MS never hitched their wagon to HD-DVD, it was an add-on. It minized their loss when HD-DVD went belly up. They lost the players, but *not* the consoles. A shrewd move on their part.

And now each day that goes by, the cheaper the blue diode laser thingmagigs get.

But here is the catch to Sony. MS could come out with a blu-ray box way below the PS3 as a loss-leader, as they are already making money with the xbox. And then Sony would be stuck: if they were to lower their prices, they would have to wait even longer to recoup their investment. And it would piss of there already established PS3 base to an extent.

And as far as the commenter saying they would not screw over their developers, he is dead on. MS is pretty well regarded among their developers. So they would make it a DVD/Blu-Ray drive... there were no developers for HD-DVD as MS did not allow game development in that format. So life would go on...

The only question I have would be: do current owners of the HD-DVD add-on get a discount when the Blu-Ray add-on is released for the then "older" model Xbox's?

hypereric

We'll see a standard hard drive across all models or free 2-4 GB memory cartridges before we'll see X360-Blu.

dbc

theoldwolf

LOL, ok I guess I do mean to hate.

berribrand

im planning on buying a ps3 for bluray. its much quieter, right?

ronnsprocket

FritzLaurel

They are BlueRay

cjlopez

(As a side note, it cracks me up that on every home decorating show on HGTV and TLC there's always at least a 42" somewhere in the design.)

I think any opportunity to bring this stuff to more of the masses (read: make it cheaper) will only help matters. Until that happens, and the investments are recouped, I don't know that I would call Blu-Ray a success - inderterminate it is, then, as far as I'm concerned.

ps61318

Part-Time-Viking

ChrisH027

Try running the cords, just as an experiment, straight into your router (if it has multiple ports and is > 10 Mbps), from the xbox and from the HTPC. Nothing else connected. Keep the cabling *way* away from anything else electronic and the three devices (as much as possible).

Then try it again and again with moving your router around, and your xbox and HTPC.

FWIW: One of my first customer network installs at the new company that I and my biz partner started almost took us under because of this first install-from-hell. It turned out to be a brand new shiny Lucent PBX that Lucent swore up and down would not interfere with CAT-5, and besides, "it was FCC approved". Luckily, on a whim I moved everythng away from the server room where the PBX was (switch and router and servers), and the network started behaving properly. We went from a black eye in the customer's eye to a customer on the phone screaming at Lucent. They sent a tech out with a magical wand, and sure 'nuff, it was bleeding like hell on a certain frequency.

In short, never take for granted where you equipment and network cables are. FCC approved doesnt mean (much) sh!t!

Also, I'd be interested in knowing what type of encoding the movies are in and what process you use to get them that way.

hypereric

The fact that PS3 and 360 have software emulators make me want to give up consoles altogether and focus on my HTPC.

Eventually I will get a hold of their software emulators and have all the games as ROMs so what's the effin' point... to play them today? There are so many Xbox and PS2 games I am still going thru... and I haven't even installed my SNES-every-game rom collection.

Just a waste of money, like buying a brand new car and selling it after warranty, rinse, repeat.

liveinvt

'BD in a way that makes sense'

In other words- in a new machine.

vote Obama

Every optical / portable media will be BD. This is inevitable. The sooner Xbox assimilates, the better their product will perform.

liveinvt

If they started deciding who gets invited to the party, they'd risk forcing their competitors to create another format.

@arcanedark: Why do Sony's VAIO laptops come with Windows installed?

Guizzy

liveinvt

Oh, the pain has finally begun to pay off, yes indeedy!

Cheers

banmojo

discounteggroll

kylo4

geekinky

Oh, yeah. Console.

strider_mt2k

@SpyderMS: I think what's been holding Blu-Ray back is the price of players and content. My father wants to get a player but can't justify the cost right now. I even did something I never do and told him if he wanted to get into BR the only way to go right now is the PS3. He, not being a gamer, has no interest in a gaming system.

@jamesuschrist: sounds like your Xbox ethernet port/controller is dead/dying

Rususeruru

Blu-Ray is owned by the Blu-Ray Disc Association, who get licensing money from anybody who uses Blu-Ray, Sony is of course a big player in that organization.

Sony/BDA absolutely would not block any new adoption of Blu-Ray, even by MS, all that would do is undermine the legitimacy of the format, scaring off new licensees, making the existing ones uncomfortable and greatly helping the cause of any would-be competitor.

Sony has spent a great deal of time and money trying to get Blu-Ray established, MS adopting it would help that cause not hinder it, it's would be puerile and self-destructive to try and block MS on the grounds that: "ZOMG!!! WE HATE YOU!!".

I reckon MS decided months ago to go Blu-Ray with the 360, but is just trying to act nonchalant so that when they do switch they can do it without having to openly admit that Sony one-upped them.

MartinX

Maybe my particular Xbox 360 is just a POS.

jamesuschrist

Sockatume

also if microsoft does go blu-ray, i hope they have a portable one, like the hd-dvd player. i dont want to go out and buy a new console just 'cause its got blu-ray. i wouldnt mind though droppin $100-$200 on a portable one.

arcanedark

GeekGoth

@ps61318:

Considering one of the early comments today about the relatively low adoption rate of Blu-Ray, proving only that even a monopoly can fail

I'm looking forward to this. I still haven't been able to convince myself to get a 360 yet (already own a PS3 and Wii), and I'm glad I've held off so far. Even though the PS3 plays BluRay fantastically, it couldn't hurt to have a player in the bedroom as well.

SpyderMS

Mike918

im pretty sure thats your router choking and not your 360
ive streamed 1080p wmv content from my laptops wifi g,which is much slower than lan, and the xbox and never got a message of that sort

@Kyle_D:
he's refering to the 360
since M$ already went on the record to say that all 360 games will run off dvd since it would be bad for business to switch the format and alienate their early adopters

rezin khanz

poedgirl

Kyle_D

1. A games system
2. A home entertainment system
3. A blu-ray player

separately and so the appeal of an all-in-one gadget from reputable companies does spell good times ahead for both Microsoft and Sony.

I personally still think the PS3 is the best iteration of all the above three to date but if Microsoft can come up with something cheaper that's just as capable, I think they'll have a winner on their hands.

legacye

Nintenboy01

That Guy

Kobe_No_Means_No

br4nd0n

Evangelion

iscangel

But this is making me rethink things. I would also like to replace my current Xbox with an HDMI version, as I plan switching my entire home theater setup, projector and all, over to HDMI soon. The only things that appeal to me on the PS3 are use as a BD player and the potential that it streams video better than my Xbox. The Xbox consistently chokes on hi-def, and doesn't do very well with DVD resolution video either. Every once in a while you'll get an error when playing standard definition video saying that the Xbox has lost connection...and you'll have to restart. This is on a 100BaseT LAN with almost nothing on it besides a couple of PCs and the Xbox... And as I've said, it consistently chokes on high def video. You'll get to watch maybe 10 seconds before the connection drops and you have to restart.

Does anyone else share my experience with the Xbox? I've built a HTPC to overcome this...but I'd really like to start using the Xbox or a PS3 to stream video again.

jamesuschrist

nizzy1115

ab3

ps61318

ab3

daftrok