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Microsoft's Xbox 360 add-on gets another price cut

There has been quite a bit of turmoil in the HD DVD market over the past month. With movie studios shifting their alliances from HD DVD to Blu-ray, Toshiba took the drastic step of slashing the MSRPs on its HD DVD players.

Microsoft is following suit and today cut the price of its Toshiba-manufactured Xbox 360 HD DVD player to $129.99. According to Microsoft's Major Nelson, the price cut is effective immediately in the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

The player originally retailed for $199 when it launched in late 2006 and received a price reduction to $179 in July of 2007.

While $129.99 is the new official price, some retailers are offering the Xbox 360 HD DVD player for even lower prices. Best Buy is offering the player for a low $119.99 on its online site.

For night owls that were browsing the Internet early this morning, Amazon had the peripheral on sale for $79.99 with free shipping for a short period of time according to Engadget.

Microsoft's Xbox 360 HD DVD player ships with an Xbox 360 universal remote and a copy of King Kong on HD DVD. Users can also hook the player up to a Windows-based machine with the proper drivers.

In addition to the new $129.99 price tag, customers are still eligible to receive five free movies via mail-in rebate [PDF] courtesy of Toshiba. The selection of movies won't set any hearts racing, but free is free.

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Internal HD for the 360
By masher2 (blog) on 2/6/2008 2:25:36 PM , Rating: 5
Though Microsoft continues to deny it, I strongly suspect we'll see an internal HD drive for the 360 within a year or so.

Now whether that HD drive will be HD-DVD, Blu Ray, or a combo format, I won't hazard to say...




RE: Internal HD for the 360
By Radius3000 on 2/6/2008 2:35:09 PM , Rating: 2
The problem with an internal drive is that Xboxes die like black people in Baltimore(at least on The Wire). At least with the external drive you can continue to use it while waiting for Microsoft to ship your next box.


RE: Internal HD for the 360
By bhieb on 2/6/08, Rating: 0
RE: Internal HD for the 360
By theflux on 2/6/2008 5:43:49 PM , Rating: 5
You can hook it to a PC. However most people like to pretend that you don't have to own $100 software to make it work.


RE: Internal HD for the 360
By blaster5k on 2/6/2008 5:46:29 PM , Rating: 2
It works just fine when you plug it into your computer's USB port. All you need is some software to play the movies with.


RE: Internal HD for the 360
By jtesoro on 2/7/2008 7:24:56 AM , Rating: 2
But if you use Vista, you may not see movies in maximum possible HD resolutions unless your monitor is connected via HDMI and your video card fully supports HDCP.


RE: Internal HD for the 360
By Aikouka on 2/7/2008 8:43:14 AM , Rating: 2
DVI is fully compatible with HDCP; so no... you do not need HDMI.


RE: Internal HD for the 360
By omnicronx on 2/7/2008 8:52:21 AM , Rating: 2
Still only newer cards support HDCP over DVI, and many cards that are a year+ old that say support it, sometimes do not provide the codes to do the HDCP handshake.


RE: Internal HD for the 360
By erikejw on 2/6/2008 5:48:46 PM , Rating: 2
It works fine connected to a PC.


RE: Internal HD for the 360
By Samus on 2/6/08, Rating: -1
RE: Internal HD for the 360
By daftrok on 2/27/2008 12:56:11 AM , Rating: 1
I think you are confusing them with the Police.


RE: Internal HD for the 360
By jadeskye on 2/6/2008 2:48:35 PM , Rating: 2
i think an external blu-ray drive is very likely.
i sold my external hd-dvd drive for my xbox some time ago when i saw what direction the market is moving in.

some people say that microsoft made a mistake by not including the hd-dvd drive internally. maybe they did, but they deffinately have redemption in how they can switch to blu-ray at a moment's notice.

Either way, xbox or PS3, hd is in almost all cases better on a standalone player. which will be my personal choice when the market finally gains some stability.


RE: Internal HD for the 360
By Spuke on 2/6/2008 3:02:34 PM , Rating: 1
quote:
Either way, xbox or PS3, hd is in almost all cases better on a standalone player.
My standalone player is better than either xbox or PS3.


RE: Internal HD for the 360
By elmikethemike on 2/6/2008 3:16:57 PM , Rating: 5
quote:
My standalone player is better than either xbox or PS3.


Your stand-alone player is far better than the HD DVD addon for the 360, absolutely, but not better than the PS3. I own both a PS3 and Toshiba HD-A30. The PS3 is simply a better, faster player. I'm not trying to be a fanboy, just having seen the two in action, the PS3 is superior in everything from movie playback, speed, to the remote control lauyout(I'm not referring to the sixaxis).

I own both formats and could honestly care less who wins this war. What's nice about it though is that MANY people are ditching their HD DVDs for cheap on ebay, and I've been making out like a bandit.

As far as MS's addon, I owned that for a while also, and why anyone would get that over a Toshiba model is beyond me. Between the 360,its power brick, and the add on, it's just way too much space, and WAY too loud.

Take it from an early adopter of this crap, stay away from the add on.


RE: Internal HD for the 360
By Spuke on 2/6/08, Rating: -1
RE: Internal HD for the 360
By daftrok on 2/6/2008 4:17:04 PM , Rating: 2
Which stand alone player do you have?


RE: Internal HD for the 360
By rninneman on 2/6/08, Rating: 0
RE: Internal HD for the 360
By daftrok on 2/27/2008 12:54:43 AM , Rating: 2
It happens. I shudder to think of the outrage PS3 owners would feel if Blu ray lost.


RE: Internal HD for the 360
By AlphaVirus on 2/6/2008 4:30:56 PM , Rating: 3
Actually I dont think his statement is far from fact. The PS3 is far superior than the standalones. The HDDVD addon may be better if you dont mind a bunch of clutter and the turbojet noise of the 360.

The PS3 does in fact run faster than a standalone. It makes fairly similar noise since it has only a single fan. Which at times you might not even know its running if you dont look at the Power light. There is no difference in quality since they both can play 1080p.

So other than picture quality, the PS3 is better than standalone. Also remember that the PS3 can play games, has a hard drive, easy firmware updates, and can Fold@home for Stanford University.
Can your standalone do that?


RE: Internal HD for the 360
By jadeskye on 2/6/08, Rating: -1