Microsoft VP Says No Blu-ray Player For Xbox 360

Despite rumors to the contrary, Microsoft says it has no plans for an Xbox 360 Blu-ray player, citing digital downloads as the real wave of the future.

In an interview with MCV, Microsoft Interactive Entertainment Europe Vice President Chris Lewis said despite Blu-ray's triumph over HD-DVD, the company had no plans to follow up with a Blu-ray player for the Xbox 360. Instead, he suggested Microsoft will follow its greater strategic advantage in the area of digital distribution, which he believes will take preeminence over conventional media.

"We never wanted to force consumers down any particular DVD playback route," he said. "We felt that HD-DVD was the right format for an accessory, but we always felt very strongly that we should never make that an integral part of Xbox 360 because we wanted to give people the choice."

"My own view is very clear and I know it's shared by other people in Microsoft is that the future's digital downloads now. The broadband proliferation is amazing - people's appetite to download movies through Video Marketplace is a testament to that. The future is about people taking their digital content on an online rather than physical media," he continued. "We have no plans to do anything at all in terms of further or additional movie playback peripherals. My own sense - and a lot of the analysts would feel the same way - is that online is the future. And we're very well placed to take advantage of that."

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Microsoft is bluffing. They will have a Blu-Ray player very soon. In the US, the only place where they are selling a lot of their machines, broadband penetration and bandwidth realities clearly make this little PR move unbelievable. Check out this link to an editorial at PC World. It is pretty much spot on, though it does miss of few other obvious points, such as bandwidth limitations and access.

http://blogs.pcworld.com/gameon/archives/006634.html

ingsoc:
Microsoft is bluffing. They will have a Blu-Ray player very soon. In the US, the only place where they are selling a lot of their machines, broadband penetration and bandwidth realities clearly make this little PR move unbelievable. Check out this link to an editorial at PC World. It is pretty much spot on, though it does miss of few other obvious points, such as bandwidth limitations and access.

http://blogs.pcworld.com/gameon/archives/006634.html

They're actually selling lots of machines over here in Blighty, and other places too. And I wouldn't write off their comment here. I reckon downloading is the future. Look at the success of Steam on the PC.

This sounds a lot like:

"Our controllers will not contain a rumble feature. We feel rumble is very much a last generation feature, gamer's will see it a last seasons thing. We feel motion sensitivity is the way forward."

I predict a similar climb down within the year :D

I am not saying that downloads are not the future, because they are, just here in the US, we are a decade from it being a viable model.

ingsoc:
Microsoft is bluffing. They will have a Blu-Ray player very soon. In the US, the only place where they are selling a lot of their machines, broadband penetration and bandwidth realities clearly make this little PR move unbelievable. Check out this link to an editorial at PC World. It is pretty much spot on, though it does miss of few other obvious points, such as bandwidth limitations and access.

http://blogs.pcworld.com/gameon/archives/006634.html

I don't think so, only because they don't need to.

Why would Microsoft a) want to admit (retrospectively or not, openly or not) that Sony was "right" when "right" hasn't even been defined yet, and b) why would they want to manufacture something for the consumer that is already being manufactured by someone else?

Microsoft can sit back and relax. So what if they can't play Blu-Ray? If it's important to the consumer, they'll shell out a couple hundred bucks to buy one. I don't think the penetration rate of Blu-Ray is at the point where Microsoft has to worry that not supporting Blu-Ray means higher PS3 sales. And when that day does come, and it will, Blu-Ray players will be less than half the price of the PS3. Probably to the point where a 360+Blu-Ray player isn't much more expensive than buying a PS3. So really, it's not going to affect their future sales regardless of the HD format market.

Secondly, Microsoft doesn't sell 360's, games like Bioshock and Mass Effect sell 360's. As long as the 360 keeps pumping out killer Apps, 360's are going to sell, and Microsoft is going to make money. Having the ability to buy a $300 add-on Blu-Ray players isn't .

And lastly, why shouldn't Microsoft bank on digital downloads, even if there's no possible way, in this generation of consoles, that downloadable HD movies are going to become popular? What do they lose? Nothing. Zilch. At the very least, it puts added doubt into the minds of already nervous HD Media Consumers. It's a shot back at Sony at it's core, but it's also a decent stance to take in order to look like you didn't just (and aren't still) screwing the pooch by going HD-DVD.

Streaming digital media, or downloads even, surly looks to be the future. But while the Brick and Mortar stores like WalMart are still doing really well on the boxed sales front, I don't think the Movie Studios are going to budge on physical media being the standard. And now that HD is becoming popular, and the format war appears over, they are really going to start pumping Blu-Ray into the market.

DVD still has legs, so the only caveat I can think of is if digital downloads make Blu-Ray obsolete before DVDs become obsolete. But I think we're talking 10 years down the road more than we're talking 5.

I wouldn't be suprised to see Microsoft go back on this statement, I'm sure I remember them denying the existance of an black xbox 360 with a HDMI output and a bigger hard-drive...

However, I really don't think Microsoft need to bring out a blu-ray player, unless they're going to fix in into the console and let us play games from it then I can't see them doing it. Developers are starting to run out of space on DVDs so Microsoft might need to do something about it before then end of this generation....

