External HD-DVD Player

[DSchwartz88]

So everyone has hopefully heard the news that there will be an external hd-dvd player for the 360. No my question is for everyone forget weather you want HD-DVD players or anything. Youve now bought a 400 dollar 360 do you really want to be using an external ugly HD-DVD player, i think Microsoft screwed this one up and if they were considering HD-DVD they should have included it internally. What do you think?

[EM1L]

Who cares its only for movies not for games.

[neilp4453]

yea...as long it won't interfere with my gaming. what woul be ****ed up is if they made an updated 360 and sold it at the same prices as they are now. that means I got screwed over because I didn't wait. and I thought I was pretty loyal.

[One Pence]

I bet Microsoft had planned on making Xbox 360 with a HD drive but as they shipped early had to only use the normal drive hence why theyre going to release a accessory. Either that or there milking the Xbox 360.

Next there will be an announcement on HD-Rom Games ..

[hyakku]

Yes I love Microsoft. They did it perfectly, now that they are using HD DVD for movies, no one can say its not the ultimate media player, besides its not gonna be so expensive that no one will use it, believe me. Good job microsoft, helping the loyal fans and the casual gamers.

[davidjr1989]

I dont care about movies i got a dvd player collectig dust as it is. I probably got 2 dvd movies.

[neilp4453]

i hope it is only external for everyone. if they release later 360s with internal drives....I will be pissed.

[brain_stew]

A very bad move imo, this is going to be a PR disaster and is going to confuse the hell out of the average consumer, as if the optional HDD wasn't confusing enough. I can't see this benefiting 360 sales one bit and it's going to make the PS3 seem much better value to the average consumer.

[vecha]

How is it bad?...its an external add on for those who want to play HD-DVD movies...nothing to do with games.

[stitch o_O]

how is it bad??

in a sense it isn't, but microsoft is milking this for all its worth.

have you seen the price of most externals? they are not cheap and to think that this will be any less than 200, no.

they are trying to compete with sony and force themselves in as the minstream item.

they really need to stop this.

yall complain about sony all the time look at ms with all this bull sh*t.

if you really think that this is a good move, then you are a ms pawn.

if they really cared about the people who buy their products they would have waited and made it the best system with the addons already on.

[AJ76]

What MS need to do is something similar to when they dropped the price of the original Xbox and gave stuff out.

I paid £299 for an original Xbox on launch day and when they dropped the price to £199 I got a thank you e-mail for being a loyal customer and offered a choice of some games and addons, 2 weeks later I got 3 games, an extra controller and an 8mb memory card. what everyone needs to remember is the mark up on most consumer electronics is huge. I used to work for a very high end hi-fi company and I got some stuff at 19% of the retail cost.

If they retail the external unit for say £199 they should offer it to everyone who showed their faith in the 360 for say £75 direct from them.

Just a thought though, if the drive in the 360 is capable of playing HD-DVD games couldn't they just update the drives firmware via xbox live to allow it to play movies?

[dragonfly]

Originally Posted by stitch o_O

how is it bad??

in a sense it isn't, but microsoft is milking this for all its worth.

have you seen the price of most externals? they are not cheap and to think that this will be any less than 200, no.

they are trying to compete with sony and force themselves in as the minstream item.

they really need to stop this.

yall complain about sony all the time look at ms with all this bull sh*t.

if you really think that this is a good move, then you are a ms pawn.

if they really cared about the people who buy their products they would have waited and made it the best system with the addons already on.

