Why The Xbox 720 Will Not Use Blu-Ray

When Sony first announced that they would be using the new Blu-Ray format for the PlayStation 3 Microsoft stated that Blu-Ray is a format that is not needed for gaming. This has obviously been proven wrong over the past years with the recent success of the Blu-Ray format.

More at the Link!

[TOO PAWNED]

720? WHO CARES!!!

[Nick212004]

EXACTLY!!! The point of this article is not about what the new Xbox will be called. That is why if you read the article you will see it states that. Who cares what the next Xbox is called.

[Sanzee]

You two lovebirds are a shining tribute to irony. Both of you have clearly stated "Who cares about the 720 or the next Xbox"

Well apparantly something caught your interest. Why the hell else would you have clicked on the article link, and even more, started posting comments about it.

I don't care that 'you dont care about the next xbox' but I do care about the fact that your actions could be viewed as a direct insult to mankind's ability to reason and think logically.

[Nick212004]

The whole purpose of this article is what the topic states. It is not about what the next xbox will be called. Its main point is to explain why blu-ray will not be used in the next xbox

[InMyOpinion]

Why do you even need to ask that question?

Why the f*ck would MS use a format that's been developed by it's biggest rival in the console industry? They've already stated this several times:

“We believe that we shouldn’t force people to pay for things they don’t want. We also believe that the future is digital, and that’s why we’ve invested in a massive library of entertainment content, that’s why we’re bringing things like Netflix to members in the U.S., that’s why we’re growing our library in Europe, that’s why we’re adding all type of entertainment experiences around the world,”

Good flamebait article though.

[PotNoodle]

Microsoft used the CD did they not? Sony developed that.
Microsoft USE the DVD do they not? Sony co-developed that.

It has nothing to do with the rivalry, just the fact microsoft obviously don't think it is needed at the moment, their sales back up that statement.

[InMyOpinion]

Wrong and wrong

James Russel invented the CD.

http://web.mit.edu/invent/i...

Philips manufactured the first CD.

http://www.networkworld.com...

Philips, one of the first companies to make CD players, was the first to make a DVD player. The invention of DVD cannot be attributed to one person or one company.

http://inventors.about.com/...

Check your facts the next time.

[jcfilth]

"Why The Xbox 720 Will Not Use Blu-Ray"

Because Microsoft is dumb.

"Why The Xbox 720 WILL use Blu-Ray"

After seeing the new BD from Pioneer, there will be no other format to compete with BD.

If MS is trying to go with Digital Downloads they will miserably fail, the world is still not ready for that, from connection speed to the cost of storage devices big enough to fit many games. Games are getting bigger and more detailed, and that requires A LOT of space.

The next Xbox WILL use BD.

[Elven6]

@DeathroW22: Please get your facts straight, Sony DID NOT have much do do with the creation of DVD. Toshiba, Time Warner, Matsushita Electric, Hitachi, Mitsubishi Electric, Pioneer, Thomson, and JVC created it and it competed with a rival Sony/Phillips product in a test market I believe. The Sony product lost and everyone who was on the "losing" side was brought over to finish up DVD, the DVD has we know it has very little to do with Sony.

[blackbeld]

@jenzo , @eleven6... Philips AND Sony created it you should check you're facts you moron!!!

go to Wikipedia and learn to read before writing spam!!

[sonarus]

I can't really say bluray needed for gaming has been proven wrong but i can say i value the fact that my PS3 can play bluray movies A LOT

[Danja]

Blu Ray is good for gaming , but it's not really needed at this point in time to a certain extent since DVD has been able to hold it own still....but having a Blu Ray drive in the PS3 is freakin awesome....more bang 4 the buck..

The article basically says that M$ will go with a new format I dont see this happenning im sure M$ will go wiht Blu Ray next time around and Sony will again use Blu Ray.

M$ would be dumb to try and come out with a new format or back anew format especially since by the time the next Xbox or PS consoles are ready to ship we will probably already have 200GB Blu Ray disc..up and running

[Nick212004]

No offense but I think you read the article a little wrong. It states in the article

"When Sony first announced that they would be using the new Blu-Ray format for the PlayStation 3 Microsoft stated that Blu-Ray is a format that is not needed for gaming. This has obviously been proven wrong over the past years with the recent success of the Blu-Ray format."

Which means Microsoft was wrong about saying Blu-Ray is not needed.

[Mr_Bun]

Because Ballmer chooses pride over logic...Plus he would have to eat his words seeing as he bashes the format at every opportunity.

[thereapersson]

Well what format are they going to use? HD-DVD?

I sure as hell hope they don't continue using DVD9. We need to progress in this world, tech-wise, and not stay stuck in the past with each new hardware iteration.

[UltimateIdiot911]

These fanboys really hate progress. I can't understand why you would rather have DVD9 than a better format, doesn't necessary have to be bluray but who doesn't want a better format. Unless, they are afraid of a steep initial price and paying for all those accessories, XBL and overprice harddrive.

[solidt12]

I don't understand why they wouldn't use Blu-ray. If they try to introduce a new format they will take too big of a risk of failing. I understand that you have to take risk in this business but Blu-ray already has a big portion of the market and is the only option today, by the time the next Xbox comes out the Blu-ray market would have grown exponentially.

[tordavis]

Microsoft COULD use Blu-Ray but it would be cheaper for them to go with 100gb HD-DVD.

[Silver360]

MS will not alienate customers. How could they release a console without a movie player? If movies are in Blu-Ray so will be the 720's disc drive.

[hitthegspot]

"Which means Microsoft was wrong about saying Blu-Ray is not needed."

MS was not wrong. When MS made those statements we were up to our necks in a format war. They were backing another format and that format lost.

Sony needs to fix the Blu-Ray licensing before Blu-Ray will be adopted into any other devices. Mac even stated that they do not like the licensing Sony has and that is what is preventing them from adding a Blu-Ray drive to their laptops.

[Armyless]

because there's a large market of 360 fans who will need a Blu Ray player eventually anyway... why not get one with the 720 instead of letting Sony keep that market to themselves.

The 720 will have Blu Ray.

[cwir]

"MS was not wrong. When MS made those statements we were up to our necks in a format war. They were backing another format and that format lost."

So they were wrong :)

"Sony needs to fix the Blu-Ray licensing before Blu-Ray will be adopted into any other devices. Mac even stated that they do not like the licensing Sony has and that is what is preventing them from adding a Blu-Ray drive to their laptops."

That may be right. But who's going to loose on this? A month ago I was buying a laptop for my girlfriend and we couldn't decide whether to go with MacBook or Vaio. She didn't really care about the insides, more about the look (women..). Eventually we got a nice Vaio and guess because of what? It had a blu ray drive (and writer). And since I alredy have a small (but nice :) collection of Blu Ray movies, everyone is happy (except Apple :P)..

And about the article: MS going for Blu Ray with their next console seems to me like a much wiser choice, but I can't see them doing it :). Like someone here said - they'd rather spend/waste millions on something else (new or not) than help Sony earn money :)

[AAACE5]

But in all honesty, I don't care what format they use, as long as it has the games I want to play!

If nintendo came with games I wanted to play and put them on a cartridge... I would pick that to play on!

I expect MS to go with whatever format is cheaper and offers more than what they have now! If Blu-ray is cheaper to them at the time... they will use that! If a newer format is cheaper and/or offers something they feel they could use, they will go with that!

More than likely, it will be a Blu-ray player! They haven't even started using the faster players yet, so there is still alot of untapped potential in the format.

I believe they said the Ps3 was using a 1x or 2x speed. Imagine a 16 or 32x... One of the reasons the Ps3 has mandatory installs, is to offset the slow speed. Imagine how great the Ps4 will be with a faster speed!

Blu-ray is going to be here for a bit people... you should get to know it!

[uie4rhig]

MS is a company.. no matter how much Ballmer hates bluray... having bluray in their next console means that there are more customers.. and companies love new customers.. if they're happy or not.. as long as it makes them money they don't care...

[MikeGdaGod]

They will use bluray

[Elven6]

Blu Ray is cool and all but just because one console is using it dosen't mean its a standard gaming format. Sure they could use Blu Ray, or they can make a properiatary format specifically for gaming (See GD ROM) hell they could even get their hands on HD DVD discs and tweak the specs to their needs, the licensing would be dirt cheap.

[hitthegspot]

When MS made the statement they were not wrong, because there was three options and they picked DVD. They were not going to go with Sony, they would have to wait to go with HD-DVD and if they use DVD (as they did) they can put out games for less money. This is the heart of the reason why Sony is in last place. If space is an issue then there are other technologies and option other than Blu-Ray, and in 2010 who knows what options will be there.

[Elven6]

DVD made great strides during the Format War as well, companies were able to add more layers to the thing in turn increasing overall storage, a pimped out DVD could be in the realm of possibility.

