Xbox 360 could yet come with HD-DVD support...

360 News | ...though not in launch models, silly.

Microsoft chairman Bill Gates, speaking at a joint event with Toshiba in Tokyo, has been discussing the possibility of incorporating a HD-DVD drive into the Xbox 360 hardware. However, such a move would only occur at some point during the console's life, with HD-DVD drives in launch models being ruled out by Gates and Toshiba alike.

Nevertheless, it's interesting to see that Microsoft has already started to consider revisions of the Xbox 360 hardware, and Gates was keen to talk up the Toshiba-developed HD-DVD standard, which is all set to face fierce competition from Sony's Blu-Ray next-generation DVD standard.

The addition of a HD-DVD drive to the Xbox 360 would mean that the machine would be capable of playing HD movies stored on the format, though it's extremely unlikely that the extra capacity afforded by the HD-DVD format would be available to game developers, as HD-DVD game titles would not work on earlier Xbox 360 hardware that isn't equipped with the technology.

'The initial shipments of Xbox 360 will be based on today's DVD format,' parped Gates. 'We are looking at whether future versions of Xbox 360 will incorporate an additional capability of an HD-DVD player or something else.'

Tomorrow: Microsoft confirm later versions of Xbox 360 hardware will wash the car, walk the kids to school and host extravagant dinner parties.

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20 Comments

Gtpod

6 years ago

Quote

Tomorrow: Microsoft confirm later versions of Xbox 360 hardware will wash the car, walk the kids to school and host extravagant dinner parties.

Give it the right organs and we'd have no need for females at all!

Nice to hear, even though I have no idea what an HD-DVD is...

themak

6 years ago

GTPod wrote

Quote

Tomorrow: Microsoft confirm later versions of Xbox 360 hardware will wash the car, walk the kids to school and host extravagant dinner parties.

Give it the right organs and we'd have no need for females at all!

Nice to hear, even though I have no idea what an HD-DVD is...

LMAO

HD-DVD is like blu-ray more detailed than DVD, oh and it is being promoted by different companys. Just don't move the games to HD-DVD, cries about changing disks on xbox 360.

ObsoletE

6 years ago

so... just when it seemed all was lost for the HD-DVD, MS comes out and backs it...

makes sense i guess, they aren't going to want to use Blu-Rays since that puts money in Sony's pockets...

kind of annoying now though... it's going to be harder to buy movies when they are both used for storage since we won't know which (if any) will still be around in 5-10 years...

a bit like the VHS/BETA-Max war 30 odd years ago...

Qbert

6 years ago

I allways here about that BETA/VHS thing being compared to the HD-DVD. So what is exactly the BETA/VHS thing. I know what VHS is, was BETA just another kind of tape?

David

6 years ago

Sony invented the PVCR (personal video cassette recorder) - a cheap(ish) to make 2 head video tape player, and called their format 'betamax', which was a variation of commercial VCRs format.

PVCRs were not very popular until the 80s, because they were expensive, and it was illegal to tape TV shows, so no shops would stock something illegal. But in 1984, the US high court handed down a decision that said it was ok to sell PVCRs, since the maker of a machine cannot be hel responsible for the owner's use of it. Later on it actually became legal to tape shows in the US (It's still illegal in australia). Prices on harware also came down.

Anyway, after that, VCRs took off. Unfortunatley, sony owned betamax, and wanted other companies to pay them for every recorder sold, and they also wanted control of the format - kinda like console games with licencing. Some of the other compaines, notably **** (National and Panasonic), were not a fan of this, and formed a group and went with an open format developed by JVC, called VHS.

VHS was cheaper to produce, and even cheaper again because you didn't have to pay sony to use it. The tapes were larger, and could run for longer (beta was limited to about 90 minutes, but you could turn some of them over - like cassette tapes), but the picture quality was worse - about half TV resolution.

Long story short - VHS was cheaper, got more support because more companies were behind it, and the tapes could play for longer. It was clear very early on that VHS would win out, but Sony refused to give in, and kept producing beta VCRs (they didn't make any VHS machines until 1990s!) Since it was a new market, many people unwittingly bought a beta video (about 20 - 30% maybe), not knowing that the other format had more support, and by about 1988 they realised they had paid $1000 for a paperweight.

It was never really a war, but a lot of people got ripped off.

