I call Bull Shite on this.

And I'll eat my HD-DVD addon if it happens

MS would be foolish not to put a blu-ray drive in new xbox 360's. Surely the inclusion of a blu-ray drive is THE compelling arguement for buying a PS3 in the first place? - (obvioulsy PS3 owners also have a fantastic multi-player online system and tons of top notch games to chose from as well). </laugh>

M$ will either accept continued existence in the living rooms of the world on Sony's terms or they will push right now for downloaded HD content.

They'll need a pipe, so they might as well buy TW cable now.

Lets hope they shrink the size, add Wi Fi and make it less noisy in the process. I love my 360 but if they did a PSTwo style makeover on it I'd trade mine in in a flash.

Will the Xbox ever use the bluray for games and if so how are M$ going to do this without seriously pissing off and who load of existing Xbox owners. Still looks like Sony are still going to have the only true bluray games format for the time being.

Why on earth would MS change the drive in the 360? Makes no sense - it'a bad enough that some xbox have a hard drive and others don't meaning that developers never make use of the ones that have it for pre-install caching etc. Having a new SKU with a Blu Ray drive would mean games would start arriving with required specs on the back. Imagine - Required: "Xbox with Blu Ray", or Required, "Xbox with Blu Ray and Hard Disk" Makes a mockery of the whole console thing. They will never in a million years start releasing multiple versions of the same xbox games. They never released any HD-DVD versions of games, so they won;t for Blu Ray - all it will do it pump the price. And there won't be an external version either, as we all know the external HD-DVD drive was released in an attempt to help kill Blu Ray rather than as a useful product with a genuine purpose. Save it for the next gen system...(which will NOT be download based, I put my hat on it. Piracy is bad enough when you have to recreate physical media, how easy will it be if it was all download to start with...)

Yes, they do. It's free, too. :-p

Of course, the big question is: if the 360 gets a Blu-Ray drive, will MS sell it at a loss to keep it less than the PS3, or will they give it a realistic price and end the crowing of smug 360 owners (those that haven't had to re-buy the console after it died).

We have a fantastic multiplayer system thats FREE. Cod4 is better online with the ps3 than 360. (Quicker to get in games and more stable).

IF the xbox live 'experience' had dedicated servers, then it would be much better - and considering you pay for the service I find that shocking. PC games have dedicated servers and they are usually free!

You do have more games. but most are crap. Looking ahead to 2008/9 I know which console has the better games coming out.

Also, you not worried that M$ is making a new xbox in the near future with blu ray? When newer games come out requiring more storage space your 360 will be obsolete.

360 sales are already starting to wobble. Physical media will be around for a good while yet. They'd be foolish to assume that all owners of HD TV's have sufficient broadband connections with which to view online HD content.

If they do bring one with a Blu-ray i dout the price difference would be any different than a PS3.

I dont speak for everyone that bought a PS3 but the thought of games being made on the size of a Blu-ray disc one day was one of the reasons for my purchase.

The only way Xbox could take advantage of that is to bring this "new 360" and make it a compleatly new console and that would just piss me off since my Ellite is not that old.

"obvioulsy PS3 owners also have a fantastic ..."

Obviously that's why GTA 4 looks so good and low def on a PS3!

http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2008/05/01/gta_iv_resolution_and_uk_sales/

With no way to play the only available source of purchased HD content, the 360 will start to seriously flag.

I wanted a 360 Elite to play GTA on this weekend, but without any decent media playback or any sign that it will ever happen, I bought a PS3 instead.

I didn't really want to own another Sony console but in this case it's a no brainer.

The fact is, it does not matter what Microsoft fit to the 360, the horse has already bolted, in that there are 17m XBox360's with DVD.

Game can never be delivered on Blu-ray, without alienating 17m existing owners.

IF Microsoft fit a Blu-ray drive, it will be via a new console (Xbox720) and bring that forward. I would expect to see a new Xbox next year, with Blu-ray and 65nm tech and a proper case design that allows for proper airflow.

The 360 upto now has been a total disaster.

You sir are an idiot.

GTA IV looks better on PS3. Every single gaming site says the same. Of course MDF (Microsoft Defence Force, thick as MDF) have a guy that claims to be able to count pixels and "Prove" otherwise, however, it's clear that PS3 still looks better...

http://forums.highdefdigest.com/showpost.php?p=935465&postcount=12

Anyone that think the 360 version is somehow better is an idiot.

Wow ! I've only had that on my PC since 1995 !

SONY should refuse to license BD to Microsoft.