[Tomdc]

They can't use DVD that's for sure, making things download only wouldn't work... It's gotta be blu-ray unless a newer format comes along, but I don't think that will happen before the next xbox

[jadenkorri]

first all Sony is MS rival....do you honestly think they are gonna support sony, even if they try there own format, thats 3-4 years from now, blue ray will be majorly more popular, and will be just as hard to go up against...all you 360 fanboys said blu ray would fail, the public has already proven and shown you its not... MS would have to go up against blu ray now in order to elimate it now, or to even give their new format a chance, in 3-4 years will be too late as blu ray will be the popular format, its likely MS will try their own format cause supporting blu ray is not an option...

[iHEARTboobs]

They wont come out with a new format because "Digital downloads are the future" and because they'll want to have backwards compatibility. Investing in a new format would be silly for them so they'll adopt what's out there and that will be Blu-ray. But lets just hope they upgrade from DVD9.

[hitthegspot]

What are you talking about? Blu-ray is good for only two things..

Movies and storage.

MS is not a movie studio so they are going to focus on the later. MS will continue to work with NetFlix and who ever else offers HD down loads. This will allow MS to build their next gen using a storage medium that can hold more data then DVD and not use Blu-ray.

[meluvulongtime]

Microsoft does have a couple options, but none of the them are really viable. DD isn't an option because you instantly will lose sales from anyone without high speed internet, not to mention isp bandwidth caps aren't going to disappear.

HD-DVD isn't really much of an option either because you'll cut out the ability to watch blu-ray movies on it. Creating a new format would make MS have to spend more money. This option doesn't stand to gain anything. There's basically zero chance it would be used for movies because Blu ray has the support of all major movie studios and they aren't going to change their stance just as Blu ray is starting to take off.

If they really want to try and dodge Blu-ray as much as they can their best option would be HD-DVD and then create an attachable Blu ray drive like they did with HD-DVD for the 360. Then they could dodge supporting Blu ray with each console purchase and yet give consumers the option to buy one.

Not sure if it would be cheaper though to put a HD-DVD drive in the machine vs. a Blu ray drive seeing as the longer Blu ray is around the price stands to drop. Personally I think it will be in MS's best interest to go with Blu-ray.

[season007]

don't you think consumers would have aware that PS1 brings in CD, PS2 brings in DVD, PS3 brings in Blu rays.....o Well

Whoever wants to compete with PS4 with whatever format, needs to have second thought

[hitthegspot]

Good post. You would be correct if we were talking about a system that MS is going to release next year. But MS is talking about 2010. By that time HS internet will be the norm, HD movie downloads will be abundant, and storage technologies that are just comming to light today will be well ready for MS to pick from. It's just a medium to store data this will not impact how software is created just stored and read from.

[uie4rhig]

its SCE (Sony Computer Entertainment) and MGS (Microsoft Game Studios) that are the rivals ;)

[eych]

2010 is actually only a year and a week ahead. Not a lot of time for high speed internet to become common enough.

[TheExecutive]

If it is close to the dominant form of movie distribution by the time the 720 comes out they will use bluray. I wont buy their console if it still uses dvd's. end of story.

[jammy_70]

how the hell do they no if blueray wont be in the new console? they probz av no idea hehe foools

if 720 uses DVD's it will suck i mean surely a dvd cant handle that much more!!!

[BattleAxe]

@ Tordavis

Toshiba is not manufacturing HD DVD anymore so I don't get how you think it would be cheaper to use HD DVD when Blu-Ray is well established and is being mass produced. For a guy who has his own Video Game Website, you sure do say some things that make absolutely no sense.

[patterson]

... it would make sense that M$ will use Blu-ray in their next xbox, because they're already paying SONY for using DVD tech.

In case anybody is curious, here's the low down on the licensing of DVD's:

"Any company making DVD products must license essential technology patents from the " 3C ' pool (LG, Philips, Pioneer, Sony: 3.5% per player/drive, minimum $3.50; additional $0.75 for Video CD compatibility; 5 cents per disc), the " 6C " pool (Hitachi, IBM, Matsushita, Mitsubishi, Time Warner, Toshiba, Victor: 4% per player/drive, minimum $4; 4% per "DVD Video decoder", minimum $1; 7.5 cents per disc) and from Thomson (~$1 per player/drive). Patent royalties may also be owed to Discovision Associates , which owns about 1300 optical disc patents (usually paid by the replicator)."

http://www.allformp3.com/dv...

[Megatron08]

Well I dont think they will use blu ray and I dont think they will bring out a new format. I think there is a good chance that they might go with putting games on flash sticks. You can get 16 and 32 gb ones really cheap and in a few years they will be even cheaper. I dont think you need more than 16-32 for 99% of the games that will come out. It be kind of like goin back to the nes and snes days lol

[Rofflecopter]

1. i dont think that flash drives will be cheaper to mass produce than blu ray.. and by the time the new xbox launches bluray reading speeds will be much faster and creating the discs themselves will be cheaper. on top of that, why alienate your console by not allowing your consumers to watch movies on the format that is most prevalent? it would be like launching without any movie watching abilities.

2. i dont believe that digital downloads are the future. 99% of people would still want a physical copy of it. I dont trust my computer as it is, and what happens if your hard drive craps out? or your subscription to LIVE isnt paid for and you cant reactivate your account? screw RROD, people would be pissed at losing everything! especially something as expensive as games..

[madmonkey0]

who said that if there is a new xbox it will be called 720.

[Nick212004]

That is why it states in the article

"Even though there is much doubt that it will come to the 360 there are many people wondering if the Xbox 720, or the next Xbox, will use the Blu-Ray format."

[BIGBAER]

will not be named Xbos 720.It is just a speculative phrase used by some when referencing the Xbox 360's successor.

[jamesrocks3147]

download limits and internet speeds come into it its just not possible unless we get fibre optic internet all over the world. its obv they will use ether blu-ray or.... a none disc based format like flash data. its getting smaller these days and bigger samsung are bringing out a 64GB data stick thats the size of your thumb nail in 2009 imagen the possiblitys...

[jadenkorri]

every 360 fanboy gonna start praising blu ray, and blu ray is failing articles will at least go away on this site, of course anyone of these fanboys are gonna get a firm kick in the a$$ if they praise it after seeing all these articles posted they don't have a right to praise it...they lost their privaledges....

[Douglasp]

Other than DSL, cable and fiber are the way to go. My brother has fios and getting 20mb down and 5mb up. I have Cable and get 16mb down and 2mb up. When docsis 3.0 comes out cable will be at 50mb down. Where I work and live connections of 10mb or higher are becoming the norm. In 2011 when the new box comes out it will be perfect for download only box. A client of mine just bought a sony Viao laptop with flash drive of 85gb built in. Vista loads from the flash drive not a spinning drive. Technology moves more advanced every year. Faster than what we would like to think.

[pp]

Your MUM!!!

[Sanzee]

This is great news.

Of course it is very OBVIOUS news, considering the fact that Sony owns most of the Blu-Ray market, which explains why Microsoft wouldn't put it in. I just don't like Blu-Ray. It has nothing to do with being an Xbox fan, or being a Sony fan. I've seen movies in Blu-Ray, and yes, they look awesome, but Blu-Ray isn't that impressive.

The jump from VHS to DVD was HUGE. The jump from DVD to Blu-Ray was wack as hell. HD-DVD sucked even worse. Either way, Blu-Ray will soon be a thing of the past. You know that someone will come out with something 10x better in the near future. They already have actually.

Mankind can do a whole lot better than Blu-Ray or HD-DVD. In terms of movies and videos, this generation didn't succeed.

[hfaze]

"The jump from VHS to DVD was HUGE. The jump from DVD to Blu-Ray was wack as hell. HD-DVD sucked even worse. Either way, Blu-Ray will soon be a thing of the past. You know that someone will come out with something 10x better in the near future. They already have actually."

Ummm... the biggest thing about the jump from VHS to DVD was the fact that you didn't have to rewind anymore... If you compare S-VHS to DVD, you'll notice very little difference. The thing that prevented S-VHS from taking off was lack of studio support (far too few S-VHS decks out there to really be feasible).

The thing that will KEEP Blu-Ray around is the fact that every major studio has now standardized on Blu-Ray. Now that the production costs are WAY down and there is a sizable number of players out there in people's homes, what makes you think that Hollywood will be willing to jump to yet another new format anytime soon?

Also, if Microsoft wants to continue pushing their XBox line as a multimedia center, it would only make sense to include the current standard for optical discs in their console.

[jtucker78]

VHS - 320 x 480 = 153,600 ... then factor in that it's interlaced
= 76,800 pixels each time the screen refreshes

DVD - 720 x 480 = 345,600 ... then factor in that it's interlaced
= 172,800 pixels each time the screen refreshes

Blu ray - 1920 x 1080 = 2,073,600 ... and blu ray is progressive and not interlaced so
= 2,073,600

VHS - 76,800
DVD - 172,800
Blu ray - 2,073,600

VHS to DVD was moving to a digital format with a slight picture upgrade.
DVD to Blu ray was to improve quality... a lot.

