Xbox HD-DVD drive – a bargain!

To cost less than £130

Posted by Staff
Xbox HD-DVD drive – a bargain!
In some fairly predictable news, it is just emerging from various retail sources that the price of Microsoft's HD-DVD add-on is highly likely to cost less than £130. Which is quite the bargain, for any gamers who are also movie buffs out there and who aren't (like Sony) willing to take the Blu-Ray plunge just yet.

Retailers have been informed that the cost of the Xbox 360 plus the cost of the HD-DVD add-on (pictured, right) will be less than the cost of Sony's PS3, according to reports.

SPOnG will be speaking to Microsoft reps to find out when they plan to make an official announcement on the cost of this must-have add-on. In the meantime, we'll all just have to keep 'making do' with those old-fashioned, almost 'quaint' DVD movies.
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Comments

tg0006 16 May 2006 21:29
1/11
thats cool and all, but i think the PS3 still has the movie watchers advantage in a design perspective just because its all in one box and needs no external drive. still, if i had an xbox 360, id probably get the hddvd
Jay 17 May 2006 08:53
2/11
Nobody at this stage should be considering the PS3 for its movie playback abilities until it's discovered whether or not Sony has disabled the machine's high-quality output like it did with the PS2. I mean, what's the point in buying a console to watch the 'next generation' of home movie technology if we're going to be blighted by the ridiculous 'RGB green screen' again? Or worse...
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shaka 17 May 2006 08:57
3/11
dont buy hd-dvd its going to fail ,blu-ray has 80% of movie companies on his back and another thing to point out sony will have millions of blu-ray players around the world with ps3.

blu-ray > dvd > hd-dvd fails.
Dreadknux 17 May 2006 10:40
4/11
Jay wrote:
Nobody at this stage should be considering the PS3 for its movie playback abilities until it's discovered whether or not Sony has disabled the machine's high-quality output like it did with the PS2.

I don't think anybody at this stage should be considering getting a console for Blu-Ray OR HD-DVD full stop. Unless you're considerably wealthy and/or just throw away things once you've just bought them.

I'm under the impression that pending the launch of Blu-Ray and HD-DVD, videos are going to be re-released in said format. It's not been many years at all since bog standard DVD became the standard over VHS, what makes these companies think the mass market are suddenly going to drop the DVD collection they have and re-buy them on BR/HD-DVD just for the sake of High Def, which a small percentage of people actually have right now?

If you're going to be an adopter of Blu-Ray or HD-DVD, then that's almost as absurd. Talk about throwing your money out the window.

I wouldn't be surprised if the overall winner out of this format war was actually regular DVD.
tyrion 17 May 2006 12:04
5/11
Svend Joscelyne wrote:
I wouldn't be surprised if the overall winner out of this format war was actually regular DVD.

I wouldn't be suprised if nobody re-bought their DVDs and just kept played them on their Blu-Ray or HD-DVD players since they will all be backwards compatible with DVD!

Who started the "you have to re-buy your movies" meme and how do we prevent them from breeding?
crs117 17 May 2006 21:26
6/11
shaka wrote:
dont buy hd-dvd its going to fail ,blu-ray has 80% of movie companies on his back and another thing to point out sony will have millions of blu-ray players around the world with ps3.

blu-ray > dvd > hd-dvd fails.


How do you figure. I mean HD-DVD is currently out right now and the players and video's are selling like crazy. Your statement fails to mention that many of that 80% are actually planning on supporting both formats.

Also MS and several others are supporting HD-DVD which means that MS will have many ways of making HD-DVD much more viable for Media Center PC's (vista is gonna really push media center setups) than blu-ray.

Next up the media manufacturers prefer creating HD-DVD disks because they dont have to completely upgrade their entire media lines in order to produce them (this includes blank media).

Also sony has done really well with new formats in the past 10+ years. Lets see, Mini Disks, UMD, Memory Stick, the new memory stick, etc. Also you cannot claim sony soley put dvd on the market, I had a DVD player and a collection of DVD's well before the ps2 even came out, which by the way is about the worst DVD player ever made.

So your argument that PS3+Blu-ray = Failure for HD-DVD does not hold much water.

I am willing to bet that HD-DVD and blu-ray are both short lived because online HD content delivery will take over. Then it will be which medium wins the computer optical recording disk war which i would say HD + MS has a major advantage over sony.
realvictory 17 May 2006 21:27
7/11
I would be surprised if people rebought all their movies on HD-DVD or Bluray.

I think that, after buying an HDTV - even if the new consoles are good value - you still have to spend £500 just to watch either. Then if one medium fails, you might end up spending £1000 on games consoles and another £1000 on a TV, and another £1000 on all the movies you've bought.
realvictory 17 May 2006 21:52
8/11
I don't think that how good PS3 is at playing bluray is relevant, since owners of PS3s will still buy bluray over HD, and once they've remortaged their house to afford it, they're not going to get a different format afterwards.

I'm not really excited about either format, but I see HD-DVD as more of an upgrade - bluray is a true new format. But I'm not getting either until they're cheap, or until I'm rich - and with the £300 - £500 I would spend on buying a next gen console, I could buy 15 - 25 DVDs or current generation games.
PistolPete 18 May 2006 07:44
9/11
To me, as soon as the 360 starts selling 'add-ons' etc. in the future, it starts becoming a P.C tower. FFs, I don't want to buy a console which overly-often states that it's cheaper than the ps3 but will hit you with 'if you want the whole package, you're going to have to spend a little bit more... and a little bit more for this...'

I already own a P.C; the shelf life of the current console generation (ps2 etc) has been 6 years, without releasing by-products which the company simply couldn't rightfully prepere at launch. The 360 hurried their console, this much is obvious, especially seeing as I've seen them offered for £100 in papers second hand... 360 is clearly on a slippery slope... but wait, if you spend a little more money, only £130 extra, then you know... it'll be better..
king skins 18 May 2006 11:18
10/11
PistolPete wrote:
To me, as soon as the 360 starts selling 'add-ons' etc. in the future, it starts becoming a P.C tower. FFs, I don't want to buy a console which overly-often states that it's cheaper than the ps3 but will hit you with 'if you want the whole package, you're going to have to spend a little bit more... and a little bit more for this...'

I already own a P.C; the shelf life of the current console generation (ps2 etc) has been 6 years, without releasing by-products which the company simply couldn't rightfully prepere at launch. The 360 hurried their console, this much is obvious, especially seeing as I've seen them offered for £100 in papers second hand... 360 is clearly on a slippery slope... but wait, if you spend a little more money, only £130 extra, then you know... it'll be better..


then don't buy it you tit.
king skins 18 May 2006 11:22
11/11
tyrion wrote:
Svend Joscelyne wrote:
I wouldn't be surprised if the overall winner out of this format war was actually regular DVD.

I wouldn't be suprised if nobody re-bought their DVDs and just kept played them on their Blu-Ray or HD-DVD players since they will all be backwards compatible with DVD!

Who started the "you have to re-buy your movies" meme and how do we prevent them from breeding?


They look pretty good and on a HDTV to as long as the system you are playing them on outputs it in Progressive Scan
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