If Microsoft has any regrets about not including a Blu-ray player in the Xbox 360, it certainly isn't showing.
Speaking to Edge magazine, Microsoft's Xbox product director Aaron Greenberg said the Xbox 360's lack of a Blu-ray player has actually been crucial to the console's success. He claimed that the Xbox 360's installed base is nearly twice that of the Playstation 3, though he's likely referring only to North America, as both consoles are selling comparably overseas.
One benefit of not having a Blu-ray player was cost, Greenberg said. Until Sony cut the PS3's price to $300 last October, the Xbox 360 Pro was $100 cheaper. Microsoft still sells a $200 model that doesn't include a hard drive.
But Greenberg said there are other benefits as well. "For us, our bet was on digital distribution, that was the future -- the ability to [play] 1080p movies with no disc, no download required; we have the largest movie and TV library, the largest HD library of any console," he said.
It's strange that Greenberg points to movies as an example of digital distribution. There's technically nothing stopping Sony from offering a streaming video catalog; they've just opted for downloadable purchases and rentals instead. However, there is something to be said for the digital distribution of games, which Microsoft has been doing for some of its older retail titles. Sony has said it can't do something similar because the size of its Blu-ray-based games would make them cumbersome to download.
Of course, the PS3's Blu-ray player does have its advantages. Aside from the obvious ability to watch Blu-ray movies, the capacity of the discs allow game developers to store more on a single disc. On the Xbox 360, developers have struggled with the best way to break their games up, as evidenced by Final Fantasy XIII (three discs) and Mass Effect 2 (two discs, and you had to switch back to the first before the game's final act).
Digital distribution vs. Blu-ray is an argument that comes up often for movies. It's funny that the same argument is now happening with video games.
