[Ruined]

Originally Posted by ganthc

Maybe, or it will force people to get a ps3 to watch movies they don't want to download. If they offer the add-on, they keep 360 customers from going to the "dark side." Hd-dvd add-ons weren't a threat to the download business. I know there was the secondary aspect of hurting Sony, but really, I bet it made them money.

Buying a PS3 is $400. That is a lot of money to spend compared to the HD download that is $5. And, the PS3 situation is merely temporary. By XMAS when volume is high, BD standalone players will street $250 and less, making game console integration irrelevant. How do you expect MS to push a $179-$199 Blu-ray addon when standalones cost $50 more?

It very well could. But they still will get those royalties off Paramount, Warner, and Universal vc-1 encodes sold with blu-ray. Spurring more sales via their bd add-on would be a multiplier for that revenue. The hardware could turn a profit. The costs for making bd drives is dropping more and more.

But as a tradeoff they have to pay royalties to Sony and Java who are two of their biggest competitors, while contributing to the adoption of a technology that may slow adoption of HD downloads, the direction where MS clearly is going in the future. So I'm not sure the profits outweigh the long term affect of helping BD go mainstream.

Yeah, but if it is a revenue stream, why cut off your chance to make more money to invest in other areas. You could even have Sony front the costs for your development and integration. I'm sure that is going on during these talks. Both sides can benefit from this.

Again, they could make money in some areas but they would be helping their competition in others. Do you know that Windows Media Player still can't play MPEG4? There is a reason for that, and its not because Microsoft can't build an MPEG4 decoder (there is one in the Zune player). They did this with WMP to slow down adoption of MPEG4 and instead ramp up WMV/VC1 adoption - which worked as video download stores like Amazon Unbox and many other sites use WMV despite it being a Windows codec. Most of MS' decisions are based on longterm planning as opposed to short term profit.

Yeah, but the heavy users of their technology will not be using it anymore, so big deal. Hdi will not be used on blu-ray movies, so special features that studios were using that tech for will not be doing so for quite some time. And once again, MS may make Sony pay for the bd-java training to make the hardware compatible.

Regardless of whether HDi is used or not, Microsoft will be helping Sun by selling a device with Java in it. Microsoft rarely helps competitors, unless there is a very significant gain to be found for themselves. I just don't see that gain with another addon.

3 of the major studios use vc-1. That might be incentive enough. But you could be right. My thinking is that it will be a chance to make money, and with the BDA possibly fronting money, it will come out with little investment from MS.

Studios use VC-1, sure, but MS will be helping the spread of Java instead of their own software development. They may not want to do this, especially since VC-1 is a mandatory BD codec in hardware anyway and Microsoft making a BD drive would have no impact on whether studios choose MPEG2/AVC/VC1.