Bandwidth comparison

Apple TV 720p HD 4 MBit/s
Netflix HD streaming max 3800 kbps
DVD SD 10 Mbits/s
broadcast and cable HD movies 720p 19 Mbits/s

And way way way in the lead...
Blu ray at 36 Mbit/s

Have you seen how grey and colourless DVD and HD downloads from Netflix are in comparison to the vivid colours you get on blu ray?

It will be a long time before bandwidths are high enough for (non illegal) downloadable movies to even compete with blu ray.

You fail Sanzee.

[ukilnme]

By no means is Blu-ray needed for gaming, the 360 has more than proven that. To say there is not much of a difference from DVD to Blu-ray is crazy IMO. As long as I can continue to afford it, I will only watch movies on Blu-ray.

[jessehaysfl]

so is this a win for playstation or microsoft? i wish i had 400gb 5 layer discs......

[Kushan]

Blu-ray is not playstation, they are not synonymous with each other. Blu-ray could die tomorrow and the PS3 would still be here. Likewise, Sony could shut down their entire gaming division and still focus on Blu-Ray.

If Microsoft put in an order for a hundred million Blu-ray drives tomorrow, it'd be a win for the manufacturers (LG and such) and Sony would make a bit of cash from it - but the execs at Sony wouldn't be willing to pump that cash into the playstation division if said division was loosing a lot of money. This is how companies can compete on several fronts.

[bviperz]

Hey buddy, it's 16-layer :D

http://www.gamecyte.com/pio...

[panasonic23]

ahaahahah fvck bluegay we don't need that sh!t ahahahah

[gersh]

BluRay's to advanced for the 360 anyways so your $hxt out of luck.

[Magic_The_Celt]

Becuase only True Next Gen consoles use Blu-Ray

[InMyOpinion]

And rumble was a last gen feature...

[Magic_The_Celt]

^ Lmao tuche

[Tiberium]

wow you got owned big time. But I can't see microsoft getting bluray, but I can't see them making the same mistake either. The 720 will have a larger storage disc than DVD, just not bluray.

[Citizen Cook]

Just for gaming, but it will have a blu-ray lazer for movies...

Liek a PC combo drive that plays HD-DVD's and Blu-Gays...

HD-DVD loads faster, stores more, costs less, and doesn't require MANDANTORY INSTALLS the way Blu-Gay does on the PS3rd...

[jessehaysfl]

stores more? are you retarded...also the installs are a part of the ps3 not the blue ray drive...so yes you must be....

[xwabbit]

Lol your commend is so smart wow. It amazes me. If it can read blu ray movies it could read blu ray games cus its the same laser LOL. As for the mandatory installs you clearly don't got a PS3 and just talk from what you have heard lol, only few games have it and new ones wont have them anymore. If you knew what where u talking about you would know blu ray can read up to the same speeds as DVD but since u talk with no knowledge so heres the link for you kid http://www.gamespot.com/pag...
With firmware updates being constantly released for the PS3 its a matter of time b4 the Blu ray gets faster speeds than DVD. So pleas stop embarrassing your self with comments coming from your ass ok ?

[sit down droid]

yer with firmware updates maybe they will be up to dvd speeds but on ps3 they wont. reason being that to recieve the updates you need to be connected to psn. not every console is connected to psn to recieve the pastch so the developer will still need to develope with the lowest blu0ray drive speed.

[xwabbit]

Yes but just because not every 1 is in the PSN doesn't mean they wont update the firmware like they are doing now, and that's no reason to stop them cus they can add the update on games or on the blu ray movies as well. So firmware updates for the blu ray will always come one way or another.

[timmyrulz]

"When Sony first announced that they would be using the new Blu-Ray format for the PlayStation 3 Microsoft stated that Blu-Ray is a format that is not needed for gaming. This has obviously been proven wrong over the past years with the recent success of the Blu-Ray format. "

Proven wrong? are you mad? Both the nintendo wii and the x360 dont use blu ray but both are outselling the ps3. The only advantage blu ray has in gaming is disk space which some may argue is counted by slow reading speeds and forced installs.

The "success of blu ray is only down to the ps3, from what i gather (and i could be wrong) the stand alone players arent doing as well as sony would have liked

[xwabbit]

Well Nintendo wii is owning both consoles but if you knew about sales between PS3 and xbox you would know Xbox didn't come close to sale's compared to PS3 in 2 years. It started to outsell more when ? when they did the price cut otherwise ps3 would still be selling more and M$ # of sold hardware is obviously wrong. If they had 25 mill how the hell would PS3 be making gaming companies more money than xbox ? its basically saying that 8 million of xbox users are pirating games LOL ? Plz that's retarded and not true. The 360 launched in November of 05. By November of 07, the two year anniversary, they had just broke 13 million. Mean while PS3 in 2 years has sold 17 million. So who you think is doing better ?

[Kushan]

The sum-total of this artical is something like this "Microsoft was wrong about blu-ray, so they're going to throw their toys out of the pram next time in order to try and stick it to Sony".

This is absurd, Microsoft couldn't care less if Sony owns the BR format, it's not like Microsoft has their own disk format that they'd compete with. Sure, they backed HD-DVD, but so did a lot of people and back in the day, it was anyone's guess as to which format would "win". Microsoft will pick whatever suits their console best, from both a technical perspective AND a cost perspective. They went with DVDs because they're cheap and fast, Sony went with Blu-Ray to try and launch the format - gaming was a secondary consideration because they knew the disks would read slowly.

But by the time the next generation swings around, BR drives will have matured fast enough that read speeds wont be an issue, already you can get retail drives that read faster than drives that are twice the speed of the 360's drive. Right now, if anyone was going to launch a new console, it would make sense to opt for Blu-ray, but we'll see how it goes down the line.

However, even if Blu-Ray died tomorrow, as a video format, it'd still be extremely viable as a game format and since we're hearing of disks with 4, 5 and 6 layers, it makes sense to use it.

[Salvadore]

Microsoft won't push a new format because it involves a lot of finance and risk. As you previously mentioned about the next generation, Blu-ray will already have matured and as companies are introducing BR discs with a lot of space, Microsoft will incorporate it. I wouldn't be surprised if Sony continue supporting BR with PS4.

[Merritt]

@Kushan

Bubbles and agrees for both comments. It's nice to see someone take their biasedness and through it out the window. It's a rarity here on N4G.

[jessehaysfl]

you forgot about porn.....have you seen tropic thunder? nice monolouge about this very subject

[panasonic23]

Tropic Thunder best movie ever

[pshizle]

yes there was

[dragunrising]

Why can't Xbox 720 use blu-ray? Obviously physical media isn't going away anytime. With 400 GB blu-ray discs, there is no reason not to use the blu-ray format. I think of it this way: Sony uses Windows in their computers...Microsoft can use blu-ray in their next console. I don't think any company is above making money and avoiding more R&D. If Microsoft invests, and develops a new format, they have to recoup the cost of developing said format and hope it wins. Not smart. I wouldn't mind blu-ray for every next-gen console and think it will pan out that way.

[jlemdon]

I don't think blu-ray is needed but I def think a bigger Disc space is needed rather than DVD9. DVD18 FTW!!!!

[jib]

"The reason I say this is because Microsoft is a company that does not handle defeat very well and if they are defeated they will do anything in their power to defeat their competitor next go round. They will not just go into the next console generation settling with the format that defeated them. Obviously, the HD-DVD format lost to Blu-Ray this generation but do not be surprised if Microsoft goes at it again.

I would not be surprised if Microsoft went after another new format next generation just like Sony did with the PlayStation 3."

microsoft defeated in format war? microsoft supported HD-DVD and all but it wasn't their war. the war was more Toshiba vs Sony than anything. as a business, i can't see why the next xbox shouldn't support bluray unless its still too expensive at that time. the same way i can't see sony vaios not supporting windows

i don't think bluray is necessary, but it is a BIG BIG PLUS for me(my PS3 is also my bluray player). hopefully, they come out with a faster drive to make better use of it in the future

[YouNoob]

look a ps3 software sales as proof. neither bluray nor other formats are going to be needed in the future. pretty obvious that everything is gonna be about digital distribution. or is there still anyone who buys his music on discs? not many, that's for sure.

[PotNoodle]

PS3 software sales sure outweigh that of PS3 and 360 game download sales.

The internet is not ready for DD yet, too many countries in the world are stuck on slow connections.

[strotee]

"in the future"

Ok, be honest, are you John Connor? What's life like in the future? Who's going to win the war, humans or SkyNet? This would explain why you've been gaming "since 1976", you jump around with your time machine.

Serious time: In your estimation, when will all physical media cease to exist? I need a good laugh for this cold Friday.

