Microsoft Will Support Blu-ray

[Mook]

from IGN...

March 7, 2008 - Speaking at the Mix08 Internet conference in Las Vegas yesterday, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said the company plans to throw its support behind Sony's Blu-ray technology in "ways that make sense," although he didn't mention the Xbox 360 specifically.

According to a report on the Seattle Post-Intelligencer's Web site (via GameDaily), Ballmer said Microsoft will work with what has become the current-generation high-definition storage medium of choice.

"We've already been working on, for example, in Windows, device driver support for Blu-ray drives and the like, and I think the world moves on. Toshiba has moved on. We've moved on, and we'll support Blu-ray in ways that make sense," Ballmer told the crowd.

Microsoft had previously planted itself firmly in the HD-DVD format camp with manufacturer Toshiba, but that company bailed on the format in February. Microsoft soon followed with a discontinuation and price cut of its Xbox 360 HD-DVD peripheral.

Although Redmond has been officially mum so far on its future plans for removable HD playback on the Xbox 360, the Financial Times today is reporting that Microsoft is in talks with Sony about offering a Blu-ray drive for the console.

Sony's U.S. president, Stan Glasgow, made the statement at a media dinner, according to the FT. It was unclear whether the two companies are discussing the possibility of offering an internal Blu-ray drive in a future Xbox 360 SKU, a future Xbox console or as a standalone peripheral.

Click to read more...

 

[Mook]

cause no one saw this coming

 

[CamaroSS]

im shocked since M$ is so god damn cheap, and now they gotta pay their rival money to make the blu ray player

 

[Mook]

i'm kinda surprised by sony actually....to allow blu ray into the 360s...i mean yea, its a huge profit to them but on the flip side they're giving something to their enemy that for awhile, made the ps3 the only thing worth buying...if that makes sense...and i'm talking in general terms here so dont attack me sean

 

[CamaroSS]

ill believe the blu ray player when i see it, and if its any indication, their player will be pretty shitty compared to a standalone player like ps3 and standard models. plus i expect to see them without ability to upgrade firmware for it, so your stuck with what you buy pretty much. no support for blu ray profile 2.0 etc... i bet. sony wont give them everything

 

[Mook]

i fully expect an external...i think everyone in camp sony is worried about an internal drive but i dont think that will every happen

 

[CamaroSS]

yeah, there wont be an internal, if there was, sony would get paid a whole assload of money where it wouldnt be worth it to M$. it will be another external add thats overpriced to start with and has lesser quality than the opposition

 

[JabroninWARRIOR]

i'm kinda surprised by sony actually....to allow blu ray into the 360s...i mean yea, its a huge profit to them but on the flip side they're giving something to their enemy that for awhile, made the ps3 the only thing worth buying...if that makes sense...and i'm talking in general terms here so dont attack me sean

i think in the long run there is more money to be made from selling them to m$

 

[Lord Tin Foilhat]

i dont know, i think its a dieing format anyways.... flash ram is getting cheaper and cheaper and is way faster then discs, and more reliable

i doubt itll be for 360, maybe the next system, but by then they will just use ram chips. this is more pointed to home entertainment systems running vista, and computers i think

 

[CamaroSS]

no, its for 360 there ace, and blu ray is far from a dying format, ive yet to see anything that will be replacing it any time soon. why else would they support blu ray, they dont need to get permission from sony to have a blu ray drive on a computer they put vista on. this is for 360 getting a blu ray player.

 

[Lord Tin Foilhat]

trust me, flash ram is where its all going to be.... discs are dieing, everything is going digital

 

[CamaroSS]

you want me to trust you that about a format that isnt doing anything yet..... ok..... i dont see discs dying anytime soon.

 

[Lord Tin Foilhat]

did u not just see in the news that digital downloads surprised cd sales by millions....

 

[CamaroSS]

yeah and........ your talking about music downloads, not HD 1080p movies. i could give 2 shits if Itunes sells 5185789175189ty million sales over cds

 

[Mook]

downloads have been surprassing cd sales for awhile

 

[CamaroSS]

downloads have been surprassing cd sales for awhile

exactly, cd sales have sucked for a long time now, this isnt a growing trend, it is the trend.... but to get a downloaded copy of a HD movie with all the same features of said blu ray disc would take forever just for 1 movie

 

[Lord Tin Foilhat]

doesnt mean it wont... it means digital content is more popular... and anybody would take flash media over cd anyday... faster times, and nothing to scratch or ruin...

i didnt say its going to be gone next year or anything, im just saying within a couple of years itll be here for sure

 

[CamaroSS]

again, gonna take far too long to download a blu ray quality disc. also, you need to find yourself a blu ray disc and i want to try to scratch it using standard wear and tear, and see if you can make it not work. report back when you do

 

[Lord Tin Foilhat]

alright lol, ill rub it on a table (from being laid down and picked up) fill it with finger prints and we will see if it works...


or why dont u try to make a flash drive not work, and see who wins i never said download HD movies. i siad flash memory will win this war.

 

[CamaroSS]

ok, go for it, i said standard wear and tear, not rubbing it on a table you idiot, you dont take your 360 games and rub them on the table do you? didnt think so they have a scratch proof coating on them so enjoy.

 

[CamaroSS]

oh and i wouldnt take flash drive over disc, why would i need faster loading times watching a movie......... does the movie play faster or something, does it play a cliff notes style of the movie and it shortens titanic down to about 35 mins in the end......

 

[Lord Tin Foilhat]

no its the fact that its smaller, and ull be able to get more data on it without the burning sequence. plus the device needed to play it would be smaller considering you only need a usb port or plug in..... switching discs would be faster aswell as it would be more durable and take up less space

 

[Mook]

i'm gonna move this to the main forum as i feel its actually an interesting discussion

 

[CamaroSS]

so its faster by a few seconds cause it takes longer to swap a disc...... do you watch your movies right in rapid succession or something. your forgetting the whole point of this, you started by saying it WILL replace blu ray movies cause they are a "dying format" when it comes down to movies, as you started talking about, it doesnt do anything better so far from anything you have said. there is no load times on movies, so thats a mute point, the space aspect.... 50 gig isnt enough... thats why they are making more layer blu rays with close to 200 gig possible so theres another mute point. im not saying flash is a bad concept, but your are putting wayyyyy too much faith in it when it hasnt proven a thing when it comes to what we are talking about, and thats movies. when you show me a flash drive movie match the quality in both audio and video of blu ray in a good package, let me know

 

[Lord Tin Foilhat]

theres already 64 gb flash drives, and u see flash memory getting cheaper and cheaper, it a couple of years youll see 500gb flash memory (which could be extremely tiny at this rate) for cheaper then a dvd. plus theres ZERO maintence, you dont have to worry about kids fucking shit up, and itll be a more reliable format.

and how could it not match it? that makes zero sense because DATA is DATA whether its on cd or flash or a hard drive, DATA is DATA. i could have a 300gb movie (not saying i have one) on my computer that puts blu ray to shame at the moment. its the fact that with blu ray you are LIMITED to disc platers and rotating devices, and lasers can fail.

with flash you have ZERO moving parts.

another point is that blu-ray, hd-dvd and everything else is USELESS right now because tvs cannot show the true high quality format that it really is in. how do u think they have IMAX theathers if they are only playing 1080p? They format they use puts blu-ray and any other format to shame, but the technology for homes has no way to display it. the actual quality is insane, and the resolution is crazy. thats why they can blow it up so huge and lose no quality