ObsoletE

6 years ago

Beta was a format in the same way that BR and HD-DVD are formats... actually it's probably cloaser to DVDs vs Laserdisc... except the physical item (the tape case and tape) were also different, instead of being a disc i mean...

technically Beta-Max was the better format visually, hence why professional camera people still use it today (if they aren't using Digital Video... aurally though, the original VHS allowed more greater depth...and even then it's usually BETA-Digital) for news camera's and the like...

later Beta formats improved the audio capabilities too...

there were a few reasons Beta died... it was more expensive to produce (not really an issue with HD-DVD/Blu-Ray) which is probably the most significant issue, but others point to Sony not allowing Pre-recorded porn on it as another major factor whereas JVC (developers of VHS) didn't care... ironically most porn was probably shot on Beta before post-production...

the intial Betamax tapes were only 1-1.5hrs long too, compared to the original VHS tapes being 1.5-2hrs long...

but yeah, as i said, VHS won the home wars, but Betamax (or technically, Betacam... same tape, different name) won commercial usages...

LeonJ

6 years ago

Watch out, the old boys are giving they're reminiscing about the past

David

6 years ago

leonmc wrote

Watch out, the old boys are giving they're reminiscing about the past

Back in my day we didn't need all yur fancy Didgit disks. If we wanted to play video-computer, we went to an arcade, which was run on coal. I saved my allowance for 13 years to play just one game of Pac-man and one of Donkey Kong. And then I was grateful!!!!

Don't need your fancy Cube-tendo. Doesn't do anything my NES cant do better!

ObsoletE

6 years ago

not to mention having to walk 15 miles through the snow to get to an arcade...

and if there was no coal we'd burn our shoes making the 18 mile journey home again that much more fun...

(heh, i didn't see David's post about Betamax there before, it wasn't posted when i started writing my interepretation of them...)

LeonJ

6 years ago

Ha-ha, chances are I'm the same age if not older then you boys. I just remember my old man giving me the BETA vs VHS chat =)

Matt

6 years ago

I remember Beta and VHS and I'm not that old

ObsoletE

6 years ago

yeah i'm only 25, we had a Betamax VCR which i think was an anniverary or birthday present given to my folks... they didn't buy it...

we -had- a heap of old Beta tapes when we moved, but that was a while ago now so we probably don't have them anymore...

i don't remember Beta as late as 1988 though... i can remember the first VHS VCR we got, which was around 1984-85... the remote had a cable...

David: the law surrounding taping TV shows is a VERY grey area... while it technically breaks copyright laws, it falls under the "fair use" clause, but of course, no one has defined what "fair use" actually is... mostly it's interpretted as yeah it's ok to tape a channel if you are watching something else/out or whatever so you can watch it later when it'll be taped over by the next show you would otherwise miss...

(the same clause "allows" you to make mix/backup cds, MP3 players etc without hassle, since technically, these are also illegal uses of copyright)

fortunately this clause is currently under-review in order to better define "fair-use" (and will probably do away with the phrase and give us something more in line with the US system) since currently it's blocking Foxtel's iQ system...

and is also why we don't have TiVO-like programming here... a guy in Sydney (i think) actually developed the concept but was unable to go ahead with it in Australia because of the "fair use" clause...

since the law hasn't been rectified yet though, i'd like to know how Foxtel got around it for it's iQ feature...

chriharr

5 years ago

They Could Use HD-DVD Disks for games, HD-DVD Disks are Hybrid, meaning they have a layer which HD-DVD Players can read and a layer which Current Generation DVD-ROM Drives can read, this is where BluRay will fail, because it can't offer such backwards compatability that HD-DVD can offer

Jellyfish

5 years ago

David wrote

Unfortunatley, sony owned betamax, and wanted other companies to pay them for every recorder sold, and they also wanted control of the format - kinda like console games with licencing.

How is this different from now? Sony get money for every Blu-Ray disc sold.

Spanca

5 years ago

The Xbox division must hate it when Bill opens his mouth. They carefully plan out their "no comment" or "we have no plans for X at this stage" then Bill turns around and **** it up without realising. Halo 3 launching same day as the PS3, right?

David

5 years ago

Do you all work for Umbrella? This thread has been dead for a year and a half...

Jellyfish

5 years ago

^ Ooh burn

Phil

5 years ago

I was excited because I thought Chris had posted a new article...instead it's a zombiefied form reporting from his 2005 grave!

Spanca

5 years ago

Never mind. Thought I was being implicated as the bumper.

ugh the boot

5 years ago

ObsoletE wrote

not to mention having to walk 15 miles through the snow to get to an arcade...

and if there was no coal we'd burn our shoes making the 18 mile journey home again that much more fun...

OMG that's sooo funny! My dad used to tell me about how he had to walk 15 miles through a blizzard with no shoes every morning to get to school! And he lived in Fiji!!

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