People should not jump to conclusions about this.

Many people seem to assume that this means that Xbox360 games will come on HD-DVD discs at a later date. This just wont happen.

The later models of the Xbox360 will likely only play HD-DVD *movies* but the games will still be locked with only DVD capabilities.

They wont be able to establish a new standard for the games later, the day they launch, they basically establish a precedent, one that can't be changed, news articles should not be so vague and misleading.

Reporters should state what the likely outcome is. Microsoft is being intentionally vague to mislead people into thinking that this will put the system on equal grounds with the PS3.

The truth is it really wont. You can't just change the standard of a console after it's been launched, it would mean that gamers would have to buy a new system to play the new games, which means it would be the same as launching the system all over again from the begining.

This is *exactly* why add-ons like the Sega CD and Sega 32x failed in the past, because you had to buy a bunch of extra hardware to use them, which was essentially like buying a completely different system. It just wasn't practical.

In this situation it's even worse because Microsoft would end up confusing people since it's not an add-on. People would not get why new games don't work on the system, and would feel ripped off.

This is all a bunch of PR bull, mark my words. The Xbox360 will *only* play HD-DVD *movies* and not HD-DVD games. You can write it down in stone. :)

By the way, as a note, I'm not a Sony fan or anything, I could care less about the war between Sony and Microsoft, to be honest I actually despise both companies. I'm mostly a Nintendo fan.

But you know, if it smells like bull, then it must be bull. Of course, Microsoft never 'said' that the games would be HD-DVD, so when people start wondering why the games aren't HD-DVD, Microsoft can just say that they were refering to the movies.

The magic of vagueness. ;)

People should not jump to conclusions about this.

Many people seem to assume that this means that Xbox360 games will come on HD-DVD discs at a later date. This just wont happen.

The later models of the Xbox360 will likely only play HD-DVD *movies* but the games will still be locked with only DVD capabilities.

They wont be able to establish a new standard for the games later, the day they launch, they basically establish a precedent, one that can't be changed, news articles should not be so vague and misleading.

Reporters should state what the likely outcome is. Microsoft is being intentionally vague to mislead people into thinking that this will put the system on equal grounds with the PS3.

The truth is it really wont. You can't just change the standard of a console after it's been launched, it would mean that gamers would have to buy a new system to play the new games, which means it would be the same as launching the system all over again from the begining.

This is *exactly* why add-ons like the Sega CD and Sega 32x failed in the past, because you had to buy a bunch of extra hardware to use them, which was essentially like buying a completely different system. It just wasn't practical.

In this situation it's even worse because Microsoft would end up confusing people since it's not an add-on. People would not get why new games don't work on the system, and would feel ripped off.

This is all a bunch of PR bull, mark my words. The Xbox360 will *only* play HD-DVD *movies* and not HD-DVD games. You can write it down in stone. :)

By the way, as a note, I'm not a Sony fan or anything, I could care less about the war between Sony and Microsoft, to be honest I actually despise both companies. I'm mostly a Nintendo fan.

But you know, if it smells like bull, then it must be bull. Of course, Microsoft never 'said' that the games would be HD-DVD, so when people start wondering why the games aren't HD-DVD, Microsoft can just say that they were refering to the movies.

The magic of vagueness. ;)

However, you make the assumption any games would NEED HD-DVD capacity. At the rate at which content is being produced, I don't see it happening. A BIG game currently takes up about 5 GB, I don't see our need for capacity to double in the next 3 years. Sony is trying to market an asset that is simply meaningless. The reason people want HD-DVD drives won't be because their games are running out of space, it's to watch high definition video, which is exactly what the upgrade will do. *If* we do run out of space and someone decides to release some bloated unplayable monster of a game, we could simply release a 2 DVD game, with a hard drive, all user settings could be saved on the XBox HardDrive or Memory card.

So go ahead, write it in stone, but you might as well write "My name is Jim Bigglestein" because it's just as relevant to the issues at hand.

