October 22nd 2009 8:02 pm PT

ballmer likes to create mass confusion

The streaming of movies and tv shows is a great feature, and i would accept that as a fine replacement for having a bluray drive… if you don’t live in australia.

Suuuuuuuuuuuure you don’t.

I’m sorry, but i just can’t buy that.

Ballmer’s not gonna slip up like that and mistake a PC Blu-Ray drive with an addon for the Xbox 360.

There’s… no way.

PS: Lower hard drive prices kthx

yeah riiiiight *wink, wink*

Not cool. Tons of people, including me, would actually buy this. We probably will just have to get a standalone player now.

Right. I call BS.

I for one am glad to hear this. However it does make a nice supplement to Blu-Ray. Most movies I’d rent and this save me loads of times (provided the price is right) Still, there are movies that I want physical copies of. That’s just me though.

Deja vu Could have swore we heard this last year….

Just license Java and put out a Blu-Ray drive already! I paid a lot for my HD-DVD drive. I really do not need to buy a PS3 or another DVD player. Put out a player that plugs into the 360!

There’s also a difference of “renting” for a fee, and “purchasing” the film for unlimited use (like all the TV shows on the Marketplace.

Too late anyway Microsoft – i doubt many people would care.

I don’t understand why anyone would expect the 360 to support Blu-Ray. Nice as it could be, they have their own digital distribution model.

@SARGEHALO666:
You mean “SB”.

Whyever not? One of the hooks the PS3 has over the 360 is the built-in Blu-Ray capabilities.
In my view, a BR player could be only beneficial, not everybody wants to download movies.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Include generic drivers for external USB Blu-Ray drives and support for Blu-Ray movie playback in a Dashboard update. You don’t have to make a 360-only BR drive (which would probably cost a lot more than the PC drives that are already out there) and the customer gets to choose the hardware he/she wants. Everybody wins.

lol ahh…i love a spot of mass confusion! …still there is always next year for the xbox 360 blu ray rumours again

To add, if MS could come up with a monthly subscription service for HD rentals I’d be more than willing. But due to the deal with netflix I see this never happening. I swear we should have progressed further in the rental field by now…

Ballmer said Microsoft’s goal is to make the Xbox the source of “the best entertainment–overall entertainment, not just gaming entertainment.” Looks like M$ doesn’t want you to enjoy BluRay entertainment.

Actually, if you click on the link that Major is referring to and read the excerpt from the interview, it’s pretty easy to see that Ballmer was not talking about the 360 specifically. And I wholeheartedly agree with Major; the future is in digital distribution. It’s the right move, in my opinion.

Can’t see Microsoft willfully licensing JAVA, when it’s a competitor. And I think the HD DVD add-on taught Microsoft that an accessory soley for watching movies doesn’t necessarily set the world on fire– especially when you can buy a player elsewhere. Plus Microsoft is on the verge of offering the capablity of streaming HD movies instantly, not to mention offering IPTV in the UK. I don’t see a Blu-Ray drive happening or even a logical question right now.

Steve Ballmer messes up again or did he? Ok Blu-Ray drive for Xbox 360 in 2010?

It’s a shame that people seems to not understand that the streaming quality in 1080 is not the same as a BR or a HD-DVD.
I don’t even start with the subtitles or even extras.

I’m amazed at how many people were confused by what he said. It in no way sounded like he was saying the 360 would get some sort of Blu-Ray add-on. The web never ceases to amaze me.

I really think it is a mistake for MS not to offer this since Sony will be making full use this in its Advertising and it is primary reason that alot of 360 owners buy PS3′s.

But after Steve Ballmer last comments about a new 360 no one believed it.

Fine for the US. What about the rest of us?

While most Sony fanboys will tell you Blu-Ray is the future (as will Sony), its actually VERY obsolete. Digital delivery is the future, there is no medium able to replace the convenience of digital delivery. Even Sony knows it, which is why they are also adding it to the PS3.

Apologies for sounding cynical but shouldn’t that last line be

Xbox 360 becomes the first and only console to offer instant-on 1080p streaming HD movies. With a library of thousands of TV shows and movies*

*Assuming you are accessing XBL from the correct region (limited to the US only) with the correct Internet connection

Whatever. Not like I can afford any of Microsoft’s accessories anyways. The drive itself would have been more than the cost of the PS3 itself.

Why don’t Microsoft just give the people that they con so much money out of WHAT THEY WANT??? I think it should be pretty clear by now, as it has been for ages, that a Blu Ray drive or Blu Ray 360 is one of the most sought additions to the 360′s hardware catalogue. Instead, the good old MS PR machine yaps on about 1080p on demand and how it’s great and what everyone wants- except that’s not really the case. MS forgets there’s this whole massive flaw in that system which is that HD movies on XBox Live are expensive and people would much rather have the physical media with extras, which they can watch more than once if they so choose instead of being forced to watch it within 24 hours. It’s around £4 to rent a Blu Ray from the video store and they have overheads to consider like staff and premises. Given that MS don’t have the same level of overheads and that we pay a more than substantial annual fee to cover the bandwidth, the price of movie rentals on XBox Live should be considerably cheaper than it is. Seriously, stop telling us that 1080p instant on is superior- the people want Blu Ray. Saying all that though, even if a Blu Ray drive was released, it would be way overpriced anyway.

Why do Microsoft let Steve Ballmer open his mouth to the public? Running around cleaning up his mess has to be costing them money that could be used in other areas.

I do not believe you, Major Nelson. Where there is smoke, there is fire.

