Xbox 360 to get DivX/Xvid support?

Now even though it’s generally pointless to talk about rumors, more so when it’s something completely unexpected, this was one of those for which we would actually pray for it to be true. Many of you might not know the fact that Microsoft regularly keeps seminars for the retailer staff so that they can get more familiar with their products. It’s good for Microsoft because they can talk to the people who will be at the desk selling them Xbox 360s. And for the staff, it’s great because they can get early news and tips from the folks at Microsoft.

And it is at one of these seminars that the guys over at Xlife.nl were able to get a huge scoop. Now our dutch is a bit rough, so we’ll let the guys over at Xboxic handle the translation. This, by the way, is one of the Xlife employees narrating the incident.

“After the event I had a short talk with the host and asked him whether thereÂ’d ever be support for DivX and Xvid playback. Much to my surprise he started telling me that Microsoft is working hard to implement this and a firmware update is expected within 2 months allowing you to play DivX and Xvid directly on the 360.”

Now there’s three probabilities.

• The host simply spilled the beans on one of the biggest news in the last few months regarding the Xbox 360.
• He simply didn’t know what he was talking about. Hey! It has happened before.
• Or Microsoft wanted to let the news spread virally through the Internet.

Now all three are very real probabilities. My guess is the second though. The fact that he was so up-front about it makes me feel that he either didn’t know of Microsoft’s strategy, or maybe, the guys over at Xlife simply misheard him. Either way, this is one of those things which we really hope were true. Until now, there has been no proper solution for viewing DivX or Xvid movies on the Xbox 360. I personally use Transcode 360, and even though it does its job properly, it doesn’t work properly on Windows Vista. Lets just hope that Microsoft can do this. Stay tuned for the latest updates!

Now even though it’s generally pointless to talk about rumors, more so when it’s something completely unexpected, this was one of those for which we would actually pray for it to be true. Many of you might not know the fact that Microsoft regularly keeps seminars for the retailer staff so that they can get more familiar with their products. It’s good for Microsoft because they can talk to the people who will be at the desk selling them Xbox 360s. And for the staff, it’s great because they can get early news and tips from the folks at Microsoft.

And it is at one of these seminars that the guys over at Xlife.nl were able to get a huge scoop. Now our dutch is a bit rough, so we’ll let the guys over at Xboxic handle the translation. This, by the way, is one of the Xlife employees narrating the incident.

“After the event I had a short talk with the host and asked him whether thereÂ’d ever be support for DivX and Xvid playback. Much to my surprise he started telling me that Microsoft is working hard to implement this and a firmware update is expected within 2 months allowing you to play DivX and Xvid directly on the 360.”

Now there’s three probabilities.

• The host simply spilled the beans on one of the biggest news in the last few months regarding the Xbox 360.
• He simply didn’t know what he was talking about. Hey! It has happened before.
• Or Microsoft wanted to let the news spread virally through the Internet.

Now all three are very real probabilities. My guess is the second though. The fact that he was so up-front about it makes me feel that he either didn’t know of Microsoft’s strategy, or maybe, the guys over at Xlife simply misheard him. Either way, this is one of those things which we really hope were true. Until now, there has been no proper solution for viewing DivX or Xvid movies on the Xbox 360. I personally use Transcode 360, and even though it does its job properly, it doesn’t work properly on Windows Vista. Lets just hope that Microsoft can do this. Stay tuned for the latest updates!