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Why Microsoft picked HD-DVD
03 Mar 2006 08:14 | Lost Alley |
Xbox 360 | Technology
Xbox360News.com |
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Microsoft has outlined prohibitive pricing, faltering industry support and technical troubles as the reasons behind why it has turned its back on the Blu-ray next-generation DVD format for the upcoming external Xbox 360 drive. Microsoft has long associated itself with the rival HD-DVD format but few reasons have been given why. But now Microsoft PR employee Cesar Menendez has reported on his Gamerscore Blog that the MS big cheeses were reacting to a number of worries about Blu-ray.
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Thank goodness the 360 only has a DVD-9 drive and MS is onboard w/ HD-DVD!
Unregistered - Burly
03.03.2006 14:17
From a gaming standpoint; the Beta-ray drive in the PS3 is a complete disadvantage when compared to the DVD-9 drive in the 360 and here is why...
Developers will be able to free up a bit of processing by using Beta-ray disks because the PS3 will not have to decode compressed files as much as the 360 will have to using DVD-9's. However, if the average amount of space used by developers was to increase for the 360 by the same amount that it increased over the course of the original Xbox's lifecycle (i.e. 55%), then on average developers will only be using 69% of a DVD-9 capacity by the end of the 360's lifecycle. This fact alone indicates that the majority of PS3 games will be released on DVD-9's because they still offer ample data space and they allow developers to recoup some of the increased development costs of next-generation games, versus the much more expensive Beta-ray disks. However, given the fact that Sony will only be equiping the PS3 with a 1 or 2 times Beta-ray player (in order to save on component costs) - the 360's DVD-9 drive will be able to stream data at a much faster rate and given the fact that the 360 has unified memory; you can expect the 360 to be able to generate much larger and dynamic worlds, regardless of what media developers choose to use for the PS3. Of course if you want to watch high definition movies you will need a Beta-ray or HD-DVD but with all of the up-converting DVD players on the market and with the advent of streaming HD movies on Xbox Live - this will not be nearly as big of an advantage for Sony as DVD was back in PS2's day. This is especially true when you consider the fact that right from the get-go there will be the uncertainty of a format war. Personally I can't see why the industry didn't settle on HD-DVD because (unlike Beta-ray) the transition doesn't require massivce infrastructure investment which is untimately passed onto the consumer. But then again, Sony is currently losing market share (and money) in all of their other divisions and are heavily relying on the PS3 to cross-subsidize their other divisions (i.e. the Cell, Beta-ray, etc, etc). Unfourtunately, this is at the expense of creating a games machine that simply can't compete with the 360 because the Cell is an efficient processor for streaming media (i.e. cheap but good for HD movies) but sucks for general purpose game coding and the Beta-ray is really not a startegic advantage at all when you consider current and future game storage capacities, and the component cost advantage that this affords Microsoft. This is magnified even more when you consider the fact that the 360's GPU is an entire generation ahead of the PS3's RSX, is more powerful from a grphics stand-point, and when the PS3 finally does launch the 360 will lots of awesome second-generation games out with better graphics, at a cheaper price, and with a superior feature set (i.e. Xbox Live, etc). I believe that Microsoft is leaveraging this and the developer base is already shifting allegiances to the existing (and ever growing) install base of the 360, in order to recoup development costs and the downswing in the industry pre-PS3 / Revolution launch. The bottom line: is Sony is in big ga-ga trouble and Microsoft WILL become the new market leader in North America and Europe this generation because a larger user install base for the 360 (with a years lead, and more competitive price) equals more games from devlopers, which in turn equates to more 360 users.
Rock on 360, Rock on!
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