Xbox 360 may support Blu-ray on condition it wins the battle

While
Microsoft was originally going quite strongly against the Blu-ray format, it
seems like they may be finally deciding to go with the flow.  Recently,
Peter Moore, the Xbox 360's company gaming division boss has announced that
Microsoft may possibly add Blu-ray support to its Xbox 360 later on. 
However, to start with, they will launch an external HD DVD drive
later this year that will allow an Xbox to play HD DVD movies.   As a result, this will mean that existing Xbox owners will not be left out. 

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When Sony
decided to offer Blu-ray support for the upcoming Playstation 3 from the very
start, they are taking
quite a risk,
since if for some reason Blu-ray turns out as a failure, their
console could be put at a disadvantage.  By Microsoft only supporting
DVDs on the Xbox 360, they can wait to see how each format takes off and then
give the consumer a choice on which to take on for their console.  However,
according to what Moore said with the Japanese website ITMedia, a Blu-ray drive
will only be released if Blu-ray wins the battle, while a HD DVD drive
will definitely be released regardless of the turn-out.  Thanks to
Herbert for sourcing the following news:

In the wake of Microsoft's CES announcement of a peripheral HD-DVD drive for the Xbox 360, the company's gaming division boss Peter Moore has revealed that a Blu-Ray drive could also be on the cards for the system.

Speaking with Japanese website ITMedia at the huge electronics show in Las Vegas last week, Moore said that a Blu-Ray drive for the Xbox 360 could be released if the Blu-Ray standard, which is backed by Sony, wins the next-generation DVD format battle.

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Microsoft currently supports Toshiba's rival HD-DVD specification over Sony's Blu-Ray, but the company uses standard DVDs for Xbox 360 games and will only support HD-DVD movies with the release of the new external drive later this year.

The full story can be read here.

While Microsoft appears to be taking a better approach
by waiting to see which next generation DVD format wins the battle first,
unfortunately the console is still at a disadvantage by being limited to the DVD-ROM's
capacity for games.
  For example, even if Blu-ray fails to take off as a movie format, this does not mean it will fail to do well as a format for holding games.  The original Playstation 1 done exceptionally well, yet it cannot play movies.

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Feel free to discuss about the Xbox 360 on our Console forum.

Source: GameIndustry.biz

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