[jessehaysfl]

agrreed however i own it on blu ray which i love and you seem to hate...whatever will we do?

[PotNoodle]

Because we only get this type of article 50x a week.

[123360]

blu ray was only one of reasons i got a ps3,first was the games ,sony has some great games now and even better to come.ps3,s 2009 2010 line up pawns my 360,s line up,they have got killzone 2 ,uncharted 2, god of war, grand turismo, final fantasty versus etc etc, even if all these games were multiplat i would still buy a ps3,the reason being bluray ,theres no way i would except 4,5,6 discs to play a game, that isn,t hd gaming thats last gen ps2 stuff.sony was smart including bluray in there machine, mgs4 shows off the true value of blu ray better than any game out so far,i think ps3 is only an infant in terms of where its going as of my 360 i hate to say it but its starting to look obsolute already.

[aiphanes]

Nothing else will come out to challenge it....we will be in a recession for 10 years...nobody will try and come up with a challenging format...they will just update bluray to 6 layers or more for more space and use faster drives.....DD will never take over because the brick and mortar stores will want to sell games.

Bluray will be in the 720 and PS4 and in most PCs and Macs...

[BYE]

Will the xbox 720 fail like the 360?

Agree = yes
Disagree = no

[sit down droid]

to the people voting yes, i would like to look into your chystal ball, i want to know what the national lotto numbers are im running a bit low on cash :)

[pornflakes]

PS3 is only good for blu ray, its the cheapest and best blu ray player on market.

If you want to play games buy a xbox360.

Thats it.

[Primetimebt]

Anyone who thinks the mircosoft wouldn't use Blu Ray tech for next XBOX is fool. There will not be another format for years to come not when a majority of games are still using only single layer Blu Ray disc. Than there a some people who believe downloading game will be the future well out of 28 million owners 14 million people who are register up for live, and in a perfect world if all those 14 m people brought 2 games the number and the $$$ signs don't add up. This business is about money its not about keep fanboys happy so while your all watching blu ray sales it would be the safe and most cost effective bet of any future console.

[Sanzee]

Dear Mankind,

Why settle for less

[Sanzee]

Someone who can see past their nose regarding the current generation. PlayStation fans will always say that "Blu-Ray" is the standard for media optical discs. Yes, it's true that it's the "highest quality" of current media optical discs, but according to the latest sales figures, DVD is still PWNING the sh*t out of Blu-Ray.

And what's sad is that DVD SUCKS! Blu-Ray isn't amazing, and its getting outsold by a format that is already so f*cking old. The problem here isn't Blu-Ray, or DVD. It's society.

Why do we always settle for less?

BOMB DVD
BOMB BLU-RAY

[hektop]

Just wondering

[sit down droid]

my HD addon is fine, cheap high def DVDS, good upscalling ability. yer its cheap and good

[hektop]

Up conversation is not really high definition.

For some people is hard to see the difference I can well see it on my 65" Mitsubishi 1080P

[souljah]

that`s because lots of people don`t know about blu ray yet.or they do , but , don`t know the difference.so , i`ll say this. just give a couple of years to blu ray , and we will talk ;) after this 2 years , with the parents knowing about the true power and hd of blu ray , i bet that every goddamn gamer will have the ps3. because u can use it in other ways beside gaming.peace out

[kwyjibo]

It's all guess work, and pretty poor guesswork at that. Microsoft might very well use Blu-Ray in their next console. When's that due, 2012?

Blu-Ray is not a proven success, that "[Blu-Ray] is a format that is not needed for gaming" has not been proven wrong given the vast majority of games do not reside on a Blu-Ray disk.

The author of the article mangles HD-DVD and standard DVD, confusing the two. Does anyone really think HD-DVD lost to BD due to technical specifications?

"if they are defeated they will do anything in their power to defeat their competitor next go round"
Like every other company on the face of the earth then, but even this is misleading. Sony are one of the founding members of the DVD Forum, Microsoft will pay them a cut of DVD royalties anyway, why would they be so averse to doing the same if and when Blu-Ray becomes the new standard?

The article is nothing but poorly formed guesswork masquerading as expert opinion through the purchase of a domain name. N4G needs a system for burying such stories.

[Armyless]

If the content of this link is an "article", then I'm Obama.

[Argento-Nox]

Blu-ray won over HD b/c of more studio support in Hollywood. Blu-ray had the support with 6 of 8 studios supporting blu-ray at the beginning, and 5 of 8 when Paramount jumped shipped at the end.

Blu-ray is the most likely format for any next gen system simply b/c of mass support from movie studios and electronic companies will only grow over time; like the move from cartridges to VHS to dvd. Digital downloads just has too many issues for it to be viable as does a new format overcoming blu-ray.

[felidae]

BluRay is not needed for games - it's good for movies

take Dead Space for example - this game looks much better than MGS4 and fits on a standard DVD9

[cellypower]

You can't be serious!

[uckitsayitchbay]

LAUGHING MY FÜCKING A$$ OFF... GOOD ONE DÜCHE BAG

[someguy]

Why not distribute on usb flash drives? By then they will be cheap to make. It would be ironic.... like going back to cartridges.

[GameOn]

Those usb drive have to be assembled. There is no way they will become cheaper than disc formats which are pretty much stamped out.

[Anon1974]

Microsoft has already publicly mused that their new console would be a cheaper "digital distribution hub". The buzz I've been hearing around investment circles is that MS may get out of the hardware altogether after the 360 has run it's course and instead focus their games division on Software, traditionally their stronger side. I could understand the big brains around the boardroom ponder this after 2 gens that, when all the dust settles, don't look like they'll have made a dime. Personally I think that would be a wasted opportunity after having established the Xbox brand. But maybe that's part of the problem. Perhaps the reason that the 360 is down 7% in sales in the US this year is because of the brand - and the negative connotations that RROD has brought to the brand. Just a few thoughts on the matter.

[Nineball2112]

Well, I know that for the most part I don't have any qualms using Microsoft software. It's the industry standard for most apps.

But, I still won't spend my hard earned money on the Xbox 360. It's like playing russian roulette. I just don't trust the system. And that sucks, because it has some great games that I'd like to play.

That's interesting to think that MS might go with a DD hub. I don't think the infrastructure is in place to support that in most places, so I'm not sure if that'll come to pass just yet. But, I can definitely see that is where the gaming industry will eventually go.

[Anon1974]

Despite them talking about a digital distribution console, I don't how they'd work that. I would think due to bandwidth constraints and the current penetration of hi speed internet that they would have to still offer some sort of physical media. DVD's have the piracy problem working against them and we're hearing more and more developers being vocal about their limitations. If not Blu-Ray - maybe they'll go Nintendo's route and come up with some new type of optical disk, just for the new Xbox.

[hektop]

With Chris Nolan last nigh on BD Live? it was awesome, I hope more of this can happen in the near future.

Here is a link to read the story

http://www.aintitcool.com/n...

[lost2]

Dvd9 or bluray anyway?
lets go back to CDroms or better yet lets go back to
cartridges
there u have it xbox 720 and ps4 games on cartridges

[baum]

They'll have to go completely digital and bundle a huge HDD and sacrifice a lot of potential consumers. Besides, Blu-ray will be last-gen by then unless it supports more layers than it currently does on PS3.

[mpmaley]

CAN WE GET A FILTER ON BLOGS FROM PEOPLE THAT HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THEY'RE TALKING ABOUT...

sry for caps ^_^;

[blackskimmer]

Creating a new format and putting it in the PS3 cost SONY their market share in the gaming industry to win a format war. Making a new format is VERY expensive, it involves alot of R&D. Money not spending if you cant recoup it beyond video games.

And dont get me started on digital downloads. There are alot of games that cant be downloaded via the web even if we had the option too. Who in the hell wants to download 10-40gig files? I sure dont. Games wont get smaller they will get bigger, todays broadband in NA is a joke. Fiber optic connections are at least 10 years away from mainstream adoption. Digital downloads will become common place for handhelds, for consoles we are still light years away.

[Darkseider]

Because Microsoft is stupid and too full of themselves. They would rather hobble together a sub-standard piece of hardware that fails when you look at it funny. All this to be able to release it to market as quick as possible to get a jump on the competition.

Gee, sounds a lot like the XBox 360.

[dcbronco]

I love the way fanboys can justify something based on the article of another 10 year old fanboy. Hundreds of games are released that fit onto one DVD9 fine and people focus on the 3 or 4 that needed multiple disc. All because Sony says Blu-ray is needed. And of course Sony says that because it's true, and not because they stand to make billions if they can fool people into making the switch. But the real proof is that all of Sony's exclusives contain 100 hours worth of gameplay. And everyone knows 100 hour games can not fit on a DVD9. That's only possible with Blu-ray.

