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Hardware Report Claims Internal HD DVD Drive for XBOX 360 En Route
Sven Olsen (Blog) - September 13, 2006 2:44 PM

32 comment(s) - last by Kamasutra.. on Sep 14 at 2:12 PM

Upcoming XBOX 360s may get high definition optical storage

DigiTimes has recently published an article claiming that a Taiwanese manufacturer has been selected to produce an internal HD DVD drive for an upcoming XBOX 360 revision. The report does not indicate which manufacture is responsible for the drive.

The major Taiwanese optical storage manufacturers include Lite-on, Quanta and ASUS -- any of which would be likely to build an HD DVD drive for Microsoft. However, with ASUS manufacturing the majority of the components for the Playstation 3, it would seem more probable that Quanta or Lite-on is the manufacturer for such a drive, if it exists.

Toshiba is currently the OEM responsible for manufacturing the external XBOX 360 HD DVD drive to be announced later this year. Toshiba currently uses Lite-on as a major OEM for HD DVD drives, so it would not be too farfetched to expect Lite-on is responsible for any upcoming HD DVD manufacturing at Microsoft.

Sony's Playstation 3 will launch on November 11, 2006 (in Japan) with a Blu-ray drive as part of the standard features on both the low-end and high-end models. The launch date for the external XBOX 360 HD DVD drive has not been announced yet either. The DigiTimes report claims the launch of the internal HD DVD drive is around Q1'07.

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doh!

By rushfan2006 on 9/13/2006 3:23:17 PM , Rating: 1

Man if this turns out to be true....I can only imagine the folks that just bought an xbox360.....doh!

RE: doh!

By Pirks on 9/13/2006 3:28:40 PM , Rating: 1

oh come on, imagine a dual core boasting soul that just noticed there's cloverton in the stores - that's why there's ebay and magic word "upgrade". who said consoles are not upgradeable, huh?? ;)

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RE: doh!

By Zirconium on 9/13/2006 9:28:47 PM , Rating: 2

If the 360 is upgradeable, why is it such a pain to dismantle?

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RE: doh!

By Pirks on 9/14/2006 1:39:14 PM , Rating: 2

because you're supposed to upgrade it by replacing, Mac-style ;))

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RE: doh!

By Pirks on 9/13/2006 3:30:06 PM , Rating: 1

or they just buy external hd-dvd - big deal

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RE: doh!

By rushfan2006 on 9/13/2006 4:53:15 PM , Rating: 2

quote:
or they just buy external hd-dvd - big deal

Not saying its a big deal. If its a big deal to anyone I want their life because obviously they have no stresses in it then.

However, on the extrenal HD-DVD comment -- I think its a wasted purchase until MS announces they'll make game content on HD-DVD instead of just for watching HD-DVD movies. At any rate, I'd rather have ONE unit than TWO units that do the same thing....you know that whole thing about clutter and save space...and therein lies my original point.

;)

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RE: doh!

By Pirks on 9/13/2006 6:11:32 PM , Rating: 2

yeah, your original point would be great... if not for the fact that external hd-dvd is quite a bit smaller than your regular toshiba/pioneer/etc big standalone hd-dvd box - so this is MY point then - xbox plus hd-dvd is probably both smaller than one huge standalone hd-dvd - or did I miss recent hd-dvd player dimensions - I recall seeing huge black boxes on news sites recently - are they still that big?

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RE: doh!

By rushfan2006 on 9/14/2006 9:28:57 AM , Rating: 2

I don't know what is hard to understand here or perhaps you just view forum postings as all about feeling that you "got up" on someone or something. Meanwhile, I think my point is very very easy and logical to understand.

First -- anyone very serious about their HT setup won't settle on a multipurpose unit as their HD dvd player, they will want a real standalone unit. Why is this? Well on the short and shallow end -- it just looks silly to have thousands of dollars worth of high end speakers, an HDTV, receiver, etc. and then your state of the art system uses a game console for playing movies. Secondly on the more serious end of reasoning...there are far more options and features that come with "serious" high end HT components; likewise there is a lot more to a "professional" quality HD-DVD player (and btw, I'm talking about units yet to be built..current ones don't really impress me yet) than just the ability to "play" the movie. If you don't understand the differences between the two -- then its not wrong or anything it just means you are not that big into HT. Same reasoning for example...why did some people want to buy a normal DVD player a few years back when they could of watched DVD's on their Xbox or PS2? Well because the standalones had other features like fiber optic outputs, progressive play, DTS decoders built in...etc.