All I hear is how great digital distribution will be, but until all the copyright crap is worked out it is only great for the US. I live in Canada and we do get some movies over XBL,no NetFlix, but no TV shows. ITunes is completely stripped down to nothing, no PS3 video store, nor can we even watch HuLu. I realize it is like this an a lot of regions, so until this is fixed DD will never be the future.

GOOD!!!! I said it all along, BOTH formats will fail!!! One down, one to go! NO-ONE wants ANOTHER disc format!!! Why would I want to pay $7-20 to replace each of my DVD’s with ANOTHER disc?? But what I would pay and be happy to (and have) is to shell out $10 a month to have access to my entire DVD collection online… THANK YOU NETFLIX!!!! This IS the new standard! Who’s wants a physical thing that could break and have to buy again when you can access it online in a rotating fashion… Now just give us current shows so I can stop d/loading Desperate Housewives and Dexter for the wife and start tracking them via Xbox Live you dumb studios!! That and the ability to store about 10 movies on the Hard Drive for those rare occasions when the net goes down.

(cable free for 2 yrs now!)

Microsoft says that they have no plans for Blu-Ray on 360, but does it mean that they’re considering it?

As stated previously 1080p on demand is fine for places like the US where people don’t have sucky quotas, In Australia it is a different matter, why should it cost me to watch a movie and cost me to download it, I’m paying twice for the same content?

Honestly how many 1080 movies am I going to get for 40gb of quota? Why do US companies only think about US circumstances? There was no way in that interview was Ballmer refering to PCs.

I couldn’t care less either way if it comes out or not. I’m more than happy with my Netflix streaming.

Steve Ballmer is a Bull Tool that loves to spread BS everywhere he goes. MS never introduced the HD-DVD player because it’s what we wanted, they did it so they could be against Blu-ray.

Microsoft will add a Blu-ray player to the next Xbox because they know they will lose customers to those wanting a game console that also plays the Blu-ray movie discs that we’ve been buying for the last 4 years.

They can’t just be honest about the reason we’re not getting a Blu-ray player, they have to lie just like Sony did about the reason they didn’t have rumble in the first PS3 controllers.

“Xbox 360 owners can instantly watch the movies they want, when they want, in the highest form of high definition.”

They can’t own them. You lose.

Larry, you can’t pretend to be neutral about the console wars when you shill yourself like this.

Really? I mean I own a PS3 because it has a blu-ray player but to even pretend that instant on 1080p is even comparable to blu ray is a joke. Aside from the fact that blu ray is better, the prices on the videos are ridiculous. I can get one blu ray at a time and unlimited streaming from Netflix per month or I can pay 6-8 dollars for a 1080p low bitrate rental.

LMAO – boy Larry, you get ALL the good PR orders, don’t you?
Considering some of the FTL’s you’ve dropped lately about 360 ownership in general (unauthorized storage, etc) – this one certainly finishes off one of the worst months of Xbox 360 publicity since launch. In one fell swoop – Balmer raises the hopes of 360 fans everywhere for the first time in months – and Lord Larry taketh away.

Perhaps you should change the name of your blog site to ‘Larry’s House of 360 Anti-Climatic Wonder’

We shall all crown you PR King of the ’360 sucks’ castle and leave you and the fanboys to rot while we flee to New Mecca to play Uncharted 2 on the PS3.

ALL HAIL!

It still isn’t really the same as Blu-Ray since you never actually own streaming movies. Whether it is on Netflix or XBLM, you are only able to rent the movies, not actually purchase them.

I can’t believe people actually watch movies on their xbox’s. As cheap as DVD players are now, why waste the CPU cycles and risk heating their xbox’s up while watching a movie? And on-demand is the biggest rip-off ever! I don’t think consumers will stand for this in the long-run. Sure, in the short-term, the novelty of renting a movie online will attract a lot of consumers, but as many of the people I’ve spoken with agree, it’s just not worth it. There’s even a fee for watching tv shows on the Xbox that are freely available on hulu.com. Sometimes you just have to wonder…

An external Blu-ray player I would buy aslong as the price was right.
Downloading movies off XboxLive I have never nor ever will do.
I like to have a physical product that I can use when I want, as many times as I want.
Thats why Games on Demand is so poor and the 1080p streaming is gonna go the same route.
M$ need to stop wasting money marketing things people don’t want and start putting it into things that we would actually buy….. like a Blu-ray addon.

it was the dang gizmodo website that does not have the brain power to understand what Mr. Ballmer was talking about, or even enough grey matter to take a frehling photo or video that is not blurry and can never just set the focus to manual close-up.

Can’t wait till I move to Surrey… oh sorry went off topic there LAWL XD

Oh, and I almost forgot… with the HDMI version present in the xbox, if you run your audio and video to your tv with the hdmi cable, the audio gets out of sync with the video pretty quickly when watching a dvd.

Why would you want to pay £150 for a bd rom drive from microsoft
when you can get a 80gig ps3 for the same money

if microsoft did sell one it wouldnt be cheap thats for sure
microsoft dont do cheap accessories

Awesome. Now when I take my 360 to school – where they block game console access to the Internet – not only can I not enjoy streaming Netflix/Zune movies to it, but I can’t even look forward to using it to play blu-ray movies. I have to leave the PS3 or 360 home for my brother to enjoy, so I chose the 360 for it’s better games… but then I can’t watch any movies. Maybe I’ll take the PS3 next time.

Not offering Blu-Ray is a mistake.

DVD9 can’t last much longer, especially since TDK has created a 10-layer blu-ray disk with a 320 GB capacity.

I’m just saying.