And as for HD-DVD, it was cheaper than Blu-ray in every way. So all of the people who paid $26 for Dark Knight(or $40 when it goes back up to regular price) most likely would have been paying $20 if HD DVD had won the format war since Toshiba wouldn't need to rip the customer because the product has cost them so much money.

[Argento-Nox]

Game companies like Rockstar and Id are some developers who say dvd is holding back gaming. It'd be ridiculous to assume future games will work on anything less than blu-ray since HD games will need more space.

HD was already in trouble IMO, even though they came out. They only had the support of 3 of 8 major movie studios at the beginning of the HD wars, while Sony had the support of 6 of 8 (Warner Bros used both formats). Secondly, blu-ray would have eventually been cheaper just b/c the format would require more media disc due too the amount of movies (i.e. mass production).

[JasonPC360PS3Wii]

Did Atari cartridges fit in a Coleco Vision?

Did Sega cartridges fit in a Nintendo?

When the went cd, did Sony use a special black cd, while Nintendo used a cartridge?

Last gen while Sony and MS used dvd, did Nintendo use a special little disc?

This gen while Nintendo ans MS use dvd9, does Sony use somthing different?

If you answered yes thruthfully to all those questions, then you know consoles are not limited like movies and can use whatever custom format they wish. MS and Nintendo will not use Blu-ray next gen, they will again use thier own custom format. There is more than one large storage option to choose from. Do you realy think MS and Nintendo are going to pay a competitor royalties when they don't have to? I don't know why so many Sony fans want MS to go Blu but it's not going to happen, wake up and smell the ashes.

[Argento-Nox]

Nintendo and MS have both been paying to use someone elses format for the last gen to recent. Have you forgotten that their using dvd's you numbskull?

Exactly what other format is viable without the support of the movie and computer industry? Flash drives won't work, they'll cost more than a blu-ray, while digital download is a long ways off unless download speeds jump another hundred fold.

HD is long gone, and any company planning to use it later will have high production cost due to the lack of mass production capabilities. Anyone remember the laser disc?

[crillyconlig]

we wouldnt be seeing games like mgs4 and killzone2, in my opinion

the devs need the storage and i dont think they would favour using multiple discs

[Mitch_Cumstein]

What is NOT NEEDED is BRD. As BRD proves it has its own shortcomings in slow read speeds that require silly installs. I think full game installs is where MS is looking and they could experiment with that RIGHT NOW. Keep in mind that digital distribution would most likely be backed overwhelmingly by developers because of piracy and the used game market exploiting devs.

The thing to realize here is that MS will go to developers and hear what they need just like they did this generation which is why the 360's gaming library poops on the PS3s. MS reached out to developers and even scrapped HD DVD for DVD because of developers wants. Sony on the other hand said we are going with Blu Ray regardless of how it helps/hurts games because it will help Sony the most. For as important as some mistakingly think HD DVD was to MS they had no problem setting aside what's good for the overall company to go with what most benefited gamers and devs. Thats what people forget MS listens to what developers need. As opposed to Sony who obviously totally blew off devs to push their own Blu Ray agenda.

[Anon1974]

First off, it's been proven time and time again the Blu-Ray's constant read speed is comparable to the variable read speeds of DVD, and beat it hands down compared to reading double layer DVD's. Do some research.

Secondly, Blu-Ray is not the reason we have hard disk installs. We have hard disk installs because we can. It's just another tool that developers have in their arsenal, one that they're being quite vocal about not having standard on the 360. Games like Call of Duty and Uncharted prove right there that game installs aren't necessary - but if developers want to use them that's an option.

Digital distribution hasn't the bandwidth or the market penetration to be a replacment for physical media yet, and won't be for some time. And then there's the problem that people don't want to switch to digital. Downloading songs in 30 seconds is quite a bit different from replacing Gigs of data if something goes wrong, and if you had the choice between a physical disk that you own and can watch, play or sell to whoever you want, wouldn't you take that over a digital copy that can be yanked from you at the whim of the company? You can use it but only under certain guidelines and never sell it or loan it to anyone, ever? We're not talking about songs here worth under a buck. Ditial distribution may give video rentals a run for their money, but they won't replace physcial media anytime soon because the market isn't there.

Only the industry wants that and it would only take one company to offer physical media for the whole thing to unravel. It ain't gonna happen.

This is getting a bit long winded, so to wrap up...blah blah blah...you're dead wrong and common sense is actually your biggest detractor here.

[dcbronco]

Don't believe Sony's nonsense. MGS was a 10 hour game. There is no way that couldn't have gone on a DVD9. All of the space eating cut-scenes should have been totally done in engine. Blu-ray is a scam.

Mandatory installs are based on the slow speed of the drive. The same games that need a install on Blu-ray look and play fine on DVD9 without the install. Some developers may be more talented than others and can get around it, but not everyone can.

Digital downloads haven't caught on because they haven't been pushed like physical formats. If DD got the advertising Blu-ray got and the guarantee that you will be able to download your purchase again if you had a drive failure, far more people would choose DD. And the studios would prefer it because they would make far more from it without the wasted money they spent on Blu-ray. And you would never have $40 movies while still having HDi and BD-Live features.

[ezcex]

"All of the space eating cut-scenes should have been totally done in engine."

If by that, you mean in-game graphics, then my friend you are an idiot. They are ingame. If that is not what you meant, then I am sorry. If your going to say something factual, make sure it is a fact first.

[lance]

im sorry darkside but what devs actually want installs? proof? as i remember alot of ps3 owners despise the installs.

[dcbronco]

According to Kojima's comments the cut scenes in MGS were all HD video. 1080p HD video takes up tons of space. In a game with lots of extremely long cut scenes, some as long as 90 minutes, a bunch of those 50 gigs disappear quick.

[ezcex]

but yea, im confused, its not cgi, its still ingame graphics.

[dcbronco]

I think a lot of it is CGI.

[Cynical-Gamerzus]

This is obvious since MS has money to make it's own proprietary tech and they are good at software for sure,,but hardware wise they better do something like pay toshiba or something for the tech!!!

[TIKUP]

I think if the next xbox doesn't have blu-ray then they are making the wrong choice, everyone is getting to the point that they know blu-ray is the way forwad and Microsoft better pick up on this unless they want to go for digital downloads which is unlikely but thats another matter for the future

[panasonic23]

hahahaha sonyfans mad ms not gonna use bluegay ahahahhah i always knew sonyslave cared for ms ahahah

[hektop]

You can go now and cry in a corner in a fetal position. Poor you we understand your frustration everything will be ok.

[souljah]

i hope that all the f4ggots around the world will f*#k ur ass b33tch.u just pathetic , u 15 years old kidow

[hektop]

You sound soo mature, what a man!!!, don't worry everything will be fine, one day you will have a job and will be able to own a PS3, is hard to get money from Mommy this days isn't?

[marioporter]

This guy sounds like a f*cking 6th grader with the way he writes. "The reason I say this is...". Jesus Christ. Whoever buys into this moron's sh*t is a bigger moron than the author of that piece of crap.

[wallace1000]

You have got to think they are going to use a larger medium than DVD9 in the next xbox and since some people buy a games console to also play movies then you have got to think that they will go with blu-ray. I guess if they didn't want movie support then they could use HD-DVD.

[borgome]

Consoles shouldn't play movies, it should play GAMES! If your to cheap to buy a blu-ray player of a dvd player you don't deserve to watch movies.

[Greedy Genius]

sony profit off of microsoft using blu-ray. i remember seeing that somewhere

[wallace1000]

They would to some extent, Panasonic would profit the most. It is the same as DVD, Toshiba made money off of everyone that used DVD.

[crillyconlig]

sure microsoft profits off every sony laptop useing windows.......

[Bladestar]

It wouldn't be the first time that a console does not use an format.

* You don't remember? Sega DreamCast didn't use DVD but used GD-ROOM which was a lot better than CDs and had more capacity.

* The wii still does not offer DVD movie playback and people are still buying it like crazy.

I think Microsoft will and should use HD DVD if they do not have to play royalties. HD DVD is already researched and a proven technology and it's just there doing nothing.

Microsoft can add blu-ray movie only playback and avoid completely having to pay royalties for Games released in blu-ray since they had a big pie of HD DVD and probably do not even have to pay royalties.

Having games on HD DVD also give them an extra layer against Piracy... by the time the next xbox comes out... blu-ray writable drives will be all over... but HD DVD writable drives will be no where to be found.

Microsoft can add blu-ray movie playback which means that people can watch blu-ray movies if they want to.. and Microsoft can probably put a fee on top of those that care to watch blu-ray movies on their consoles...

Blu-Ray needed for Games? NO... What games needs is more space to store data... in order to avoid releasing games in multiple discs... simple as that... blu-ray or not.

[Anon1974]

I don't see why MS has to go Blu-Ray. Blade's right. HD-DVD would be fine for games, or even a new format. However, if Blu-ray does take off it would be nice, but not necessary, to double your new Xbox as a Blu-Ray player. Or you could just buy a PS3 and not have to worry about it.

