Nickname said:
Also, MS did release the seperate hd-dvd drive for xbox (lol i know)
Rumor has it MS had a bluray made but chose not to release it. Normally I’d shrug that off but MS has definately been off their game the last few years and they don’t really care if they develop something only to toss it in the trash before release. Given how ditzy Ballmer’s been lately I’m hesitant to shrug it off as a 100% falsehood.
josrocket said:
so the built in blueray becomes this bonus addition for consumers that MS cant get royalties from.
I think this is the driving force as much as anything else. MS doesn’t want a portion of every XBOX sale going to pay Sony and crew for royalty fees on a format they don’t explicitly need. It would be MUCH more convenient for their customers but royalty wise it’s a whole lot cheaper to tough it out with what they’ve got than pay the added cost per unit and per game. By the time they release the next system, royalty fees will have come down and MS will (hopefully) have come to their senses.
This exact same thing is what screwed Wii owners. Nintendo didn’t want the $20/unit fee required to enable DVD movie playback so they didn’t include the decoders.