Hurray another thing in Canada i wont be able to use I’ll just continue downloading my movies

Blu-Ray is just an excuse for not having a good render system.
-You don’t necessarily need Blu-Ray if you wanna get all you stuff onto a disc.

>Major Nelson can you make all the links Blue its almost impossible to read the word without highlight it.

Could anyone do a Kanye West meme of this?

I don’t care i’ve got a 360 and a blu-ray player! either way, im good!

Sorry Major – this is not a solution.

First, I like collecting certain movies to watch multiple times or to own the physical content with any extras.

Second, my ISP (Rogers) is a bastard and limits bandwidth to 60GB/month and ridiculous charges after that. A 6gig movie download will blow out 10% of my monthly allowance in just 2 hours.

Third, your too damn expensive for your rentals with all your restrictions, especially for Canadians since the CDN$ is basically par with the US$ and has been for awhile.

Fourth, very limited selection for people outside the US. No TV shows for outside US. I have come to like purchasing TV shows – $40 or so for an ENTIRE SEASON that I can buy and physically own the discs – to either resell or give away or keep as I want.

MS plan for no Bluray drive just means the CDN$299 PS3 looks very attractive – and the stand alone drives are now well below $200 and dropping fast. I would like my 360 to be my entertainment hub, but it just can’t be with so many limitations. Not to mention it can’t even playback the video my Canon SD960 digital camera records. The fact of the matter is that the 360, although it has the capability to do it all, will never do it all because MS believes in forcing customers into tight restrictions and heavy limitations.

So, the 360 will remain just a gaming box for many.

thanks for the update, we pass the message. Lot of noise about nothing.

Ugh, I get so tired of hearing people say “discs are dead, digital distribution is the future.”

You can’t borrow, loan, trade, or sell a digitally-distributed movie. Heck, in most cases, you can’t even move it from one device to another without breaking some kind of copy-protection scheme (which, thanks to the DMCA, is illegal). Not to mention you only get the movie; I have yet to see a downloaded movie that has alternate viewing angles, audio tracks, producer/director commentary, captions, video overlays, or so much as a flippin’ chapter menu.

And the same goes for games. I loaned my copy of Left 4 Dead to a friend just this month. Try doing that with a “Games on Demand” or Xbox Live Arcade title.

Yeah, what about Europe? we wont get that Hd-movie support.
however, I already got a blu-ray in my ps3, so im covered, but for others? blu-ray kick-ass and I recommend everyone to get a ps3 so they can get a blu-ray.

How about you put a Blu-ray drive in the next console? Forza Motorsport 3 would have easily made it onto one disc then.

LOL….. Just take the loss Microsoft. Blu-Ray won over and now you’re all butthurt over it by not putting out an add-on.
Either release the add-on or drop the ridiculous price of the Hard Drives if you want customers to “enjoy the experience”.
I seriously doubt anyone can “enjoy the experience” of getting beat in the head by abusing price marks.

You do realize major that, while I LOVE the 360 and, I must say it’s my favorite system, the PS3 is building steam because of what it offers as far as entertainment goes. A PS3 now is $300 and you get : Free Blu-Ray player, Free Online, Free Wireless capabilities, and a few other things. I own the Elite, and have wireless. Both of those were gifts…but take into account how much you’d have to pay to get THOSE now. 360 ($300) + Wireless ($100 for those who want to utilize the upcoming update) + No Blu Ray//HD-DVD drive that was a useless add-on. It’s plain to see why people are starting to come over to the PS3 side. It sucks, but it’s just how it’s turned out in the end.

If you all at M$ wouldn’t charge so much for the wireless adapters, hard drives, the controllers and other accessories, maybe more and more people who have no idea what a 360 is would have more to look at considering Christmas is coming up. I love the 360 buuuuut damn I’ve had a hell of a time making sure everything on my system works. Not to mention I’m on my 3rd system.

That’s what happens when you rush a console out MS, crap TENDS to not work out completely the way you want it to.

Oh and not to mention the amount of bandwidth it would take to download and stream 1080p videos. Seems like they haven’t heard of “monthly bandwidth caps”.

I don’t have an internet connection that can even handle 480p streaming so please release a Blu-Ray add-on.

UGH, Blu-Ray is so overrated.

Without leaving YOUR customers an option for watching their OWN movies without having to PAY everytime they want to watch it? The only reason I initially bought a PS3 last month was for Blu Ray but now I *LOVE* it! M$ is shootin themselves in the foot by burning their own customers.

BTW, is $50 a year just to play online NOT enough to give your customers more options that this? You guys will lose gamers to Sony because of this, youve already begun to lose me and many others!

How about the people that doesn’t got decent internet to steam 1080p huh? Hope you guys not taking out the CD drive on the next xbox or I be fucked!

Just to say, if u joined the preview and were accepted just enter on a game and the dash will update!

I got into the preview…wuhuuuu

BUT!!!! i cant connect to my twitter account.. everytime i type in my password i can clearly see that the password in the box is WAY LONGER than my password!… HELP.

If you did join the preview, you might want to read up on the unauthorized memory units issue

i dont have any unauthorized memory units ^^

Nice to know that my 360 won’t recognize any unauthorized devices now, should I decide to sell of this system and convert back to PS3 at the rate Microsoft is going.

The reality is that I don’t have the bandwidth to get instant-on 1080p streaming movies. And I, like many, like to also own physical media. So, now instead of my 360 being the only box attached to my TV and only having one UI to deal with (which I would love to be the case), I had to buy a Blu Ray player. So now I have two boxes and two UIs, both of which provide me with hi-def content (and both have netflix too). I would have gladly given Microsoft $200 for an add-on Blu-Ray drive, daisy-chained with my HD-DVD drive, and had a single, uniform experience. Instead, I gave LG $250 for a complete player.

we should get a blue ray drive then we’ll have no more multiple discs

This streaming thing isn’t coming to Australia is it? So why exactly is it good news for me? Give me a blu ray player add-on any day over some streaming thing that only works in certain countries.

