Quote:
Originally Posted by ganthc
This is what I said in that other thread regarding this issue. If there is money to be made, MS will pursue that angle. Why not? It's not like it will hurt their download business. Those that want downloading can still download, but those that prefer to own the physical media will now be able to buy the attachments for their xbox360's. Clearly, the two can both be financially profitable for MS.
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1. Despite your logic, it will hurt their download business. Now that HD DVD is toast, 100% of XBOX 360 owners can only get hidef rentals through downloads.
2. It will not make them any significant money IMO. A Lite-On standalone BDROM costs $130 at newegg. In order for the addon to work right, it will need to have one of those ROM drives plus in addition to that the logic necessary to playback BDs (this logic is not in XBOX 360). On top of this, MS much off BD disc sales, they make most money off of the VC-1 royalties of sales of BD hardware... But this will be counteracted by the money they will have to spend marketing, packaging, and writing and updating software for BD playback.
3. It will be helping their competitor more than it does them. 360 does not need BD in any way shape or form. You will be able to get a BD standalone for under $300 this xmas... Why the heck would someone buy a $200 addon if that is the case? OTOH, Sony needs BD to take off as fast as possible since it is very heavily integrated into PS3.
4. It contains technology MS is at odds with, namely BD-Java.
IMO, if Blu-ray had HDi, Microsoft could and would come out with an addon tomorrow. But since the BDA picked Java instead (ironically I believe Sony voted for HDi), MS has little incentive to help BD since it contains none of their software development packages.