Means any new games too large for DVD, Metal Gear Solid, GTA5 for example can never be on a 360.

MS can develop there own pissy games when SONY can really move forward. It has been said that GTA4 was held back due to 360 limitations, i.e. DVD and consoles with no hard disk. Any multi-platform games must be limited by the lowest common denominator. i.e. 360's.

:) FLAME ON.

IF Microsoft announce a new XBox with built-in Blu-ray, then it will be used for film playback only, not games.

I now leave you to Mark's usual pitiful attempts at trolling.

I can understand MS making an external Blu-Ray drive. I really cannot see the point in an internal drive – it can’t be used for anything other than movies without breaking compatability with older systems, and by the time it’s released, standalone Blu-Ray players will most likely be cheaper than a Blu-Ray 360 (certainly if Sony want to accelerate adoption, now that the format war is over), so the only people who are going to be interested are people who don’t already own a 360. And anyone who doesn’t own a 360 by the point most likely doesn’t have HDTV either. Where’s the market for this thing?

Blu Ray is for films, DVD is for games.

PS3 is for films, 360 is for games.

:-P

Home is going to piss all over XBL, plus it's free.

Enjoy your outdated PC.

OK, so Microsoft's dream of killing off Blu-Ray, and therefore the PlayStation 3*, before it was even released has crashed and burned, and the new BR format is King.

People on here have been talking about MS's 360 sales wobbling...

People, you have to remember that the PlayStation 3 is just over a year old. The 360 has been out over 3 years. The average age of a console these days is 5 years, so the XBox III should now be in development, probably with a BluRay drive packed into it, and 500GB/1TB hard drive versions all planned out for mixed physical media/downloaded games being released by different distributors/game designers.

Microsoft's not in trouble yet... And, yeah, I'll be flamed for saying it by the PlayStation 3 fanbois, but I don't care... I hardly think £500 for a new console is worth it... I thought that for the Neo Geo, and I think that for the PlayStation 3

*Can't call it the PS3... That'll be released in smaller packaging in about 2 years time...

The 360 is just starting to make a profit. However, it is coming up to 3 years old and is starting to show its limitations in turns of pop-up and texturing. There is probably more to be squeezed out of it, but somewhere in Microsoft they must be looking at a third generation XBox.

Adding Blu-ray to 360 will increase costs, decrease profits and divert resources from the replacement whilst doing nothing to address the real issues of the 360 - it's going to look increasingly antiquated as developers get to grips with the PS3.

Finally, would anyone want to watch a Blu-ray movie with the 360 bellowing away? Mine came back from being fixed for the RRoD and it is noticeably noisier, so much so that it is impossible to watch a HD-DVD that hasn't been made by Michael Bay.

Sony don't OWN Blu-Ray. They are one of the founding technical partners of the BR consortium, which is also made up of the likes of Apple, Panasonic, Pioneer, LG, Samsung, Matsui and several other high profile companies that will be VERY eager to see BR drives in the 360 to boost profits and uptake.

"MS can develop there own pissy games when SONY can really move forward. It has been said that GTA4 was held back due to 360 limitations, i.e. DVD and consoles with no hard disk. Any multi-platform games must be limited by the lowest common denominator. i.e. 360's.

:) FLAME ON"

I smell fan boi. Its the other way around but hey dont let facts get in the way of a good rant.

MS werent even going to make HDDVD games... Never mind blu ray. They've been Dooove all the way.

in 6-12 months, that will be the key difference between 360 and PS3.... Having to use half a dozen discs on the Xbox, or one on the PS3.

I would buy another 360 if they added it. Cheaper than some java powered brick.

Jesus, cant you fanboys ever post to a console article without your prejudices shining a spotlight on your ignorance.

If Microsoft want to give the 360 a bluray option then let them do it.

Just go play your games and be happy with your purchase.

Oh wait, that would mean you have to be adults !!!

The fact that lite-on drives suck? : ) I've had cd-rs, dvd-rws, cd-rws, and seen a friend's blu-ray drive lite-on and they were all noisy, overpriced, low quality components.

No wonder Microsoft has chosen them.

"The 360 is just starting to make a profit."

The 360 is not starting to make a profit, they were clever in hiding that $1.15Billion repair bill in a single quarter, so the next quaters looked good, when they make a $600,000 profit.

If you add up all the losses ($4Billion Xbox development, $1.15Billion 360 repair bill, $3Billion 360 development), they are FAR from making a profit. Unlikely this generation, and only a prayer next generation.