I’m very disappointed in this. I could get rid of my PS3 if they did this! Did you read that MS? 1080p instant streaming is great and all, but I cant buy the movies and they wont have HD audio. Watching Transformers 2 on my 7.1 system with HD audio beats out 1080p steaming any day for me. I have heard that if they did make an add on the 360 couldnt output the HD sound anyway, which would be a major problem for me. I hope that the next Xbox will embrace Blu-ray and I can have one system for everything. I already use my 360 for TV and gaming which accounts for most of my living room time. I hate turning on my PS3 and disconnecting from Live, maybe I’m addicted.

yea wtf M$. Cover up fail

Just realized something after I read the article…why would he be commenting on Blu-Ray add-ons to PCs? PCs already have Blu-Ray drives for some of the PCs they make and hell, I see them in Best Buy all the time.

To cover it up and say “oh he was mentioning PCs, not the 360″ is a load of horse sh*t if I ever read any. Come on Microsoft, it’s okay to admit you’re being SMART for once. Just stop pulling the “Good Samaritan” PR move Larry, because it’s not hard for any of us outside of your job to see what’s really going on.

Netflix is great on xbox 360 im always using it. My ps3 is for blu rays.

MS talks about instant-on 1080p streaming HD movies which is great if you live in the states but for everyone else the Video server is unless.

I love the netflix capabilities of my Xbox, but I just bought a second PS3 because of the Blu-ray feature. I think MS should consider swallowing some pride here and just give their customers what they are asking for.

I love my 360 but you really need to stop giving me reasons to migrate.

Standalone blu-ray players will be cheap by Black Friday this year.
I don’t expect my 360 to make coffee, that’s why I have a wife.

“first and only console to offer instant-on 1080p streaming HD movies”

NOT IN YOUR COUNTRY if you are not in the US. I’d rather have an add-on. I hate MS’s policy of excluding Mexico from North America whenever they like.

Digital Distribution is a brilliant business move for all the reasons everyone is complaining about it…you can’t lend it, and you can’t sell it…therefore everyone has to buy or rent their own copy! They are simply trying to generate sales from people who would either borrow your copy or buy it cheaper used.

The United States has more online features and TV and Movie content because we don’t have Universal Health Care. It’s either one or the other…

I have xbox360 and PS3
but I still hope xbox360 have Blueray addons

Larry. You’re not a fool and I know you’re just towing the party line here but seriously stop with the Digital Distribution model being the second coming. It’s so fraught with limitations, not withstanding that you have quite a few million customers that don’t live in the good ol’ US of A. MS saw fit to release a HD-DVD drive while the format wasn’t even certain to win, and yet it seems now that they are reluctant to release a Blu-ray drive. MS are out of touch with their customers’ needs and simply want to force the electronic distribution model for their own purposes.

If I could own the digital copy for as long as my ID existed, and it was FAR FAR cheaper then buying it in the store, Digital Copies would be OK. But it doesn’t yet hold a candle to owning a physical disc. It can never be interrupted, it can never slow down your home network it will just work and I can loan it to a friend/relative for the night.
I seriously think it comes down to MS being sour over backing the wrong horse in the format wars and they are metaphorically sitting in the corner, sulking.

The 360:s noise is far too loud, making it useless for watching movies anyway. Passive cooling in the next version please.

Streaming HD is a very bad idea. Discs are better. A lot of people don’t have enough bandwidth for that.

Leave it out, lads. If you look at the percentage of people who purchased the HD-DVD add-on, and then take into consideration that the price of a standalone Blu-Ray player is so cheap now. What sense would it make to release such an add-on now?

Fair play to Microsoft for sticking to their guns on this one…

Anyways, it wouldn’t make any sense to release an extern BR-device for the 360 and to compete against the Zune Marketplace! Steve was just misunderstood, as usual.

With a boss like Ballmer you don’t really need competitors.

I don’t care if you don’t release a Blu-Ray add on for the Xbox360, but don’t you dare try and tell me that DD is the way to go. Most CONSUMERS would prefer to actually OWN what they pay for. If the next Xbox comes out without a Blu-Ray player you will just be giving Sony all the followers that you have gained in the last 4 years.

CORPORATIONS love the idea of DD because they only sell you a license that can be revoked or changed at anytime. If they had it their way they would charge you for each person that watched it with you as well.

It’s all well and good saying that you are driving forward with your digital delivery of online movies rather than blu ray, but as of right now, the selection of content available on the market place for non-US gamers is awful, there is around 300 movies available to rent, 50% are regularly aired on TV. There is only about 10% of that library that i would currently consider paying to rent

Currently the xbox 360 and marktetplace is in no way the market leader for digital media other than it’s games, and will have a long way to go before it does.

Right now I’d rather swallow a bitter pill and go and buy the apple tv, At least iTunes has a large selection of content even if it is at an over inflated price. And don’t get me started on the BBC content on there.

What i think microsoft is missing the point of, is that as a consumer it feels much better to have a physical product that you can hold and use, rather than a digital version which only works on one piece of tech kit, which would very quickly become outdated.

I want to know if Steve knows what an Xbox is. What kind of CEO does something like this? Wasnt he talking with a games journalist? This deserves a big time WTF STEVE?!?!

