tucker

tworkme

Nighthawkz

Noobs-R-Us

vertibraker

Tensor

To my mind, there are three elements required to establishing this base: (1) telcom companies need to greatly increase data bandwidth on a national scale, (2) a convenient buy/rental service needs to be established and (3) a set-top box will need to be developed for storage (face it, either way you're going to be buying another box of sorts - true HD content, especially movies, have insanely large file sizes).

The ONLY factor that could ever speed up the timeline would be the introduction of a compression codec that does for HD material what MP3 did for CDs. But even if that were to happen, a successful market would still be 3-5 years out instead of 5-7. Meanwhile, Blu-ray achieves greater market share and Xbox loses out to a potential cash cow.

kodo

rule number one in business, get the customer's money! MS doesn't want the consumer to buy a stand alone player from it's competition, they want the consumer to buy from them. and they certainly don't want to give the consumer any additional reasons to buy a PS3.

tucker

If MS adds a Blu Ray drive, they will have to face MORE comparrisons to the PS3, and those comparisons haven't been good for MS. If their disc playback is as bad as it is currently (with DVD and HD-DVD), the add-on would not be a benefit, but another nail in the coffin.

On the other hand, it's been said that a main issue affecting low sales of the Gamecubes was lack of DVD playback. If MS does release one, it's got to be good, it has to play Blu Ray games, and hopefully be a second drive for multidisc games.

Lizard_King

Kaiser-Machead

THAT'S NOT A COMPLIMENT.

BTS.WRKNG

Don't forget the unspoken "yet".

Cobolman2

ChootinDaChit

godospoons

m-p{3}

vertibraker

o0adam0o

firesign

why? as others have said, nothing is going to beat the heavy storage of blu-ray, and the masses like physical media, so blu-ray will eventually become prolific.

at that point, MS will have to release a blu-ray player, at the very least to keep people from choosing PS3 over Xbox 360.

tucker

Compression is not a bad thing. Bluray is compressed, so is HDDVD, so are DVDs. It would be impossible otherwise. Do the math for 720p:
1280*720*3(24bits color)*24(fps)* 60(s)*60(min)= 238,878,720,000 bytes/hour (239gb/h) for 720p uncompressed video alone.

Tensor

They bet on the wrong pony with HD DVD. Now they're trying to figure out if the movie market is going to fall in line behind blu ray or if people like me--who are perfectly happy with their DVDs--are just going to wait for downloadable content rather than get stuck with yet another box in my living room.

It's a business gamble.

makanai

Size is meaningless, this is not a puny desktop player you are talking about, but full-blown computers. The important things are frame-size, bitrare, audio bitrate, audio channels. Compression is the keyword.

The problem is HD space and DRM, I buy a movie i want to keep to watch when i want, how i want, how many times i want, sadly with most of the (legal) downloaded content this is not so.

Tensor

Samifumi, your average American consumer, told Reuters that he is not exploring any kind of purchase of an XBOX 360 or related products in response to Mr. Greenberg's comments.

Samifumi subsequently added that you cannot purchase Xbox Live online service if you dont buy an XBOX 360.

Samifumi

And have you ever had HD programming from Comcast or DirecTV? Those HD files usually MPEG II streams and are compressed as all shit.

jzulli

Remember 5-6 short years ago downloading music was something for moderately inclined technophiles. Faster internet connections and the ability to compress files in the form of mp3's allowed physical CD's to wither and just about disappear. DRM barely made a dent in the flow from physical CDs to music files. Don't forget, hard drive storage is increasing every day and getting cheaper and cheaper. 5 years ago who was talking about 1TB drives being offered on new computers? Hardly anyone! The stage is set, and I feel the same will happen to Blu-Ray that happened to CDs fairly quickly. Or, at the very least, Blu-Ray will be the option for those who can't, for one reason or another, have access to On-Demand HD videos or have the ability to store the files.

DustyButt

Won't be so retarded when there are fiber optic cables =)

Nighthawkz

TheCyberBob

Download HD??? Do they know how long it would take to download a movie 25-50 GB in size? That's completely retarded. Just go with Blu-ray!

Noobs-R-Us

domerdel

Neoistheone2000

FLegion

Between download options, HD-On-Demand, and most consumers never upgrading to Blu-Ray players... What if it fades away over the next 3-5 years and is replaced by non-physical media that can be transported and stored a variety of ways (i.e. reusable HD-SD cards)?

Poor Blu-Ray... you just can't win.

DustyButt

vertibraker

1. Unreasonably, often perversely unyielding; bullheaded.
2. Firmly resolved or determined; resolute. See Synonyms at obstinate.
3. Characterized by perseverance; persistent.
4. Difficult to treat or deal with; resistant to treatment or effort:

kodo