[bee2427]

i could be wrong, but I would imagine that with a new format such as HD-dvd or something else, it will take developers a long time to figure out how to code for it like it did for the ps3. I dont think the developers will be too happy having to learn again how to use a new format once again. I guess they would have to deal with it but theres no reason for it when microsoft can just accept bluray and off the bat their games will not have any technical difficulties.

[Bladestar]

@bee2427 - No... what made the PS3 so difficult to code has nothing to do with blu-ray but with the CELL (CPU) and architecture. Blu-ray is just a storage device and in many cases (if not all) it's transparent to the developers... all developers need to do is read from the devices and process the data... That's like plugging an HD DVD, DVD, CD, Hard drive to a computer... all it knows is that it's a drive...

The only thing that's relevant to developers is the read speed and capacity...

* how much data we can put in it.
* how fast can we read data from it.

Developers need to know about this things if the drive read speed is not enough.. in order for them to come up with workarounds like Mandatory installs or Stream loading.

Bottom line... by the time the next xbox comes out... Blu-ray and HD DVD drive would be able to read from disc way faster than any blu-ray player to day... so developers wouldn't need to worry about it.

[Primetimebt]

Yeah and we all know how dreamcast ended up. The fact is if they plan a new rom drive, or using HD DVD they have to open up a factory just to produce this new rom drive and in return higher production cost.

[RebornSpy]

but can the PS3 regular DVDs even though it is a blu-ray player. If not, then I'm really not that interested in blu-ray on the next Xbox. I'm not sure what they'll use, but I feel that right now the BRD isn't needed.

Of course, if by then Sony forces blu-ray everyone to use only blu-ray for movies, then whatever. They've done similar things in the past.

[bee2427]

yes the ps3 can play dvds. I have the original 60gig with backwards compatibility and it played old ps2 games which were dvd. The ps3 also upscales dvd movies

[Deios]

I love my Xbox 360, but is Xbox in denial? They better put in a blue-ray player on their next console.

[akaFullMetal]

why do people not want blu-ray? its a better storage medium than dvd9, and that is all that matters. I dont care if ps4 didnt use it, as long as the storage capabilities are there for the games. Some of you are just against it because of your fanboyism.

[pangitkqb]

First off, the entire thing was speculation. There was no insider information, no interviews with Microsoft or anyone representing Blu-ray, no actual journalism. The entire thing was the poorly written opinion of...who? Where is the author's name? What are his credentials? This isn't news, its opinion.

Whether or not Microsoft adopts blu-ray is completely up in the air right now. I love my Xbox 360 and I love watching Blu-ray on my beautiful PS3. Will Microsoft move to blu-ray? Maybe. Will they stick with DVD but place a humongous Hard Drive in the next system and heavily emphasize digital distribution? Only time will tell, but this article didn't provide any more information than we had before we read it.

[PS360PCROCKS]

Thank you!! I just said that on my comment 2 below yours lol. It's a ridiculous article devoid of all fact and high on speculation and it's damn short at that.

[Parappa The Rappa]

I like the idea of cloud-based, "steam"-like gaming.
I think it could be awesome for all, unless you dont have "them internets".
Prolly atleast 3-4 years away, but it would be the best thing ever.
Memory storage is already piss-cheap, so if MS would climb out of their MONEY TREE, they could provide cheap memory storage options for the console, that way you could store some games and content for offline play(if the network went down or something). But yeah, cloud-computing is already making waves in the PC industry. Steam is an insanely popular service for PC Gamers, so to say the idea wouldnt work on console, would be stupid. May not work NOW, but it would work.

EDIT: physical media is still gonna be around. i mean the MP3 is top dawg in the music industry, but there are still plenty of places that sell CDs and are doing well still. maybe having a blu-ray rive wouldnt be such a bad idea. but we've gone beyond blu-ray's resolution capabilities. we're looking into 1920p and beyond. maybe one of these new tech advances will make its way into the xb720, and maybe it will even be compatible with blu-ray discs. you never know, this world is a crazy place, and the advances we've made in the past decade, are simply amazing. never rule ANYTHING out.

[PS360PCROCKS]

Why is a stupid opinion article that really is so short and devoid of facts news whatsoever? All this dude said is "Um erm I think Microsoft will try a different format again" wow NEWSFLASH!! Duh, they don't want to give Sony any royalties.

[Primetimebt]

Mircosoft wants to create something no one else has and not copy off what other companies do? That might be the first time in while.

[ruibing]

I'm getting real tired of these four-paragraph speculations from these unheard of websites.

[n to the b]

but based on this statement, 'this has obviously been proven wrong over the past years with the recent success of the Blu-Ray format' which seems to have nothing to do with THE GAMES I'm inclined to disagree anything the article has to say.

if blu-ray gains momentum to the point that it becomes the dominant format, I don't see how MS could avoid using it in their next machine. unless, that is, they go without a disc drive at all...

[ForROME]

They believe in digital distro, ok cool, so does SONY. On top of this your telling me that people who own blue ray movies at that time wont say, oh this one can play "MY" movies ive invested in also?? Why all of sudden would consumers not care. They might RENT DLS but they are certainly going to want to play their own current library. Digital Distro is no where near ready for people, dls take to long and high speed is normal enough, and if companies start putting caps on limits, what do you think that will do? Seriously, I have to think MS is all wrong on this one, its about pride with them right now I think.

[Parappa The Rappa]

ISPs would remove their caps(or atleast EXPAND them) for the sake of competition.
If Time Warner doesn't have a data cap----but Comcast does---who do you think people would choose?
Time Warner, ofcourse, but it would prolly be more expensive, b/c its your "only choice" if your downloading and streaming things all the time.
Now lets say BOTH companies remove their data caps, then what? Wheres the competition at?
In the PRICES and SPEEDS.

See? Theres always a way to make it work.

[tonywood]

MSOFT DOES NOT CARE ABOUT IT'S CONSUMERS, OR VIDEO GAMES!! Seriously, if MS wanted to, they could use blu-ray. But why be hononable and make a good running system, with quality parts...to justify the price? The ONLY reason there is not a blu-ray drive in the 360 is because Msoft want's to make as much money on the 360 as possible, WITHOUT having to provide it's customers with a quality product.

This is not HATE words, and although I don't work for Msoft...it sure make since don't it? Look at their track record in the games division. I'm not sure they knew about the "faulty" systems..but I sure didn't hear them denying it with a Defamation lawsuit or anything. Also, they copy everything, but not the blu-ray player..wonder why that is? Everyone wants to make money, so I won't crush soft on this. However, with the amount of money they are worth...why not try to give your fanbase something more than Halo and Gears. (That will only work for so long) No Free wifi, and a small-ass HD? Hey, if the fans will drink the kool-aid, then no one can really hate on MS. I not hatin' on them, just making it known that they are cheap money makers,,,like Walmart. This type of evil has no place in the video games division. (Sega Dreamcast and Atari layed down to this!!?)

[haruvister]

What a fascinating, insightful couple of hundred words that was. Totally opened my eyes. FFS.

[Reibooi]

This is stupid. They are not gonna make another format to compete with Blu-ray because consumers WOULD NOT HAVE IT. There is no way consumers would put down money for yet another new format when Blu-ray is barely a few years old and is still functioning just fine. Not to mention Sony won't be using another format for the PS4 they will most likely be using BLU-Ray again there is no reason not to.

Not to mention the fact that MS is on the side of Digital Downloads so I highly doubt they will waste money on a format that's doomed to fail against Blu-ray.

I think there is 3 ways it will go with the next Xbox. 1 MS uses Blu-ray which is the safest bet. 2 MS makes there own format but it's only for gaming and it's not intended to compete with anything. 3 the console is based solely on downloads.

Out of those the first one is most likely I think as it would be the cheapest solution for MS and considering how much money they have lost on the first 2 Xboxes they Probably want to turn a profit.

[2 cents]

MS will not take the risk in developing a new format. MS are not innovators, they rather take an existing succesfull product and improve on it. A console with a new format will HAVE to support existing format for watching movies, and by the time the 720 comes out bluray will be the existing format with dvd dying fast. We`re talking 2011-12.

[Bladestar]

"MS will not take the risk in developing a new format. MS are not innovators, they rather take an existing successful product and improve on it."

haha! that'st he thing... Microsoft does not have to develop a new format... Microsoft can use HD DVD for games.

I am not saying they should or will... but HD DVD was already finalized and even manufactured... not to mention that Microsoft had a huge piece of the pie in it.. which means they would probably not have to pay royalties to use it.

A dual layer HD DVD disc can support up to 60 GB. Do you think that's enough space for games?

You people are forgetting a few important things:

* We are talking about Games... Available Disc space to satisfy microsoft next gen game console that will probably be out in 2-3 years.