What the… The only GOOD news about X360 I heard in a while is fake?

Blu-Ray would be the best add-on to the X360. Streaming isn’t the same thing: it needs a real good connection to provide real 1080p with a very good bitrate and there are movies I want to OWN in BluRay disc, not only rent.

I’d buy the BD drive instantly, but I will give you no money/points for streaming/rent purposes: sorry.

No Blu-ray? BIG mistake! Of course, I think the biggest mistake was not INCLUDING a blu-ray player built into the system from the beginning. just my opinion. Forget ‘streaming’, it’s only good for renting movies AND subscribing to a fast internet connection.

i’m sorry but actually having physical copies of movies games etc will always be the better option, i get unlimited games/blu-rays from love film for £10 per month and i get to keep them for as long as i want. microsoft know if they released a blu-ray add on it’d cost about £250 and most people will just go and do the reasonable thing and buy a ps3, you fan boys are funny sometimes, in fact you should buy a blu-ray accessory for your avatar doll, will only cost you 8000 points.

Why the hell not? If we the consumer are calling for it… why not give us the option like you did with HD-dvd… I dont want blu-ray built into the 360…. I want an external drive that I can add to my hd-dvd drive for 360… a one stop do it all box.

Is it really that hard for you guys to do?

Because the Video Marketplace has lossless audio, extras, and I can watch it more than once in a 24 hour period right…

Oh wait.

unless you have a fast internet connection that doesn’t have any hiccups & your ISP doesn’t decide to implement a bandwith cap, digital distribution is not going to be the future. why not find a way to release a cheap (although I think that word is banned from MS thinking) add on for Blu-Ray, nobody is saying that the 360 needs to have an internal Blu-Ray like the PS3, just give your customers the option

The quality of the content is pretty poor right now, but presumably will improve. However, even if it does my biggest problem is the language support. I live in Germany, but want English content: Microsoft seems determined not to give it to me, even when the same content is available to people in the UK. This goes for games on demand as well: I can only download German language versions. I would be spending a lot more money on Xbox Live if it wasn’t for this foolishness.

Doesn’t the new Zune update let you download or stream as well as rent or buy 1080p content? Just reading what it says in my update thing on the connect site. I think thats pretty good, what would be better is use for any sized external hard drive you may have laying around to store it all on, i really don’t want to spend £90? on a 120 gb hard drive for videos

I would assume they have plans for Blu-Ray in the next iteration of the Xbox. At least when I’m in a location of Minnesota that has electricity, but still communicates via smoke signals, I can bring my PS3 to watch 1080p movies. Yet I love my Netflix on my 360, as long as you have at least an 8mb connection speed, any less and HD streaming is unstable. Used to have 5mb and that was too slow for HD streaming, upgraded to 10mb and have no problems at all now.

You guys really need to pull in the reigns on your CEO someone needs to have a talk with him.

Major in case you didn’t watch the video he was NOT talking about PC the question was clearly about the 360. Listen to how it was worded. “I don’t think we need to have Blu-Ray built in” How could that be about PC’s you guys do not make PC’s you make the software for the PC.

Not that I really believed it but seriously you either are creating one or your not, And Ballmer really thinks you guys are. Methinks that maybe just maybe he stole your guy’s thunder?

Enough of the PR stuff.

One thing he is not mentioning is that in order to actually to watch 1080p resolution you need an hdmi output and Microsoft as dumb as they are thought you don’t need 1080p when they first released the console, so a lot of people will not be able to watch thm in 1080p. Just as they thought HD DVD is the next thing. WRONG!!
But you can’t expect anything less from Microsoft. That’s why I have Xbox and PS3.
And i am not buying a stupid HDD from microsoft with 120 GB for over $100. I can buy 1TB for that money.
Greedy bastards!

Streaming 1080P at what price? Still waiting for the update.

Man come on just make the sodding drive already.. No ones gunna buy a MS blu drive for their PC they will want a good one.. but really i would walk out there right now and split £100 for a BR add-on for my 360.. im on the cusp of buying a ps3 (second hand) just for the blu-ray and maybe little big planet but thats it MGS and kill zone might be the only other games i might rent or buy but every thing else is on the box.. oooo instant 1080p streaming wow another over priced option from MS where as a blu-ray disk you can watch over and over and over and it comes with extra features… will the 1080p stream come with extra features?? Like the making of doc etc.. and will we be able to watch that film over and over at no extra cost..??

@BEN500
For the 1080P streaming on ZUNE MP it says you buy it once and can watch it over and over, not just that you can watch it from your ZUNE, or PC also.

Well a 360 with an internal drive would let us play Forza3 without the “install the 2nd” disc and without disc-swapping… would love it… An external drive (wether for PC nor for 360) for me cause I got my PS3 for this.

For the “we will have 1080p streaming movies”… Well eff that. With the bandwith I got here I wait like 30-45 minutes to start a streamed SD-Movie. I would never touch the HD ones.

How are you going to get more game content on a disk with out multiple disks or major downloads and storage space? HD DVD drive in the system?

in the highest form of high definition.

I agree about the point some one on the first page made about streaming 1080p not being equal to disk based 1080p. Does this streamed 1080p have True HD 7.1 surround with it also? I doubt it.

Ahh, but will these instant-on 1080p movies also have 5.1 surround sound, or are you going to ruin the audio stream by compressing it into stereo? I’d much rather wait to see the movie and get my full blown Dolby 5.1 or DTS surround sound, thank you very much.

