Microsoft to offer the Xbox360 with internal HD-DVD drives?
This is what we would call another masterstroke from Microsoft. It’s been widely publicised that Microsoft will be offering external HD-DVD drives pretty soon. Now we’re not gonna be doing any market research here, but in our honest opinion and watching the consoles throughout history, we can say that it (the external drive) wouldn’t be very successful. Or maybe we should correct that – it wouldn’t be very successful until the Hi-Def format wars are over and there is a single market leader. And obviously, the fewer the HD-DVD drives sold, the lesser the chance of HD-DVD actually winning the so-called war.
The most obvious and intelligent thing to do would be to bundle them HD-DVD drives with the console itself. We’ve seen with the PS2 that manufacturers can refine the design of a console over time, and it can still be very successful. Who’s to say that Microsoft wouldn’t follow that route with the Xbox360? We would even speculate to the point that Microsoft might simply discontinue the current Core version of the 360 so that there can again be two SKUs, the current premium version and the upcoming version with the built-in HD-DVD drive.
And if you think we’re just making facts on my own, well, you’d be wrong. According to sources in Taiwan‘s optical disc drive industry:
“Microsoft will offer an external HD-DVD drive for its Xbox 360 at around the end of this year, in an attempt to compete with the Sony PlayStation 3 (which will have a built-in Blu-ray Disc drive). The external HD-DVD drive, however, can only play back movies. If the process of selecting partner makers and subsequent certification goes smoothly, Microsoft may launch the Xbox 360 equipped with the built-in HD-DVD drive in the first half of 2007″
Now while we wouldn’t consider it a flat-out rumor, we’d still like to hear an official announcement. But then, those are hard to come by, and knowing the corporations, we’re not sure if they would even acknowledge this since it would mean that the customers would wait for the internal HD-DVD drive version, and in the process, skewing the sales right now. All we can do is wait. And we’ll be there to cover every bit of it.
Via DigiTimes
This is what we would call another masterstroke from Microsoft. It’s been widely publicised that Microsoft will be offering external HD-DVD drives pretty soon. Now we’re not gonna be doing any market research here, but in our honest opinion and watching the consoles throughout history, we can say that it (the external drive) wouldn’t be very successful. Or maybe we should correct that – it wouldn’t be very successful until the Hi-Def format wars are over and there is a single market leader. And obviously, the fewer the HD-DVD drives sold, the lesser the chance of HD-DVD actually winning the so-called war.
The most obvious and intelligent thing to do would be to bundle them HD-DVD drives with the console itself. We’ve seen with the PS2 that manufacturers can refine the design of a console over time, and it can still be very successful. Who’s to say that Microsoft wouldn’t follow that route with the Xbox360? We would even speculate to the point that Microsoft might simply discontinue the current Core version of the 360 so that there can again be two SKUs, the current premium version and the upcoming version with the built-in HD-DVD drive.
And if you think we’re just making facts on my own, well, you’d be wrong. According to sources in Taiwan‘s optical disc drive industry:
“Microsoft will offer an external HD-DVD drive for its Xbox 360 at around the end of this year, in an attempt to compete with the Sony PlayStation 3 (which will have a built-in Blu-ray Disc drive). The external HD-DVD drive, however, can only play back movies. If the process of selecting partner makers and subsequent certification goes smoothly, Microsoft may launch the Xbox 360 equipped with the built-in HD-DVD drive in the first half of 2007″
Now while we wouldn’t consider it a flat-out rumor, we’d still like to hear an official announcement. But then, those are hard to come by, and knowing the corporations, we’re not sure if they would even acknowledge this since it would mean that the customers would wait for the internal HD-DVD drive version, and in the process, skewing the sales right now. All we can do is wait. And we’ll be there to cover every bit of it.
Via DigiTimes
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