consoles (and add-on drives) being sold by including “exclusive” gameplay content on the Blu-Ray versions of their games. The extent of these “extras” should be as aggressive as possible to warrant adopting the new optical drive.
Microsoft is known all to well for using their marketing prowess to their advantage. In recent history they have imposed a “cut-off date” for Windows XP and are thereby forcing Vista to be adopted, much to the chagrin of those who favor the more resource-friendly Windows XP. If you want to continue to use Microsoft products, you are now forced to upgrade; the same could be true for their gaming console. What is the likelihood of this happening? Not very high, which is unfortunate, considering the next move that will more than likely happen within the next few years.
Will Microsoft create an entirely new console (i.e. XBOX 72o) and in essence drop XBOX 360 support “overnight” as they did with the XBOX to XBOX 360 switch? Chances are YES, and again the consumer will pay dearly. Will you switch to another new console so soon? The hardware improvements will be vast, but the improvements game quality will be inversely proportional to the high costs incurred by both the manufacturer or the gamer. A few years after the release of a “XBOX 720″ the “PlayStation4″ will debut and the improvements gained by the “PS4″ should be truly “Next-Generation” at that time, but that is still a while off.
I hope Microsoft does not put themselves into a bind. I say suck up the costs of adopting a Blu-Ray drive now, and along with the hardware upgrades already approved, this iteration of the XBOX 360 should last them for several years and will allow them to continue utilizing their current CPU and GPU without losing too much market share over the next few years…
Wow… it’s hard to explain everything that’s wrong with this article…
First, you imply that Microsoft added the HD-DVD drive so that game developers would have more space when in fact it was used ONLY for HD-DVD movies. There was no plan to make HD-DVD based games because…
Second, if Microsoft added an internal drive for Blu-Ray games this would divide the market. People who have owned the 360 since 2005 would not be able to play the new Blu-Ray games.
But all this is beside the point, because in the last 3 years there has only been ONE 360 that has been too large to fit on a single DVD. Blue Dragon shipped on 3 DVDs.
So there’s no demand for such a device and no reason for altering the 360.
Even on the PS3 the only way they’re filling the extra space is by adding extraneous material (multiple languages), extra copies of the data (to reduce disc access times) or superfluous video that has no impact on the game.