MS is just plain stubborn. If the HD-Drive was such a great idea, why wouldn’t a bluray player be equally useful. I hate having to have additional units littering my desk. I’m sure many of us would actually replace our 360′s if a new one showed up with an internal BluRay. I guess even an external 1 would be better than nothing.

I’m sure the real issue is Sony not wanting to license the technology at a reasonable cost to MS. If that’s the case maybe MS should just say as much and blame Sony.

All of this discussion encouraged me to go out and buy a PS3 today. WOW – just WOW! PS3 really is quite cool. I’m not an MS or Sony fanboy, so I’m not rooting for any particular one – but I’ve had a 360 for awhile so I stuck with that platform; but the PS3 is a pretty sweet machine. Well, the issue of xbox not having Bluray is now a do not care item for me.

Anyone wanting to jump into the Bluray wagon, I totally recommend the PS3! You get Bluray and so much more.

Well, off to watch U-571 in Bluray HD. I love this movie – and I bought it now and own the disc! I like it this way much better.

AZOR… the expensive nhl jersey and the overall “fuck the customer” attitude MS is adopting recently pushed me to do the same.

And so I must say I do agree with you. The ps3 is a great system with some great game…

I figured Microsoft would not go towards blu-ray with the current console. Maybe the next console? Or is it because SONY used Blu-ray first? I figured, well sure Xbox has a massive library of movies and TV shows, but so does everything else. What needs to be focused is a much more concentration of raw power for Xbox, since the software library is at best. Therefore, sometime in the future, Microsoft needs to focus on Blu-ray, or ANYTHING ray as a matter of fact.

I was waiting for this post. This isnt the first time Steve has shot from the hip and confused the press and public. Larry, pull the reins in on your boss!

@DarkTear81: “Well a 360 with an internal drive would let us play Forza3 without the “install the 2nd” disc and without disc-swapping..”

No. Even if they released a Blu-Ray drive for the 360, it would NEVER be used for games. Microsoft just would risk alienating everyone without the Blu-Ray drive by releasing games on Blu-Ray discs.

And regarding this whole situation, to those saying “digital distribution is the future”, please get your head out of the clouds. The majority of people in the world do not have the right combination of high-speed (10mb+) broadband and unlimited usage quotas. Without both of those being available, downloading 1080p is prohibitively expensive and hugely inconvenient. Not to mention the fact that the cost of the hard drives to store these downloads on is VASTLY overpriced for what you get. 120gb for £90? Get real! A 500gb 2.5″ drive (which is all your drives are, with just an added cradle around them) costs just £79.99 at PC World and they are not known for their low prices.

Come on Microsoft, get a grip and give your customers what they want. I already have a Blu-Ray player in the lounge, but I want to be able to play my Blu-Rays in the bedroom where my 360 is too. I don’t want a PS3 (although you are managing to make them look more attractive each day that passes) and I would really prefer not to get another black box for underneith the TV.

Listen!

Digital Distribution of any content sucks, especially with Micro$oft’s bullshit licensing rules. And if the price model of current content is carried over for this….God help us. Go Sony.

Its cheaper to buy some of those movies on Blu Ray then pay those prices on ZUNE HD marketplace for only a rental….. $10 for a day rental? sorry no il stick to my ps3 for my HD movie needs. Plus Blu Ray has HD audio not the old 5.1 ……. we got 7.1 etc over here.

Plus this doesn’t give us options and this in turn means the ps3 will still gain buyers for blu ray, if the 360 had 1 then it would counter this trend.

good cause i hate blu ray does anyone even know what the BLU stands for

Why would anyone buy a blu ray drive for the 360? It would most likely cost $200 like the HD DVD drive, you’re better off getting a PS3.

Well…….
MS makes their money on software, NOT the hardware, so there’s no real incentive for them to release a Br drive. I, as a 360 user, would LOVE to have a Br add on. I like being able to OWN the movies that I pay for, and I don’t want my HDD filled up with downloaded contenet that may or may not last as long as a physical disk.

I am Sparticus, I want a Blu-ray option for my Xbox 360!!!!

Who’s with me?

Seriously!

In fact, the future of home entertainment starts very soon when Xbox 360 becomes the first and only console to offer instant-on 1080p streaming HD movies. With a library of thousands of TV shows and movies to choose from, Xbox 360 owners can instantly watch the movies they want, when they want, in the highest form of high definition.

Yea sure, if you’re in the US. For us in Canada there is very little content. More than the non-existant PS3 video store, but still no tv shows.

yes, but I still like to OWN what I pay for. For example, I paid $30.00 for HALO3, I can still get about half of that back if I sell it, same for movies, but downloaded content? No resale value at all, same price, no box, disc, instructions, etc…

if they come out with a blu-ray player now i swear i will just explode on this effin xbox, then im going to buy a plane ticket and come make a crazy psycho fool of myself.

be careful xbox, we are still waiting on you to right your wrongs (HD-DVD)

wouldn’t want a brother to snap, would you?

(the next time we take the fall, no more live and im stealing everything (mod the box)

@madducky – i do think we need a guarantee that the on demand content will be available for an eternity since they are banking so much. no scratching no stealing no clutter

Well, look at how other companies have handled digital content. Wallmart, Sony’s Sonic Stage, and the old Microsoft DRM (I cannot remember the name of it) format. They were all dropped by their respected corporations.

I prefer content on an actual disc that will survive a HDD crash, and corporate policy change!

hell someone could steal your xbox, you buy another console and re-download all your stuff, that applies to a hdd crash. corporate policy change is what scares me.

@lo0kz
And that is why having a physical disc is a good idea.

Plus, games are getting HUGE nowadays, how long before more games come on 2 DVD-9′s?