Eagle Est1986:
unless they're going to fix in into the console and let us play games from it

That's a potential scenario, though, I don't think very likely as you risk either alienation of current owners, or you have to release games on dual formats, DVD and Blu-Ray. And who would want to do that? It's just an added cost which would likely be passed on to the consumer.

But it certainly would allow designers to avoid making games that require disc swapping. Of course, there's always going to be one Kojima in the crowd who will have us believe that disc swapping on a Blu-Ray player is the only way his game is going to be 'complete'.

lol, I wasn't going to mention the whole Kojima thing but yeah. Look at Mass Effect, the game is so compressed that it constantly interupts the gameplay, textures seem to pop in and out for their own ammusement. Like you said though, Microsoft would alienate it's current install base by letting developers make games on a different format.

Eagle Est1986:
lol, I wasn't going to mention the whole Kojima thing but yeah. Look at Mass Effect, the game is so compressed that it constantly interupts the gameplay, textures seem to pop in and out for their own ammusement. Like you said though, Microsoft would alienate it's current install base by letting developers make games on a different format.

I think this is where you get into the disc swapping debate. To be honest, I'd rather have a game come on two discs, have to install them both, and then play it. Being a hard core PC Gamer, I'm used to installing. So it doesn't bother me like it might some of the consoler's.

I think Mass Effect probably should have been split up in that fashion.

But it does get me thinking about what MGS4 is going to be like. Filling an entire Bu-Ray disc for one game, man. Kojima is either a genius, or a nut. Or some sort of genius-nut.

mitsoxfan:
DVD still has legs, so the only caveat I can think of is if digital downloads make Blu-Ray obsolete before DVDs become obsolete. But I think we're talking 10 years down the road more than we're talking 5.

I would argue that your timescale is a bit pessamistic. I've owned an 360 for less than a year and have decided, flat out, that I am not going to bother buying a Blu-Ray player or console.

The reason being, I have already got the ability to play HD content and games utilising XBox Live Marketplace. I've downloaded numerous movies in HD and have RezHD sitting on my hard drive. Now while RezHD isn't anywhere near as complex as MGS4 is toutted to be it is still a game redesigned to make the most of HD TV's. And as DVD's are more than clear enough (and arguably much more cost effective) to satisfy my movie needs, why would i feel the need to shell out money for an addon who's sole purpose is to play movies I can already watch?

Back to my original point. 5-10 years is unrealistic when I know I can go home and purchase an HD movie or tv show tonight. As the catalouge of show/films and games grows and broadband penetration increases exponentially (I seem to remember Mr Tony Blair pushing to have every home in the UK given the ability and opportunity to have broadband a couple of years ago) media like Blu-Ray will become the forgotten middle child.

Not quite as pervasive and popular as DVD and not as easy to utilise or as convienient as DLC.

ingsoc:
Microsoft is bluffing. They will have a Blu-Ray player very soon.

You really think Sony will licence them to release something that would take away sales from the PS3?

Lightbulb:

ingsoc:
Microsoft is bluffing. They will have a Blu-Ray player very soon.

You really think Sony will licence them to release something that would take away sales from the PS3?

You really think Sony holds the sole license for Blu-Ray?

eh, seems to me overall microsoft has it's finger very far from the pulse of the people, i remember seeing bill gates on an episode of the daily show when vista came out, and the stuff he mentioned they were working on was the kind of stuff that i think most people hardcore techies or just regualr users don't so much care about, he said the big thing they were working on and suposedly "wave of the future" was being able to surf the web on your tv while watching tv so that people can look up more information on something they were watching, that to me sounds like an advertising driven idea and the day tv shows start having pop up adds is the day i get into the watertower with my rifle.

It's not about downloading games. MS is suggesting that Blu-Ray is a soon to be dead media format because physical media is soon to be obsolete, as digital downloads 'are the future'. MS never had any intention of putting 360 games on HD-DVD, and they have even less intenti0on of doing it with Blu-Ray.

This is about HD Movies. Plain and simple.

Microsoft is simply taking this standpoint to put some doubt in the minds of people who are considering buying a PS3 instead of a 360 based solely on the Blu-Ray player.

Besides, why do they need to spend more time and effort on a another peripheral when companies are pumping out Blu-Ray players left and right? I don't think it makes sense for them from a business standpoint, and I think they are using that decision to the best of their creative ability. Hence the 'digital downloads are the wave of the future' prognostication.

I think we all know that if Music CDs are still being sold, HD Movies have a long way to go.

If the 360 doens't go blue ray it will put them in a seriouse dis advantage. Everyone I talk too is either upgraded blue ray or is planning on it soon. Downloadable content is the future but not any time soon. I recently bought a ps3 and I love it looks amazing in 1080i. 360 a great system but if I spend 500 to 600 dollers on a console you better give me all the bells and whistles, and a major selling point is a blue ray player. I think Microsoft is either one blowing steam or is very stupid. A console war isn't a sprint its a marathon.

Digital distribution has (almost) come of age. I honestly think that Microsoft is on the right track here, really.

Services like Steam which, for all their failings, allow me greater portability, variety and price of media really cut the legs off brick-and-mortar stores and I don't think I'll be going back anytime soon for my media.

Well, not unless they start releasing all the neat extras that they used to for RPGs, like maps and manuals with tonnes of story and flavour-text in them.