Blu-ray, Schmu-ray

Microsoft ended up on the wrong side of the HD format war. If you were one of the unlucky few who purchased the Xbox 360's standalone HD-DVD drive, you probably know the only way a piece of technology could be more useless is if it was an N-Gage. (And if you were one of the unluck yfew who purchased an N-Gage, congratulations. You're an idiot.)

But according to Robbie Bach, Microsoft's president of entertainment and devices, there's no way the 360 will ever try and get in on Sony's Blu-ray action. For one thing, he says, no one is asking for Blu-ray support on 360. Personally, I find this a little hard to believe. Anytime there's even the slightest bit of made-up news about a new 360 console featuring a Blu-ray drive, the blogs light up. (I think I feel a made-up story idea coming on...)

But Bach's other two reasons are a little more convincing. Publishers don't want to make 360 games on Blu-ray discs, because they won't play on the 28 million Xboxes already in homes. And with the $199 Arcade console proudly claiming the cheapest next-gen system title, no one wants to raise the baseline cost by adding a Blu-ray drive.

Personally, I'm ambivelent about the whole thing. My Xbox is hooked up to the monitor in my office, far away from the main household TV where most of the movie watching is done. But I live with other people who aren't interested in waiting for me to kill a few more Super Mutants before they can watch the latest adventures of McDreamy/Steamy. Plus, it's not like any game developers are really taking advantage of all the extra Blu-ray storage space. But, an Xbox with a Blu-ray drive combined with Xbox Live's Netflix on demand support sounds like a pretty tempting entertainment package. But then again, LG and other companies have already come out with standalone Blu-ray players that have Netflix on demand support.

Of course, none of this will mean anything if the current economic trends continue. It's hard to fit an HDTV in your new cardboard house, for instance.

Source: X-Play