It’s their game. They supported HD-DVD not because they wanted us to have the benefit of watching them, but they wanted HD-DVD to compete with blu-ray and downloads to win in the end. And they won’t give us a blu-ray because it doesn’t fit their plan.

What garbage.

ORIGINAL POST – “ARORK – It’s a shame that people seems to not understand that the streaming quality in 1080 is not the same as a BR or a HD-DVD….”

T H A N K Y O U, AWORK! I was thinking the EXACT same thing. On top of that, you can’t get lossless audio from the 360 Hardware….at all…not even with HD DVD Movies (encoded with the tracks) played over the 360 HD DVD Drive…the architecture won’t support it! I’m a gaming fan, but I want the highest possible audio and video quality I can get for my movies & feed into my Home Theater (I’m a huge Motion Picture Experience fan..can you tell? ), and Marketplace & Netflix streaming ain’t it. All HD is not “mastered” & presented equal…even with BR, BUT that especially goes for that intended for the masses. And like another poster said, I also like having my own copy available in my hand too…on top of the quality issue.

What many don’t understand is that 1080p isn’t a quality, it is just a resolution. The less bandwidth you use, the more compressed the video will be. No downloadable 1080p movies look anywhere near the quality of Blu-ray, and that is when you download them slowly then watch later, not streaming. Throw in surround sound and that is less data for the video, and highly compressed audio. Forget having anything to compare to the Master Lossless 7.1/5.1 tracks you find on Blu-ray. Saying something is 1080p just means that it is 1920×1080 pixels and not interlaced. If not much data is being used to describe each of those pixels, it might not be any better than DVD. Packing that many pixels into a streamable level of bandwidth will not result in anything much better than what Netflix already offers. I wouldn’t be surprised if a DVD upscaled to 1080p by a decent DVD player doesn’t look a lot better than what we are going to get. Blu-ray movies are often around 30GB (some more, some less), and you aren’t gonna send that much data over anyone’s home connection in the time it takes to watch a movie. 1080p has just become a marketing term and doesn’t represent quality at all. It is just one of many factores. Like when marketing used bits to determine the power of a game system. Everything from Atari 2600 to Turbografx-16 had an 8-bit main CPU, but they sure didn’t look the same, many other variables in play!

If these downloads are dirt cheap and there is tons of films for every region of the world this is a great idea.

If I was a film buff though, I would want the actual Blu-ray disc to actually own the film outright, plus have the option of all the extras, and be able to watch it as many times as I like. Of course you could sell it on as well, unlike this streaming stuff.

It has already been said, but not everyone has the internet connection required to really enjoy Microsoft’s proposal (in case it’s something priced right, which I doubt).

MS should make a Blu-Ray accessory. Right now, they are only leaving another door open for Sony to sell more units.

Microsoft’s streaming media store will remain a dismal failure for a long time yet. MS have put no effort into licensing content outside the US, the store is overpriced, paying in MS points is very inconvenient, the storage space for it is priced at a ludicrous level, there’s no streaming of web content due to the lack of a browser, the 360′s fans make a noise like a zepplin downing in use and content can’t be transferred to other devices. I don’t buy much of iTunes, but’s a thousand times better than the 360 video store.

Seriously, if digital distribution is the future in the next ten years, then Microsoft are *screwed*, so you better hope it’s not.

Phazer

I think Microsoft should at least gauge public demand, and see if we really want one. Microsoft is more democratic than say Nintendo or Sony were during their second home platforms! If I were Microsoft, I’d bite the bullet, license Flash (or make Silverlight 100% compatible), release a Br drive and just be done with it.

Seriously, just do it, make us all happy and we’ll move on to complaining about the backward compatible list and another update.

or how about zune software letting us record a movie that would play on the hd-dvd drive.

@lo0kz
Naaaa–
It would be too hard to enforce any DRM if you could burn your own disc. Cleaver idea though.

haha yeah the cleaver is in my back, thanks to xbox

Good, I don’t want SUN anywhere near my console. My almost-java VM in Windows that was made by Microsoft at least worked and didn’t soak up 90% of my CPU when invoked like the Sun garbage does.

@The Phazer
Just look how MS have screwed up Games on Demand, I cant say I am suprised if the content is over priced.

for people who says stuff like:blu.ray is overrated or worthless etc.
okay, then why did MS support HD-DVD? only to disrupt blu-ray sales?

Streaming 1080p content is impossible in Australia. Never going to happen with our crappy broadband service and abysmally slow speeds.

I’d much rather have a BluRay player addon like the HD-DVD one. I certainly put that baby to good use with the 130 odd HD-DVD movies I bought.

Is there major compression on 1080p through streaming? The beauty of 1080p on my PS3 is there is zero video or audio compression. It’s a straight shot all the way through via HDMI to my 1080p TV.

Not to mention I regularly find blu-rays on sale for $13 or so and I OWN THEM!

post says “Highest Form of High Definition”. That is BS. 1080p is the highest resolution, but it can vary in quality greatly in that. Just because you run VHS through a converter to display it at 1080p doesn’t add any detail. Even if you upscale something to 1080p it is just made up lines of resolution to smooth it out, not additional detail. The quality of the master, and the amount of compression, have a lot to do with it. There is no way they can stream HD at a quality near that of Blu-ray. Even when Dish Network did ads that you could get movies on demand in 1080p and said the same quality as Blu-ray, they were threatened with legal action if they did not remove that, and they did. Even HD channels over Dish, which is much more data than you can stream over DSL, doesn’t look 20% as good as a Blu-ray.