Secondly - Small, compact or not is two units not more than one? You still are creating more clutter even if you put it on top of the xbox 360, some folks don't care about this. others do -- some of us like organized, some us like neat. Its as obvious as daylight to me.

However, if you just want the feeling of "winning" a forum debate....rest assured..

I hearby dub you the "winner" of this debate...you are right and I am wrong and make no sense at all.

Have a great day.

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RE: doh!

By Pirks on 9/14/2006 1:43:13 PM , Rating: 2

well, obviously I didn't mean the real expensive, TRUE HT THE RIGHT WAY kind of setup, I meant some quick'n'cheapo HT with xbox and hd-dvd, so yes yes you're right and I'm right too, for each their own kind of HT setup and their own market segment.

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RE: doh!

By IsDanReally on 9/13/06, Rating: -1

hypocrites

By TheDoc9 on 9/13/2006 3:47:01 PM , Rating: 2

This whole time M$ has been saying how dumb it is to include blue ray into the ps3 for every reason they can think of. Now we see what they really meant.

RE: hypocrites

By Pirks on 9/13/2006 4:09:03 PM , Rating: 3

you apparently have no idea how hardware price drops with time and how _much_ cheaper (and wiser too!) for MS would be to include HD-DVD next year, while sony is stuck with overexpensive BR which it wants to do right now, while it costs SIGNIFICANTLY more than HD-DVD would cost next year - let Sony bleed and their fanboys pay through the nose - MS will come by later and easily smash them by offering same thing for much lower price when it DOES matter - not NOW when you haven't seen any BR disks in your local Blockbuster, have you? ;))

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RE: hypocrites

By mushi799 on 9/13/06, Rating: 0

RE: hypocrites

By mendocinosummit on 9/13/2006 5:46:43 PM , Rating: 2

I don't think so. MS was saying that including hardware that was still untested and not ready for the consumer was a bad idea; yhat includes BD. MS got the market first and much cheaper. They have won round one of the current console war, but including HD in a new package next year will put pressure back on Sony.

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RE: hypocrites

By Pirks on 9/13/2006 6:07:29 PM , Rating: 2

bingo! you got my point and mushi799 didn't

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RE: hypocrites

By Kamasutra on 9/14/2006 2:12:59 PM , Rating: 2

HD DVD has only been available for two months more than Blu-ray, so the amount of testing doesn't seem like a reasonable excuse considering the timeframe in which each is to presumably be launching. Price would seem to be a valid rationale, but I'm not sure if it was one of theirs.

And how exactly do you win something without competition?

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How interesting

By MonkeyPaw on 9/13/06, Rating: 0

RE: How interesting

By Chillin1248 on 9/13/2006 6:33:12 PM , Rating: 2

Key word is comperable, which means their inventory of DVD Xbox360s is waiting for a new home.

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RE: How interesting

By MonkeyPaw on 9/13/2006 9:50:48 PM , Rating: 2

Yeah, that could very well be the case. I doubt it will matter, unless they start making HD-DVD games for the XB360.

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...

By jay2o01 on 9/13/2006 3:22:39 PM , Rating: 2

I guess its probable that MS is looking to release this unit... My only hope is they dont incense the current 360 owners by including other "new" features. HDMI anyone...

RE: ...

By Pirks on 9/13/2006 4:04:21 PM , Rating: 1

and my hope is that they WILL include new features and regularly sell new xbox revisions, they should start with hd-dvd, then they can make some hardware tweaks, new cooler CPUs and stuff, maybe more memory, DX10 support maybe... there's a LOAD of stuff you can do with a console, just don't break older stuff and only extend APIs, do not change them. a new revision of xbox every say 2 years would be a dream!

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No time soon

By OrSin on 9/13/2006 3:29:43 PM , Rating: 2

The external HD-DVD might come out about the same time as the PS3 lauch but my guess the internal will not be out until next year.