Hm... I'm sorry for the double post... I have no idea why that happened... I didn't click the Send button twice or anything (that's usually what causes it on other sites), I clicked it once and that's it... Maybe it's a problem with my browser or something... Anyways, I guess this reply will work as a test... Hope it doesn't happen again. :

Anyways im.thatoneguy ... I really never said anything about it being useful. I'm saying that Microsoft is being intentionally vague to mislead people. I already said that I'm not a Sony fan or anything, so I'm not trying to say one system is better. I also don't believe consoles should be jumping on this technology so soon, it's likely going to take a few years to work out all the kinks, and we'll all have to put up with defective bullshit until then, which is what Sony always does. It really ticks me off.

However, it's still wrong to mislead people. Also, even if the games don't really need the space on the discs, you know very well that the majority of console zombie-followers will not care, they'll just run around saying "oh my system is more powerful! my system can store more space" and I hate that. If console systems were to fight *without* the bullshit and hype, Nintendo would likely have already taken back the game market. But these days people buy systems because they're 'cool' and not because of the quality that the company puts into it. Sony doesn't even have any real game franchises, they're all third party. Do you think Sony would be able to survive in Nintendo's shoes? Nintendo is making truckloads of cash, they're hardly even hurting, because they have an empire to make games. Sony just makes hardware, they'd be finished without the third party support.

Some mainstream gamers actually think that *Sony* makes those games! And that kind of misleading hype really annoys me. Is it too much to ask for people to get informed? Most Xbox360 fans will cheer at this news about HD-DVD, likely without knowing that it's only for the movies.

I think it's relevant. I want game consoles to win for the right reasons, not because they mislead people. Consoles should not win because one is "cooler" or "hipper" than another.

Also, there's another factor here. As I mentioned before, I also don't really believe that all the space they're touting for Blu-ray is necessary... but even so, I find myself asking what if it is?

Two identical games may require more space on one system than another if the graphics on one of the games is better. The texture quality and model complexity counts the most for space.

It's possible that models that took a few megs on the PS2 may instead take 15 megs on the PS3, due to being of higher graphics quality. It's all relative.

Also, some games don't function properly with multiple discs, namely games that aren't linear. As much as I dislike GTA, I would imagine it's a good example. You'd have to store a lot of the basic stuff like the entire city each time on every disc.

Also, aren't multi-disc DVD cases thicker? I don't think they fit nicely in DVD storage slots like people have in their entertainment centers (in the furniture).

Anyways, I'm not arguing against you here, I'm mostly just concerned. I was around back in the early days of gaming, and back then the atmosphere was just better, many didn't even care about the specs of a system back then. Today it's all they talk about.

One thing by the way... Xenosaga on PS2. Look it up, it's a game that completely fills up a DVD9 disc. But I'm not exactly sure how it's storred on the disc... Maybe the developers storred the textures without compressing them (to speed up loading times), and maybe all the cutsceenes (it's an RPG) are storred in raw MPEG2 or something, which makes for huge files...

It will probably be common practice in the next-gen to use better video codecs to compress video. But even so, I'm not sure how small the video content can be made. We'll have to wait patiently to find out.

In the meantime, I'm really curious about what Nintendo's up to... their secrecy is really painful. :(

There is alot of PR bull going around with both Microsoft and Sony when in comes to next generation games. For the most part, the 9GB provided by dual layer DVDs will be enough for the majority of next generation titles. There are two major reasons for this:

- During the first year or so the majority of game console owners will not have HDMI capable HDTVs (just because someone already has an HDTV doesn't mean it has an HDMI port).
- Most games only have up to around 30 minutes of cut scenes which at high quality 1080i would amount to only around 4GB of data. There is still another 5GB for the rest of the game.

Now, that having been said, during the third or fourth year of a game console's life, there are still usually some nitch titles that try to push the limits of the system and sometimes even require additional hardware upgrades to take full advantage of the game. Nintendo 64 had a video memory upgrade add-on for a hand full of games towards the end of the console's life. Dreamcast had some games that could take advantage of a broadband adapter add-on. And there a small number of games for the PS2 which can take advantage of a hard drive add-on.