Forget about HD sound too, the 360 can’t output it. It would take a new model, or an accessory to even output HD sound. If they did release a BD drive, perhaps they could allow you to loop the HDMI video through it and let the drive add HD sound to the signal, but something like that is the only hope. It can’t even output HD-DVDs at 24hz. If the streaming stuff only output at 60hz, that is another place they can’t compete. I don’t mind them not releasing a BD drive, though I remember back in the format war reading an article where someone said they likely would if HD-DVD didn’t come out on top. I have a PS3 so no big deal there, but confusing people with key marketing words like 1080p is gonna make it so less people know how much quality they should be demanding, because they won’t know it is out there.

I got the update last night and this evening tried out Valkerie using the Zune 1080p streaming and I have to say that it was absolutely superb. No glitches, no buffering. I think I noticed a couple of times where it had to reduce the picture quality slightly, but i’d really be hard pressed to be certain without bringing up the info pane. This was sitting 2 meters away from a 37″ 1080p display – if I’d been further away, I bet I wouldn’t have noticed any picture issues at all. So I am very impressed.

Having said all that. I am running on a 10meg cable connection in the middle of a large town. Huge numbers of people who live in the countryside can’t get broadband connections at all, and many people even in big towns can’t get high speeds. That’s just the nature of our appalling telecoms network in the UK. And the choice of movies is woeful. And there are no TV shows. And we can only rent not buy. 540 points = £4.63 ($6.75), which is extremely high to watch a film just once – almost as much as in the Cinema. The blu-ray only costs £16.98 (amazon.co.uk) which you can watch many times over the coming years, it has better audio and it comes with a lot of special features which the digital download does not have. And at the end of the day it can be lent and/or sold.

While it was interesting to try it once, I don’t think that I will be using the streaming feature much until the library is vastly expanded, that films and TV shows can be purchased (not just rented), that they come with the same special features as the blu-ray version and that there is enough cheap storage on the 360 to store downloaded content. In the future I will continue to buy Blu-rays to play on my PS3 (which I bought almost entirely because it was a Blu-ray player, but which is now taking some of the gaming money which I would otherwise have spent with Microsoft).

“With a library of thousands of TV shows and movies to choose from, Xbox 360 owners can instantly watch the movies they want, when they want, in the highest form of high definition.”

ok…. in sweden to? or do Microsoft just count US as always
Why must europe pay the same goldmember fee when we dont get everything?

/N

I would buy an add-on Blu-Ray drive. Not putting one out will just lead Xbox owners to buy standalones or PS3s as BR gains popularity. And, what falcon said on page 1: I like to own some of my media, not just renting.

And with Battlestar Galactica, Star Trek and other shows and movies I like coming out on Blu Ray, that is the way to enjoy them.

Why not do games in Blu Ray AND regular DVD? They already do limited editions and regular editions – just make sure the game boxes clearly indicate what disc format is used.

Blu-ray is one of the few advnatages that a PS3 has over 360, but it just about ends there. Just hope that movies on demand comes to Australia soon, and Inside Xbox and Community Games.

For this to be viable, everyone with an internet connection would HAVE TO have at least a consistant 6mps high speed broadband line(with the afore mentioned throughput), and as we know, only a fraction of those that DO have broadban,d have this kind of throughput, and then only from a handfull of broadband providers.TRUE streaming of 1080p movies on par with the quality of a decently authored Blueray title is YEARS away.We *might* see it by 2012, once highspeed broadband is in the majority of US homes, and IF those homes are equipped with the equipment needed for playback.As of right now, it’s ultimately alot easier for the average person to get a Blueray player and start buying/renting Blueray movies.

Just for your Info MS: Have you ever heard about all the beautiful extras added to Blu-Ray-Discs in comparison to Video-on-Demand on XBL: Subtitles, Making-Of’s, B-Rolls, Interviews with Cast and Crews, alternate endings, Movies in original language (interesting for everyone living in non-english speaking XBL regions). I think non of these features is supported by your “superior” service. So it’s PS3 then i guess…

I have several friends have the money, but are choosing the PS 3 now because they can justify it to their girlfriend/wife as a bluray player. They told me that if the Xbox played bluray movies they would have bought that console instead.

Just allow us to plug in any Bluray USB drive and sell us a Bluray playback kit (like Microsoft did with the original xbox, needed to buy the software for $30 to pay the DVD license fee.)

@CaNiBaL Elite

Yer i saw this once i started the preview.. **Humble pie Tastes ok** Still there are no special extras like a disc?

Would be nice to see the Major put up a vote simple yes or no to do you want a blu-ray add on.. then maybe we can all see the truth and if the yes is muh bigger then the no then maybe MS just might be motivated enough.. however im starting to agree more with DevilTriggerEX and just looking at getting a PS3 just for the blu-ray drive.. (oh and for UK users “Iplayer” as well would be nice full screen i know there is a wii channel coming for this but wii is only 480 and the iplayer transcode will be 780i for the HD content.)

@Major

Why do MS charge £100 for a 120gb drive when thats so small you cant even by them any more in PC shops, i can get a 1TB drive for that price, if the drive was solide state then maybe but since your too cheap to even put a fan on the processor i cant see this drive being anything but the cheapest.. i think you guys should at least give us a 500gb drive for that price, this allows you to still be greedy and over priced while giving the illision you like the customer..

Ballmer clearly said that Blur-ray will be coming to Xbox 360. There is no deigning it. HE SAID IT. Either the blokes a complete retard or someone is lieing to us. Either way it stinks of a cover up. But what do you expect from a greedy capitalist company in America. The land of the lie.
It makes me laugh how M$ thinks it can get away with it.