360 HD-DVD drive to retail for US$200?

360 Rumour | Microsoft aiming low according to latest speculation.

Speculation is hotting up over the price point of Microsoft's Xbox 360 external HD DVD drive, with IT site DigiTimes claiming the add-on will launch before Christmas with a price tag of US$200. That translates to AU$260 and £105 respectively, and also means that the combined price of the Xbox 360 and a HD-DVD add-on would match that of the Blu-ray-enabled PlayStation 3 in the US.

The pre-Christmas part of the story is certainly perfectly plausible, considering the PS3 will be launching in November, and a AU$260 / £105 price point sounds very inviting - if it's true, of course. Microsoft flatly refused to comment on either the launch date or pricing of the HD-DVD drive, and with that in mind, it's worth pointing out that this is merely speculation at the moment. As soon as we have something a little more official, we'll get back to you.

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50 Comments

k1dcharm

5 years ago

Add on never sell well in console world. I'll stick with current DVD format until the next gen movie format war is over.

Jellyfish

5 years ago

k1dcharm wrote

Add on never sell well in console world.

Unless it's in Australia. Why else does Singstar! and Buzz sell so well?

rankodour

5 years ago

k1dcharm wrote

Unless it's in Australia. Why else does Singstar! and Buzz sell so well?

Because they are cheap controller peripherals and not expensive base hardware.

They also do not serve as a stop gap measure just to compete with another systems capabilities, which sadly, is exactly what the X360 HD-DVD drive is.

Sin Ogaris

5 years ago

I'm guessing it will cost around 300 here. Which, in my opinion, isn't worth it.

ugh the boot

5 years ago

rankodour wrote

Perfect! Couldnt've been said better!

arbok

5 years ago

i disagree - i think the HD DVD drive will sell very very well - most HDTV enthusiasists have already bought an xbox360 just to test out the latest technology and for an extra $250 it is not that expensive.

Most of the other add ons your thinking about like the PS2 network or hard drive flopped because there were no games to support it but the HD DVD drive will have quite a few titles to support it.

Zarnoss

5 years ago

What I like about the HD-DVD is the ability to have DVD and HD-DVD on either sides of the disc.
HD-DVD on one side , then when you want to take it over to your mates and he only has a stock DVD player then flip the disc over and play it on a normal DVD player.
Superb idea!!
All the other features like video in video also sway me more to HD-DVD than BR..which seems like it is losing pace.especially by using the older mpeg2 compression tech whereas HD-DVD use the newer VC1 which all the movie developers are switching to for video compression.

And $300 aus (abouts) for a HD-DVD add-on for the 360...sweet!
Games released on that format..priceless.

ObsoletE

5 years ago

what i don't get, is how so far everyone has gone "$250-300? not bad."

why is this ok, when the PS3's supposedly outrageous price is only $50-100 more?

just strikes me as odd.

Frozencry

5 years ago

ObsoletE wrote

what i don't get, is how so far everyone has gone "$250-300? not bad."

why is this ok, when the PS3's supposedly outrageous price is only $50-100 more?

just strikes me as odd.

I agree. Everyone complains about the huge $1000 price of PS3, and yet a HD-DVD addon will make the 360 close to that mark, yet you people aren't phased at all.

Spanca

5 years ago

Probably because it's a cost people without HDTVs (the majority in Australia) don't have to pay

Dave_L

5 years ago

I agree that it could well be a great seller. Certainly the biggest and best-selling as far as add-ons have sold historically. As one of the people who've bought an HDTV in the last year or so, i'm very interested in seeing what HD-DVD will look like - and this is going to be by far the cheapest way to do so.

I'm guessing it'll be more like £150 in the UK, as a direct conversion never happens, and £105 just doesn't seem plausible - but that's still quite a nice, low price for a new device. I'd be interested to see how much HD-DVDs themselves will cost, and how many will be available by the end of the year.

admeister

5 years ago

"That translates to AU$260 and £105 respectively, and also means that the combined price of the Xbox 360 and a HD-DVD add-on would match that of the Blu-ray-enabled PlayStation 3 in the US. "

Well, what do you know?

Microsoft are in for trouble if the HD-DVD player costs that much, PS3 could mop the floor with the 360, as far as value for money goes (that is as long as Blu-Ray doesn't flop, which I doubt that it will).

Jellyfish

5 years ago

admeister wrote

Well, what do you know?

Because you can really plug a PS3 into your computer to play Blu-Ray movies

It may not be official, but you know someone's going to make drivers for it. If you have a look around the gadget and movies sites at the moment, you'll find that Blu-Ray is being beaten in every way by HD-DVD.

Spanca

5 years ago

From a purely technical standpoint, I think HD-DVD is the much more promising format.

Chris-Leigh

5 years ago

admeister wrote

Well, what do you know?

You'd like it to flop.

But in for trouble? Not at all IMO, because Microsoft has been canny enough to release this separately. This means that, should the worst happen and Blu-ray does render HD-DVD obselete, Microsoft can quietly withdraw the add-on and get on with selling 360s, all with minimal damage done. Conversely, if Blu-ray flops, Sony can't do the same - BR will be built in to every PS3 unit they sell, meaning if the Blu-ray market collapses, then tough titties - they've got a very expensive piece of kit to sell, a large part of which is basically redundant. I know who's being more sensible.

On another note, welcome to PALGN Dave.