* All game consoles before didn't support movie play back. I do not recall people being able to play movies by inserting their VHS or cassette into their NES, SNES, and all Sega game consoles... just like I do not see people using their PSP, wii to watch DVD movies...

* Proven by Nintendo... and the wii... which does not support movie DVD playback... people buy a game console primarily to play games... and not to watch movies.

HD DVD provides the same benefits as blu-ray as far as gaming is concern... and developers will not care about which.. as long as the disc have enough room to put their games. Gamers will not care if their games use any format...

as I say before... Microsoft can add Blu-ray movie play back.. and pay royalties to Sony just for being able to play movies and probably allow a driver downloable update (like they did with HD DVD for the PC and the xbox 360)... and even charge a fee to enable blu-ray movie playback that people that care about playing movies can buy that will pay Sony's royalties fee... but if they can avoid paying royalties fees for games which will benefit Microsoft and developers... that what they are and should do.

[2 cents]

Are you goin as low as to compare the xbox to the wii?? If the next xbox will be anything like the Wii then they will lose me as a costumer. From a gamers point of view Wii is a joke.

[Raoh]

the reason many sony haters say that blu ray is not needed for gaming is because they are using xbox dvd9 and multi platform games to compare.

when you build a multiplatform game you have to make sure it runs on both systems so you make it built on the lowest common denominator, the dvd9.

when you compare games built on using sony's architecture and blu ray space even the sony hating websites turn the argument to install base, sales and under play the ps3 exclusive.

a good example limitations is Lost Odyssey for the 360.. i just recently bought a used 360 and am playing copied games. i dont find most 360 exclusives that great. but lost odyssey is better than many said it was, I'm really liking this game. its draw back is some loading and that its on 4 discs. beside it being on 4 discs. part of the story is interesting, the hero's past memories has a compelling story. but there is so much reading i'm surprised its not sold separately as an audio book. As i'm burning my fourth discs i realize, that had they put in the attention and taken time to make the memories more cinematic the game would have been on 8 discs.

when you look back at mgs4, lost odyssey could have had the same success as a finished product if it had cinematic story telling as opposed to 5 minutes of text to read per memory.

another is as good as a game like forza 2 is. there is no reason why a racing game like forza 3 has to be on 2 discs.

----

as an adult, i like to upgrade my home accordingly. having 2 devices to do a job that 1 device can do is silly to me. when you get a tv, put it on the wall, get a slim nice expensive entertainment stand the less devices the better.

[rawd]

But who's going to save Blu-ray

[eagle21]

and I saw that WACK halo wars gameplay on xplay. INFAMOUS ftw!

jump out!

[tonywood]

However, I'm not far off base with my logic. NONE OF US knows waht Msoft bisness ideas are, but their approach to gaming remains unchanged. Look at the LACK of effort and innovation by them and teir intentions are clear. TO RIP OFF GAMERS WITH TONS OF RE-HASH HALO'S. GEARS, AND OTHER DEVELOPER IDEAS! You can get mad all you want...this is all backed up by facts. WOW, another Halo..I mean, Halo Rcon and Halo wars. Keep buying from a company that does not care about you as gamers....rather lok at you as sheep. You may not like Wii, Ps2, DS, or ps3...but look at their appraoch to gaming and fans.

360 lowered their price only becase they had to. Gears 2 and L4Dead didn't come out until Nov. 2008...making it's customers wait a WHOLE year...with no other note worthy games in the mix. (WEll, at least for Viva Pinata 2, Too human, and Mass Effect...which all lacked the ideas Msoft promised to deliver.) Most of the 60 fanbase loves blu-ray and most likley, have bought a stand alone player. Also, most hardcore gamers have the 360 wireless adaptor AND 60/120 gig HD. ADD THAT MONEY UP and tell me if you were not taken advantaged of. I don't care what system people chose to buy..hell, there are more than ONE type of car, truck, and SUV to purchase. All I am saying is the MS is not what gamers think, and there are not enough of re-hashes of Halo/Gear's to help. MS blew money on the HD-DVD format, but NOW they CAN"T afford to give their fans the blu-ray drive? C'on you guys have to admit...this is a head scratcher. I undersand Msoft logic...."why give away something when people are gonna pay for it?" Msoft could at least make their own blu-ray player....look at all the brand x systems out there. These guys are rip of artist!

[Bladestar]

and it seems to be working... specially during this economic troubled times...

Lots of people complained about Nintendo who technically ducked taped to game cubes together and made a gimmick controlled... but it's working very well for them which is why they are on 1st place.

You can talk about innovation and bla bla bla... but that seems to be irrelevant...

Sony strategy seems to be working for you (Sony fan) but it does not seem to be working for Sony who keep downsizing their company in order to survive... not to mention that they are on THHHHHIIIIIIRDDD!

So, lets not talk about "approach to gaming remains unchanged."... when Sony approach seems to be what's causing them to be on last place...

Why should microsoft change what seems to be working?

Here you come trying to pretend you know what you are talking about talking about "TO RIP OFF GAMERS WITH TONS OF RE-HASH HALO'S. GEARS" pretending to know and understand what gamers and the people want...

talk about innovation and bla bla bla.... when Sales charts obviously prove that you probably need to buy a business 101 for dummies book.

Here let's see if what you say is true...

How many copies did LBP (biggest innovation in history, The next Mario, The YouTube of gaming) sold compare to the "RE-HASH HALO'S" or "GEARS"?

Why more people purchased and voted with their wallet for those "re-hash" games over the so call Sony super... super dupper innovation master piece from another planet?

That's right kid... because... Innovation does not equal to success... and innovation does not equal to people giving a $h!t about it...

How old are you? You probably was not born or what too young... but do you remember the NeoGeo?

It the synonym of innovation and a technological master piece... no PC nor console could match it.

Look at the specs: http://en.wikipedia.org/wik...

The games... the graphics.. everything blew the competition way...

did you know that the way... wayyyyyy inferior NES killed it? and it was forced to be taken out of the market?

So tell me... if company should focus on innovation (like Sony) and forget completely about making games that sale and people want(like microsoft is doing) why is it that Sony is on 3rd this generation?

You better start pulling your check book so you can start funding Sony's billion dollars innovations that the mainstream seem to not care as much as you do... because they are really going to need people like you that think that Sony is not in it for the money... because if Sony does not change their, "approach"... they are going to need it.

[40cal]

Ok, it might not be "needed" but it has been giving game developers much needed space to make there dreams come to life, I am going to use KILLZONE 2, Uncharted 1 & 2, Heavenly Sword, and Metal Gear Solid 4 as examples. So "needed" maybe not, but BENEFICIAL? most defiantly!

Now, with the whole next Xbox Blu-Ray thing. If Microsoft dose decide not to use Blu-Ray they are going to put themselves in a venerable position, buy the time the next consoles come out at the current market penetration rate Blu-Ray will be the standard storage medium, all the movie studios are already using it, PCs and laptops will have standard Blu-Ray drives, Blu-Ray players will be in the majority of households along with prices going down and however many PS3s are in homes by that point in time.

A new format is not going to be needed until TVs see there next upgrade. I am thinking that is going to be along ways off, and even then Blu-Ray discs are ready to go with bigger discs and we will see faster drive speeds.

Now, the next Xbox could use any format it wants but if they use anything other than Blu-Ray it is going to take away from the value placed in said console. Just my two cent.

[Lord Xire]

There could be a Blu Ray drive in the 720...and it could also support a whole new format for its games.

I pray they don't use Blu Ray...because the read speed still sucks and there is formats out there that are much better 200gb discs cmon are u serious??? Crysis Gear Solid wouldn't even be that long.

There is a disc format out there RDM it's 100GB and uses red laser tech and costs practically nothing more then a regular DVD and has a superb read speed which means....no duping files to increase seek time, and no crappy installs for developers that don't know how to work around it.

Time will tell.

[Raoh]

your mistaken about the read times. read times are the same for all disc readers.

the blu ray moves 36mb of data per second while standard dvd's move 10mb of data per second. thats the benefit. read speed is nothing. you can have a 200x speed reader, audio, video etc still reads at a standard speed. if you were correct the you would have to explain why 360 games have longer loading times.

_____

Blu-ray also has a higher data transfer rate -- 36 Mbps (megabits per second) -- than today's DVDs, which transfer at 10 Mbps. A Blu-ray disc can record 25 GB of material in just over an hour and a half.

How Blu-ray Discs Work
http://electronics.howstuff...

[fmjpower]

great news for pirates i guess. i think sony used bluray more for the anti piracy aspect of it than anything.

[cryymoar]

Ever since I bought my PS3 and used the Blu-Ray format, I cannot go back to DVD's because of my problem with scratches on the discs. Every time I see a DVD9 xbox game and try to pick out the best one to sell (I work at Gamestop), they all just down right suck. And I want to give the customer the best looking one because the xb360 sucks at reading scratched discs. When selling a PS3 game, I don't even have to look at the bottom of the disc. Even if there is a scratch on a Blu-Ray, Top side, bottom side, the thing will still work. Now, why is/was DVD or HD-DVD better again?