Keep in mind, supporters of the HD-DVD format have shown that it is possible to have a dual standard disk which is HD-DVD on one side and DVD on the other. So, don't be surprised if at some point in 2007 or 2008 there are dual Xbox360 games. On one side will be the "regular" resolution 9GB game and on the other side will be the "extended" 15GB game. First generation Xbox360 owners will only be able to play the regular version. Most first generation owners will probably be willing to just live with the limitation and those that aren't will just have to be willing to pay the whatever price point Xbox360 drops to by then.

In the end, this move by Microsoft is more of a politcal move in the format war than the console war. The original specs for HD-DVD included a dual layer size of 30GB and has been since updated to include a triple layer size of 45GB. For purposes of movies, the additional space that BluRay will someday scale to does very little that is of interest to company's looking to publish movies. And while it might be nice to get an entire TV series season all on one disk, that isn't enough of an advantage to establish a standard. Clearly, the technical advantages of BluRay was a selling point to software publishers and it is probably Sony's hope that Microsoft would announce development of a MS Bookshelf (or some other product) that would take advantage of the extended size that BluRay could provide. By announcing that MS wil be shipping HD-DVD drives in 2006, they are sending a strong message that Sony might have been able to convince Apple to back BluRay but Microsoft is backing the other side.

Some of what you say are most definately true, however there a are a few flaws.
1) HDMI can be converted to DVI quite simply because the video signal embedded in HDMI is the same as DVI.
2) Not only cut-scenes will require high-definition video, inside the game, textures will have to be high-definition also. Textures make up a significant amount of the game as compiled code and audio just doesn't take that much space.

I believe by releasing two different versions of XBox and therefore sooner or later, two different versions of games, will lead to confusion in consumers.

Blu-Ray companies: Apple, Dell, HP, Hitachi, LG, Mitsubishi, Panasonic, Pioneer, Phillips, Samsung, Sharp, Sony, TDK, Thomson, 20th Century Fox, and Disney. (Along with Sony Entertainment, MGM, Buena Vista, VU Games, and EA Games.)
HD-DVD companies: Toshiba, NEC, Sanyo, and Microsoft. (Along with New Line Cinema, Paramount, Universal, and WB.)

Hey flukie ...

The problem though, is that Sony and Microsoft have *said * that HD will be *mandatory* and not optional.

Keep in mind that Sony is a consumer electronics manufacturer, they likely WANT to pressure people to buy HDMI-capable sets, so the first-generation games may indeed be quite HD-capable.

As for the dual-disc, I know about that. I'm a pretty vocal supporter of HD-DVD, mostly as a lesser-of-two-evils kind of thing (both formats are full of DRM, and one is being supported by Microsoft now, and I hate them, but even with all that, I still think Blu-ray is worse), I just feel that Sony is once again trying to freakin' push their own format on everyone else... I mean my impression is that Blu-ray wasn't even originally conceived as a video disc, seeing as it used caddies for crying out loud. Sony likely changed their plans when they realized they may be able to strike a monopolizing situation by using the PS3 as a catalyst to win the market.

Back to the dual-disc, I seriously hate that idea. I never liked the idea of dual-sided discs even back with DVD. Also, the HD-DVD dual-disc is going to be expensive, and making a game like that is going to be a lot harder, reducing the quality of a game enough to let the textures all fit on the DVD side is going to be lots of extra work, developers likely will not want that. And many users may not like that their discs will be all messed up in appearance just to support the 'legacy xbox360' and likewise others wont like it because they don't want the companies to give special treatment to the owners of the new xbox360 models. It just wont work, you can't do business that way.

As for Blu-ray's 'extra space', it's likely vaporware, I wrote about this in my livejournal:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/zentoria/1057.html

The fact of the matter is that since the PS3 will launch with 50GB capacity only, this establishes a 'precedent' that they will not be able to escape later. To most people a DVD player is like a toaster, you buy one, and it lasts you for years. Therefore no movie studio is taking Sony's 4-layer or 8-layer discs seriously. They'll never be useful for them, since they're *launching* the standard with only the 2-layer discs. That's a precedent, and all movie studios will have to observe that limitation.

