Rumors float around the Internet questioning when Microsoft will ship a Blu-ray enabled Xbox 360 or add-on device like they did with the, now failed, HD-DVD. At CES 09 Robbie Bach, president of Microsoft’s Entertainment & Devices division, says this request is “way down the list.”
Mr. Bach had some great selling points as to why a Blu-ray player has little value in the world of Xbox 360. The primary reason, of course, being the Xbox 360 developers cannot take advantage of Blu-ray as a development platform for games. This was the price Sony, or the consumer, paid to own a PlayStation 3 since all games are printed on the media and are, in effect, Blu-ray “capable.”
We say capable because not all (any?) PlayStation 3 games currently make full use of the Blu-ray media. Many games will reprint the game on the media for optimization purposes, fill the game with international voice overs for all countries or, otherwise, stuff the media with something that will serve a useful purpose. Sony has near-future-proofed their device by giving game developers years of growth in terms of utilizing the Blu-ray capacity.
Microsoft chose to take the smaller old-style DVD format for games and media. Adding the HD-DVD didn’t add a large deal of risk because, as we saw, they can discontinue the model and not change their core gaming demographic. We still laughed a bit at them, but that was where it ended. Bach also said that it’s not really a great economic time to push a new 360 SKU on potential customers with additional cost just for Blu-ray movies playback.
They could add Blu-ray game development support as well but that would just alienate the “28 million Xboxes” they have already shipped.
“OK, let me get this straight: I’m going to add something to the product that’s going to raise the cost, which means the price goes up, consumers aren’t asking for it, and by the way, my game developers can’t use it.” (gamespot)
Of course, the first thing that came to our mind was “well, you did it for HD-DVD, how is Blu-ray different?” The key areas we can think of really come down to Blu-ray is a Sony technology and they are a direct competitor and, to top it off, HD-DVD allowed them to fight against the PS3 at the media level of the industry. They minimized the risk by making the product a secondary add-on device and, if HD-DVD had won, they’d have the winning format already under production (still not for games).
It seems Microsoft has changed their battle plans a little. They started out talking up the media aspects of the 360, using Media Center, renting movies and TV shows and had the HD-DVD as a subproduct. Today, they’re investing in Netflix for media and everything else favors the games.
Which is fine, we like games.
It’s contest time again! This time, we’re giving away the Xbox Live Arcade version of Defense Grid: The Awakening, a great tower defense title. You can read GameStooge’s review here, which has gameplay videos.
Apparently the war is in full force and Microsoft’s Don Mattrick is ready to poke the flag in the ground and call it a sure fire victory (in so many words). He said he’s “willing to declare here today that Xbox 360 will sell more consoles worldwide this generation than PS3” (
I first started following the TD Podcast back in 2007. My buddy Luke clued me in that TD was doing a ‘cast, and said I should start following it.
So I did.
Boring story.
I actually only started about 3 weeks ago. I got sucked into pod-casts actually only 4 weeks ago also by podcasts on retrowaretv.com So I seeked out new and diffrent pod-casts. I do have to say this is one of my favorite because of the format that it’s been put in. Also i’ve sorta cherry picked previous episodes in the back log of pod-casts. It’s always so intresting to look back and see what we believed would happen today. Even it was only three months ago.
I started getting addicted to you lovely chaps, when i was reconmended by the lovely bird known as twitter. Its interesting to listen to you guys and see how wrong you got the future 😀
This is actually my first one, the Defense Grid cross-promotion pulled me over here. I guess that was the point of the cross promotion huh? 🙂 I had no idea you guys did a podcast. I regularly listen to the 2o2p one and majornelson and oxm and I love your common man cocktails video podcast, very professionally done. But now that I know you also have a gaming podcast, i’ll add this to my weekly listening pleasure.
@Bushmaster2000 Hey hey! Welcome to the show, this one isn’t as explicit and does prove to be unique and different than the other casts, so you probably won’t get too much redundancy and a completely different perspective (esp. considering we’ve got three folks and one being a women, you can get a bit of a different perspective on things)
@David: Wow, glad twitter got you hooked, promoting a podcast is tough with all the other audio shows getting in our way. At least I know twitter has done us good!
@Jareske: Our format is a bit different than other “professional” shows because we’re not in the industry and we’re not living and breathing it everyday, we’re taking it more from a gamers perspective and the reactions of what a gamer might say when they hear the weekly news… or so I think 🙂
@Stephen: Glad you’re still on board. You’ve been around awhile and we’re used to hearing more from our newer listeners. Ya never know who still sticks it out for the long run, considering the audience is growing I guess we’ve got to be doing something right.
Same thing as Bushmaster 2000. I listen to some of them in french (quebec) but also the GT and Screwattack one. Planned on listening to this one for sure 🙂
The truth be told, up until a link from gamestooge.com about a contest brought me here, I had never heard a TD Podcast. BUT, I am now currently listening to one of the newer podcasts and I must say that it’s pretty good. I like the mix of content covering multiple services and consoles and the banter between the hosts.
It’s refreshing to hear the opinions of people that have no direct affiliation with a big media outlet or game company. I feel I’m getting a more honest opinion of the gaming community as a whole, and not just the highlights from a group that wants me to buy into their product(s).
Thank you. I will definitely be returning to listen to the TD Podcast.
Hey im from cooktown & listen to da cast today…… Give me, Give me Give mee!
I got hooked after a friend told me about it. If I’m not gaming at least I can listen to a podcast about it.
The contest is over, and the winner will be announced soon.
The winner is VanIslePimp. Everyone had great comments, but only one can get the code.
Thanks everyone for entering!
Thanks for holding the contest! I look forward to your next podcast. Now I’m off to play some Defense Grid: The Awakening. Thank you again.