In light of recent news about the apparent demise of HD DVD, the Xbox 360 folks have just issued the following statement:

“We do not believe the recent reports about HD DVD will have any material impact on the Xbox 360 platform or our position in the marketplace.  As we’ve long stated, we believe it is games that sell consoles, and Xbox 360 continues to have the largest next-gen games library with the most exclusives and best selling games in the industry. We will wait until we hear from Toshiba before announcing any specific plans around the Xbox 360 HD DVD player. HD DVD is one of the several ways we offer a high definition experience to consumers and we will continue to give consumers the choice to enjoy digital distribution of high-definition movies and TV shows directly to their living room along with playback of the DVD movies they already own.”

My translation: “It’s a good thing we refused to cave in to fan demands that we integrate the HD DVD drive into the Xbox 360 and kept it as a separate add-on. Now, we can come out with an add-on Blu-ray drive instead once the dust settles.” 

Actually, it would be wise for Microsoft to come out with a Blu-ray drive eventually. The Blu-ray-playing PlayStation 3 appears to be picking up steam thanks to all the Blu-ray news — the PS3 outsold the Xbox 360 for the first time in eons in January — and the Xbox 360 might need to add the Blu-ray component just to keep up. �

This entry was posted on Monday, February 18th, 2008 at 3:25 pm and is filed under DVDs, Video games. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.