X06: Xbox 360’s HD-DVD add-on priced and dated!
Fresh from X06 in Barcelona comes the much anticipated news regarding the Xbox 360’s HD-DVD drive. Although the release date isn’t as definitive as we’d like, it will be available mid-November at a retail price of €199 euros, £129 pounds and $199 dollars. If that’s not great value already, it even comes with a few added extras. More after the jump.
With a price that will certainly please a lot of movie enthusiasts, the addition of an Xbox 360 Universal Media Remote, and for a limited time, an HD-DVD copy of Peter Jackson’s King Kong will only make them giddy.
Microsoft of course didn’t fail to bring across their opinion on the next-gen format war with Peter Moore stating “The Xbox 360 HD DVD Player is the best high-definition movie experience and value on the market. The reviews, the word of mouth and the consumer response have all been crystal clear — HD DVD is the format of choice. We’re not forcing movie technology on game players but are instead letting them choose how to personalize their experiences. If they want HD DVD, there’s no better value out there”. Clearly he’s biased, but he does have a point.
Also confirmed categorically was the fact that the Xbox 360 will be able to output movies and indeed games at a full 1080p native resolution after the upcoming Autumn update. Users will be able to enjoy blockbuster releases from many major movie studios and can look forward to more than 150 HD-DVD movies available by the holiday period.
first….. but thats not important…
whats important is 199 is not bad for a HD dvd player my only concern is it native 1080p…. with component…
eventhough I don’t have a 1080p tv set
how do these movies look in 720p? anyone early adopters know if its worth getting for 720?
Sweet. Beats $500 for the Toshiba HD1A.
The HD-DVD movie quality is really all over the place. Some movies are gorgeous (Serenity, Sky Captain) and some are hideous (Tomb Raider). All of them sound really good though. Personally, I won’t be getting a 1080p TV for a while so 720p is fine by me. The only thing that really sucks about the HD-DVD drives is that they take FOREVER to load a disc. Upwards of 30-45 seconds! I hope that’s been shortened to 10 seconds in these puppies.
update:
This months sales for hddvd vs bluray movies
11 to 1 , that is up from last month of 8 to 1 HAHAHA this is histercal
720p looks unbelievably crisp… 1080p is great but only over 50-60″ anything under or near that 720p is the best and is very clean
BTW if your screen deinterlaces well 1080i is basically the same as 1080p lol go figure
The load time on the disc WAS NOT BECAUSE OF HDDVD it was the original playe,r the newer ones are a little faster and knowing MS this addon will be even faster.
So can someone please tell me why i should get one of these and not an HD DVD player, what advantages are there(if any)over an HD DVD player apart form just looking similar to a 360
Price.
But surley in a couple of months HD DVD will cost the same as this anyway, is there no other “advantages”?
The potential that since its USB it will be hacked to work with a PC?
Also it’s probably just an internal PC drive (SATA or PATA) in a case with a USB interface, which means it could possibly be the cheapest PC HD-DVD drive for a while.