Then there's disc-writing, which seems difficult to imagine because dual-layer writing is already insanely expensive and difficult, can you imagine four layers or eight? I'll have to take a wait and see approach. The situation may arise that getting four or five HD-DVD-R's (2-layer) is cheaper than just one 8-layer Blu-ray R disc. So yeah, wait and see on the burning thing.

Game consoles is the only place that 4-layer or 8-layer is potentially viable, like for the PS4. But game consoles are proprietary systems, so it doesn't matter what disc format they use, even if HD-DVD takes off, in a few years (by the time the PS4 comes around) it'll be easy to make a unit that can read both HD-DVD and Blu-ray, even if it is totally cost-innefective right now.

But this gets me wondering if Toshiba's 3-layer discs are also vaporware, if they actually pull off a 45GB HD-DVD disc at *launch* of their first player, then they may very well win the war before it begins. Since that will likely be a strong lure to the movie studios currently supporting Blu-ray.

As for having an entire TV series on one disc, I imagine that it would not be possible even on Blu-Ray. But also, it's not cost-effective, the studios will want to sell the shows with lesser episodes per disc to make more money off each disc sale. Therefore HD-DVD is abundantly sufficient.


Anyways, to address what rollerbldes said about supporters...

There's actually a lot more than just those supporters, go to the HD-DVD Promotion Group's website, they have a more correct list.

Also, hardware manufacturers are not *that* relevant, it's the movie studios that will shape the war. If the studios decide that HD-DVD wins, then the hardware manufacturers have no control, they will *have* to fall in line.

If you look at studios alone... Sony's biggest supporter for Blu-ray is itself (Sony owns MGM as well), so what does that say about the format?

I don't like what Sony's been trying to do. Ever since they got the game market, they've been getting pretty uppitty. Although they've always been pretty arrogant. I hope Blu-ray is defeated, I don't want Sony to just have it's way. They have to learn that they can't always just force their crap down people's throats.

That's just my opinion anyways. :

Hey I am going to buy both a Sony PS3 and an Xbox 360 and my reasons for doing so is because I love to play video games and if now they both are going to play HD DVDs then the better for us/me. Who cares weather or not the game data will be stored on a DVD or an HD-DVD as long as the game plays on whatever version you have. The general population is never going to know, and even if they could tell what’s the difference as long as it still plays. It’s not like the game is somehow going to look better. It will only look as good as the game developer deems necessary. If they render the game at 720p then it will play at 720p weather its on a DVD or HD-DVD so this little battle between Blu-Ray on the PS3 and the DVD on Xbox 360 has nothing to do with how well the Xbox is going to perform. It is just transferring the Sony Blu-Ray and HD-DVD war to also include the next generation of game stations. And only because Toshiba is backing the HD-DVD format, and since Microsoft and Toshiba have made an alliance Toshiba wants to put there HD-DVD player in the Xbox so that they don’t loose the chunk of the market that has a PS3 and or the people that wait for the PS3 so that they can play High Definition Movies and play video games on the same system. I just wanted to share a quote I found on the Seattle Times web page http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2002356946_dvdwars04.html?syndication=rss “Still, prettier pictures may not be enough to persuade the masses to embrace high-definition discs, said Bob Chapek, president of Buena Vista Home Entertainment, a division of Walt Disney. "You'd better be chock-full of features" that are not available on DVD, Chapek said.” This is the same situation for Xbox 360 and PS3 whatever system has the features that draw in more consumers is the System/Format that is going to rep the benefits.

There aint a difference in the quality the games play between the xbox 360 and ps3 but at the moment there is in movie playing which is where the ps3 have and edge, I think all microsoft need to do is release a fairly priced external blu-ray player, and if they do that I will buy and xbox 360 elite and blu-ray drive to go with my toshiba 32" hd tv instead of the ps3 mainly because i would not be able to live without gears of war 2. The only edge i see that ps3 have now is the blu-ray player, their games do not attract me at the moment like GOW and DEAD RISING these kind of games have made the 360, and not to mention Halo.