MS Has Repeatedly Commented on This Sort of Rumor:

By MrDiSante on 9/13/2006 5:37:29 PM , Rating: 2

their comment was: it ain't happening. Honestly guys, just because yet another unnamed source says that it is, it means close to nothing.

RE: MS Has Repeatedly Commented on This Sort of Rumor:

By QueBert on 9/13/06, Rating: 0

Man...what a typo

By anonymo on 9/14/2006 8:53:15 AM , Rating: 2

Man why don't people actually read the article at digitimes...they start off by mentioning an internal unit then quote something about the external unit that came out a while ago relating to the external drive. This is simply some idiot who didn't bother to read his own quote blowing things out of proportion. There is no internal drive and I doubt there will be for a few years. I laugh so hard at all those who are saying "!@#$% I demand the new xbox!1!!" and "Haha to all those who bought one before teh new version..."...way to read.

a headshot?

By Pirks on 9/13/2006 3:24:53 PM , Rating: 1

imagine xbox360 with internal hd-dvd on shelves before or on november 11th - maybe not a headshot but it'll be another pain for PS3 for sure, can't wait for another sony mauling to happen :D

Interesting Approach

By tophat on 9/13/2006 5:47:49 PM , Rating: 2

I could almost see MS crafting this strategy from the very beginning. At the time of launch for any of the new consoles, pricing was a big issue and I think this was the strategy MS envisioned to begin with; that is to lower the cost of the 360 at launch. Strip it of all the goodies and compete with what is on the market currently and save the 'additional features' as wildcards.

However, I would have expected MS to postpone such news for fear of cannibalizing the sales of their existing inventory as well as upcoming external HD unit.

It's almost genius... a 'core' model of the 360 to compete with the Wii and an integrated HD drive version to compete with the PS3 (I'm expecting competitive pricepoints to match). I can't wait to see what the integrated HD drive 360 would retail at.

All I can say is that the product roadmapping by MS for the 360 is just brilliant. If only they delayed the announcement for the internal HD drive for when PS3 launch...

RE: Interesting Approach

By michal1980 on 9/13/06, Rating: -1

By michal1980 on 9/13/2006 11:24:29 PM , Rating: -1

brillant for M$.

if the was a sony thread, right now there would be 50 posts bashing sony and there technology.

well if this is true. F-M$.

next year games will come out on hd-dvd, and you will be forced to buy it.

talk about a bunch of bull. and honestly neither blue-ray, nor hd-dvd is really winning right now, its a statlemate of boring scales. even on the avsforums, early adaptors, people that spend 6 grand on a tv, and then exchange it 4 times, all sitting on the side lines.

and I blame the HDdvd camp. sony, pioneer, movie studios all came togther years ago to avoid a formate war. but then a few people, i.e. toshiba, decided nooo, we don't want one format, this format we have now is a bit better.

And yes 1st round blu-ray disks were kind of weak/soft. but october is supposd to drop a bunch of vc-1 disks, and we can finally compare head to head quality.

in my book, hd-dvd is like a band-aid patch to expand dvd capacity, while blu-ray actually tried something next-gen.

hd-dvd is like directx 9.0c, where blu-ray is directx 10.

and why stick with 1080i, when all tvs are going to 1080p, by the time these units get cheap enough for the masses most tvs will be progressive.

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Fanboys rejoice?

By Arkham1 on 9/13/06, Rating: -1

RE: Fanboys rejoice?

By therealnickdanger on 9/13/2006 3:48:07 PM , Rating: 3

I think Microsoft was genuinely apprehensive at first. They clearly wanted to be on board with some form of next-gen DVD, but they also want to beat the PS3 to market without hemmoraging hardware dollars. Since HD-DVD is shaping up to be the better choice for consumers (even though sales are sh*tty at best), Microsoft's confidence in HD-DVD may be enough to make a change.

The article is nothing official, but I think it's pretty obvious that if Microsoft wants to remain competitive, they have to include the drive internally. 98% of people will buy a PS3 over a 360 simply because the PS3 "has Blu-Ray instead of normal DVD", not knowing anything else. That's good enough for the masses.

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