[aulray]

downloadable content. end of story. and here's why:

a) gta4 dlc will be the testing grounds for how successful this new revenue process will be. if this works well, it's a no brainer.

b) the pc world has used this concept for awhile now with much success (direct2drive).

c) microsoft can charge a fee for usage of their downloadable service to developers

d) cheaper to do - no packaging involved. possibly a drive key would be needed, like a disc in the tray to recognize you own the game.

e) microsoft makes more money from hardware sales due to the need for bigger hard drives.

f) no game size will be too big. download the entire file, no matter how insanely large it may be.

[tonywood]

Although I appreciated your response, you have failed to impress me with any real supporting information. 1st off, Sony is selling ok and this whole last place thing is a bit deceiving. How about your do a book report on the last generation of console systems.

After hatin', by people, companies, and magazines off of whom....DON'T EVEN PLAY GAMES, all Sony has done was stay on top! With all the smoke and mirrors you use to hate ps3 with....the fact is, Playstation 2 dominated the Gamecube, Xbox, Dreamcast, and hung with both the PC and Nintendo handhelds. Guess what BLADESTAR...it didn't happen overnight. The ps2 started with just a DVD player (Everybody had The Matrix!) SSX, and Madden...just look what happened. I am not trying to convince anyone on the Ps3...I just answer some of the N4G blogs. Bottom line, you must have liked what I was saying or else you would not have responded to freestyle. 360 is a rip off, and you know it! you know the ps3 lineup is CRAZY and Deja Vu is all over Msoft's games division. Keep making Halo's and Gears...UNTIL Sony decides to pay for at least Gears...(they are MS exclusive) Man, I had the 1st xbox...I am not a hater, only respond to blogs. Like communicating with people by sharing my opnions on games.

[superrey19]

I agree completely. Microsoft will be forced to use blu ray because it will be the main source of HD content.
If Microsoft chooses to rely on digital downloads for their games, they will lose huge amounts of sales in countries that don't have high speed internet.
Besides, I will always prefer to have a hard copy of my games over a download.

[anubis12]

more software sales on the 360 any given day....so no blu-ray is not need for gaming at all..put games on 4 discs who cares......i can spare a total of 20 sec of my life......its not like i am expecting to play a 300 hour game with 500GB.....because that just sounds like a waste of time.....and to do that it would cost devs more and more money....and then....it turns out ps3 has crappy software sales....so they get little in return of what is expected

[AriesFury]

It's a possibility that it won't. With the upcoming Star Ocean 4 to 360 which is 4 discs long MS would have to wait and see if it will be a hit or not. A lot of 360 gamers haven't embraced the RPG genre so this game will be a test, IMO.

[ukilnme]

Mass Effect did pretty well.

[truehunter]

Xbox = DVD-5
Xbox 360 = DVD-9
Xbox 720 = DVD-18
Its simple as that why not ??

PS4 will proby use triple layer who knows.

[Fux4Bux]

Of course it will. Blu-ray is the new movie and data standard. By the time the next Xbox comes out it will cost almost nothing more to use Blu-ray than a regular DVD drive anyways. It probably costs Sony almost nothing more right now.

[Brock Danger]

Why does N4G have so many blogs written by illiterate jackasses who fancy themselves writers? They mention a single point, and then offer nothing in terms of evidence or anything even close to a worthwhile editorial. I'm a professional writer and even I am not a big enough *sshole to write a blog.

[otherZinc]

since B-ray is so great?

B-ray isnt needed for gaming, its needed for movies within a game. I dont like small films in my games, I like to game, period!

[LeonSKennedy4Life]

No storyline whatsoever...

...sounds like a freakin' AWESOME game.

Grow up, dude. Storylines are what make the game! The PS3 is third because Sony wasn't prepared for this generation. The PS3 was ready...the developers were not. That's just how it is. The 360 was rushed to pull a lead on Sony. The PS3's games were rushed to stay in the runnings.

Sony has done a fantastic job with the PS3 and it's showing. All of the awesome innovative games released this year and games like God of War III, Heavy Rain, Killzone 2, MAG, etc. will prove to us all that the PS3 is a beast!

Blu-ray is only needed if the developer uses it to its full potential. DVD's are restricting developers...just like the Wii's lack of a universal online service is restricting them. When a developer gets the guts to try something bold, something incredible...they will use the Playstation 3. Some would say PC, but there's too much pirating going on in the PC world right now to justify that.

[riskibusiness]

There will be no disc media on the main device unless you buy the USB3 addon. expect a large SSD HD and XBL marketplace for full game releases. BC will be thru USB3 DVD/Blue-ray/HD-DVD addon device w/BC hardware acceleration. Expect to pay $$ for the addon device.

[tigertom53]

I would see that Microsoft goes solid state drive and no hard hard drive and if the go with a hard drive they might not use No dvd or Blu-ray and go with a usb storage device and maybe you go to store and plug it into a kiosk and directly download your games or do it over internet. I know that price for large sold state memory will be very cheap in a few years and talking about 1Terbyte of storage for 100 dollars, and most computers will be going away from hard drives all together, because of the speed and reliability. xbox 720 with solid state drive would kick ass over any blu-ray device.

[tigertom53]

maybe the next 720 will be sold state drive, much faster then standard storage and reliable. I know there lot of talk of terabyte storage for 100 dollars why not in the next gen system. am sure if you cant download the game you bring a usb device and upload from a kiosk at a store to pick your games up.

[LeonSKennedy4Life]

Microsoft would do downloads-only before using blu-ray.

[Shendow]

MS want use Bluray because that be showing that Sony was right an theirs a new thing out that puts 400GB on one disc. Think of a MS game with that disc? but theirs the chance Sony is going to get it and most likely get it because they have been good at showing that they can make something big.

[mcm]

The funny thing about this article is that I just commented on this yesterday. If Microsoft chooses not to use Blu-ray and go with a new format it will definitely cost the consumer. If not in dollars it will cost in convenience. Either Microsoft will make the next box a pure gaming console or they will try to do the movie thing by digital distribution. Either way Blu-ray is here to stay so it would make more sense to just use it. In Japan they are already working on new resolution that double or triple Blu-ray (not sure on the resolution), although this new technology won't be available to the public for many years (due to pricing). So yeah Blu-ray will be the new standard for some time.

So to say it is not necessary for gaming is accurate, but it will suck for the customers to not have it. Why pay $299-$399 for a gaming system and then have to buy a Blu-ray player once DVD is phased out (for people who don't have high speed internet, but want the to watch movies in HD). That is just one of the perks of owning a PS3, renting Blu-ray movies or buying them is easy. Where as Microsoft wasted consumers money backing a format that they knew would not win. So for 360 owners how do they watch HD movies? Is it by digital download (not everyone has highspeed) or do they buy a separate blu-ray player? With HD-DVD being dead what do they do?

[EL MAESTRO]

have anyone ever heard of solid estate drive. yeah why not make games fit into a real small memory stick where loading is not needed nor power cosumption of the stupid spinning cds. The Mac Air has up to a 68gig ssd as a hard drive. there are mini sd cards that can hold up to 8gigs. In 3 years this will at least tripple. having 500gig cds is not the answer we need better compression without losing any quality. If we can turn 500gigs compress to 1 we can download this in seconds in by then. Lossless compression is the way, is the only way were gona be able to download things instantly.

[Nicaragua17]

The Xbox 720 will not use Blu-Ray,because Micro$haft are a bunch of cavemen living in the past,just like the Xbots here on this site.

[2 cents]

Digital downloads will never make it into gaming and here`s why: it has already been proved that a good game, big game, needs between 30gb to 50gb of data and this will be proved more and more as we approach the end of this gen of consoles. Next gen the games will double, triple or ,for the extra large RPGs, even quadruple in size. How on earth are we gonna DL 200gb worth of data in the next five years? And what size of HDD will we need when i buy on average 100 games/ 5 years?

[gersh]

Microsoft not using Bluray in the future will bite them back in the @$$.

[Neo604]

they just need 3 disc for Too Human 2.

[Asurastrike]

I don't want to see any 4 disc games on the next Xbox.

[PeterGriffinSays]

Will be fully digital.

[EVOLVED]

downloads. maybe you get a card to download the game into your system.
erasing the card. so what would you need blue ray for that.

[steve30x]

Actually GTAIV for the PC proves that soon we will need more storage space than DVD DL for holding game data

[TheNocturnus]

The xbox 720 will not use blu ray, dvd, or hd dvd... It will use LASER DISCS. The machine will weigh 35 pounds, and run at 60 decibals. It will also include an 8 track input as well as 5 coax outputs. It will run using dot matrix graphics and have a 386 processor. It will rule... seriously.