And Sony aren't? Heck, they'll flood the market with accessories too, just like everyone does. Both companies are just as "bad" in that respect. But here's the thing: When I look at my PS2, I see a pure gaming machine. When I look at my original Xbox, I see a full-fledged media center AND a gaming machine. The 360 follows in this tradition, providing interconnectivity through and through. The PS2 does not; I don't keep my PS2 connected to my LAN anymore because I never used the network features anyway. My Xbox is online though, and so is my 360 of course.
My point is, I have more faith in MS producing a "mainstream item" than I have in Sony doing the same, because Sony has always been too concerned with their legacy hardware and software, and they don't have the huge hardware and software base that Microsoft have. The 360 is based on a proven system (Win32/DirectX) which has had many years of development as an entertainment platform, and it is able to connect directly to Windows-based PC's for sharing of information, and hopefully later, for gaming as well.
I'm not saying the 360 is superior to the PS3 in any way (I've not even mentioned the PS3), but I do believe that Sony will have a tough time topping Microsoft in the console war unless they completely rethink their strategy with the PS3. Seeing how they're handling the PSP firmware, adding more and more of their own legacy support (who wants to use Atrac on their PC's? and nothing that the community *wants* (DivX, Ogg, , WMV, FLAC, Flash etc - they actually added WMA in 2.60, at least that's something...), I'm not very hopeful about the PS3, but we'll see. I'm not going to go out and buy a PS3 until there's a decent modchip for it at least, that's for sure.

[inertia187]

HD is over-rated.
Unless games are realeased on HD discs i will not be getting any type of HD player for X360.

[pspman123456]

Originally Posted by AJ76

What MS need to do is something similar to when they dropped the price of the original Xbox and gave stuff out.

I paid £299 for an original Xbox on launch day and when they dropped the price to £199 I got a thank you e-mail for being a loyal customer and offered a choice of some games and addons, 2 weeks later I got 3 games, an extra controller and an 8mb memory card. what everyone needs to remember is the mark up on most consumer electronics is huge. I used to work for a very high end hi-fi company and I got some stuff at 19% of the retail cost.

If they retail the external unit for say £199 they should offer it to everyone who showed their faith in the 360 for say £75 direct from them.

Just a thought though, if the drive in the 360 is capable of playing HD-DVD games couldn't they just update the drives firmware via xbox live to allow it to play movies?

i thought the same once, but the hddvd laser is smaller. who cares. i think 10gb is enough for a game and were all ok. otherwise well all buy ps3s too...

[RedDeath]

Originally Posted by dragonfly

And Sony aren't? Heck, they'll flood the market with accessories too, just like everyone does. Both companies are just as "bad" in that respect. But here's the thing: When I look at my PS2, I see a pure gaming machine. When I look at my original Xbox, I see a full-fledged media center AND a gaming machine. The 360 follows in this tradition, providing interconnectivity through and through. The PS2 does not; I don't keep my PS2 connected to my LAN anymore because I never used the network features anyway. My Xbox is online though, and so is my 360 of course.
My point is, I have more faith in MS producing a "mainstream item" than I have in Sony doing the same, because Sony has always been too concerned with their legacy hardware and software, and they don't have the huge hardware and software base that Microsoft have. The 360 is based on a proven system (Win32/DirectX) which has had many years of development as an entertainment platform, and it is able to connect directly to Windows-based PC's for sharing of information, and hopefully later, for gaming as well.
I'm not saying the 360 is superior to the PS3 in any way (I've not even mentioned the PS3), but I do believe that Sony will have a tough time topping Microsoft in the console war unless they completely rethink their strategy with the PS3. Seeing how they're handling the PSP firmware, adding more and more of their own legacy support (who wants to use Atrac on their PC's? and nothing that the community *wants* (DivX, Ogg, , WMV, FLAC, Flash etc - they actually added WMA in 2.60, at least that's something...), I'm not very hopeful about the PS3, but we'll see. I'm not going to go out and buy a PS3 until there's a decent modchip for it at least, that's for sure.

SHOULD I KILL YOU NOW OR NOW?

360 does not use any part of windows or it's code (it's all brand new, these are 3 processors we're talkin about, windows has trouble with that, esp hyperthreading 2 procs)

and IT DOES NOT USE DIRECT-X at all, it has it's own custom shader libraries and optimizations.

burn in hell for being so insanely wrong, you personally offended many people with that post