Zarnoss

5 years ago

ObsoletE wrote

what i don't get, is how so far everyone has gone "$250-300? not bad."

why is this ok, when the PS3's supposedly outrageous price is only $50-100 more?

just strikes me as odd.

The main good point of it is that it can also be plugged into the PC as a HD-DVD drive.
$300 for that type of versatility is great!
Instead of paying extra for a media drive that you're 'stuck' with.

admeister

5 years ago

"This means that, should the worst happen and Blu-ray does render HD-DVD obselete, Microsoft can quietly withdraw the add-on and get on with selling 360s, all with minimal damage done."

Aside from the fact that PS3 would have the winning format built into it, and would get a lot of popularity. Even if Blu-Ray does flop, at least Sony can still use it as a game disc media, so the PS3 would still be quite useful. I think people will appreciate the extra space, in the long run.

HD-DVD may seem to be superior, but not as far as storage goes. Not to mention its still using DVD format, which is getting really old now.

As for plugging the HD-DVD player into your computer, surely Microsoft would put something in place to stop people from doing that? That's not the point of such a player, is it? Add-ons are annyoing, and tacked on. You have to pay extra to buy them on top of the console, and shows bad planning. At least Sony have the guts to build their next gen format into their console! I respect them for that.

Note: I do not want Blu-Ray to fail, I beleive in it as a storage media, for use with games and movies, but I'm more concerned about the games).

Qbert

5 years ago

I don't think you'll be needing a 50 GB storage limit for games in the next couple of years!

admeister, I know you don't like Microsoft becuase you don't find most games on the XBOX fun and that's cool, but that doesn't mean you have to look at everything the company does through crap coloured glasses. There is a difference between hating their games and hating everything they do.

Chris-Leigh

5 years ago

admeister wrote

You have to pay extra to buy them on top of the console, and shows bad planning. At least Sony have the guts to build their next gen format into their console! I respect them for that.

But is it guts or stupidity? As I said above, if BR was to come second, Sony are going to be stuck with a high-price machine with one big, obsolete feature. MS are offering a choice - don't want to watch movies on your games machine? Then just shell out the £280 (or whatever it is in Oz) and be done with it. They're giving the consumer an option.

Jellyfish

5 years ago

Qbert wrote

I don't think you'll be needing a 50 GB storage limit for games in the next couple of years!

Blu-Ray is 25GiB per layer, but there are massive problems doing more than one layer on a disc. HD-DVD is 15GiB per layer and double layer discs are in the wild.

Dave_L

5 years ago

Thanks Chris

And yeah, i agree - choice is good. Very good infact (something we've not really been given in the past). And it's certainly especially good when it involves two new rival HD formats.

admeister

5 years ago

Interesting point there Nickak.

"They're giving the consumer an option."

That may be true, but you can't really compare the two consoles. The HD-DVD player is an add-on for playing movies, whereas the PS3 uses the Blu-Ray discs for games and movies. They can't exactly make a standard PS3 and have a Blu-Ray add-on, can they?

As for hating everything that Microsoft do, I can't help it if I don't agree with most of the decisions they make. That's just how I am. I have to face the fact that Microsoft and me will never see eye-to-eye. I'm closer to being on that level with Sony, but I feel the same way about them sometimes. The only company I can really identify/agree with is Nintendo, they do the sort of thing that I would do if I owned a big games company. They cater to my needs/interests in their consoles, much more than the other two, though Playstation catches my interst because of some of the 3rd party games it has.

InfernalEternal

5 years ago

nikack wrote

Qbert wrote

I don't think you'll be needing a 50 GB storage limit for games in the next couple of years!

Blu-Ray is 25GiB per layer, but there are massive problems doing more than one layer on a disc. HD-DVD is 15GiB per layer and double layer discs are in the wild.

Blu-Ray is actually 23.3GiB (25GB) per layer and yeah, Sony is having trouble with the Dual Layer BR Discs, so right now HD-DVD has the upper hand when it comes to storage (30GB v 25GB). Sony has pretty high hopes for the tech, they're developing a Double-Sided-Dual-Layer discs that have a capacity of 100GB (93.2GiB), pretty amazing. TDK have also apparently created a Six-Layer-33GB Blu-Ray Disc which totals 198GB of storage. Woah.

HD-DVD is 15GB (Single Sided, Single Layer), the current available maxiumum available is 30GB (Single Sided, Dual Layer) and 45GB (Single Sided, Triple Layer) will most probably be available soon (?). Im pretty sure Toshiba has also announced Double Sided variants with capacity ranging from 30GB (Double Sided, Single Layer) to 60GB (Double Sided, Double Layer) and even 90GB (Double Sided, Triple Layer), although Its not really known when or if at all these Triple Layer/Double Sided variants will even make it to the market.

Dave_L

5 years ago

admeister wrote

They can't exactly make a standard PS3 and have a Blu-Ray add-on, can they?

Well, they could have used the same (or similar) compression methods MS are using to get games down onto dual layer DVDs, and then released a BlueRay add-on drive. This would have kept the costs down on the console - and given customers the choice of whether they want to spend the extra money or not.

On the other hand, things have to move forward at some point - and we don't want to be restricted to 8gb of space forever. But again, i'd have thought it would have been better to let the new dominant DVD format establish itself first.

Personally, it's too expensive for me to justify, so (for the first time in quite a while too!) i won't be getting a launch console. It's too similar to the 360 for me to spend about £500 on. The Wii on the other hand, looks like it will compliment my collection perfectly at this stage.

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