Ballmer: 360 will get “Blu-ray drives as accessories”

Not much point buying a 360 add-on for Blu-Ray now that dedicated players are so cheap, though.

MS say Physical Media has no future…. quick… boycot the system in the highstreet…

… oh wait this isn’t Sony…

MS are inovators! No one wanted Physical Media anyway!! 360 is fantastic!!!

Yay!

I’d rather download HD content, thanks.

I’ll just stick to torrenting the stuff for free, thanks.

And i would rather buy an actually disc, that way thers no download limits, no problems if that company fucks up n the servers get shut down etc etc

What he said has totally been taken out of context. There is no way Microsoft would ever entertain adding blu-ray.

What he probably meant was “you can buy a blu-ray player for cheap and stick it next to your 360″. I mean why on earth would they add blu-ray when they have this much touted 1080p streaming coming soon.

Don’t get me wrong, digital media is cool and all, insignificant loading times and all that.
But nothing beats the disc based experience.

Lets face it, the major downside is DRM, if you’ve paid for it of course.
Always the case that you can re-dl it plenty of times, then all of a sudden you have to beg and plead for a password reset because you accidentally deleted it again.
I never have to worry about that with discs.
And considering the failiure rate of this current generation this sort of DRM has been experienced by everyone.

This is the way that I look at it…

DISC
Pros:
Own a physical product

Cons:
Can get scratched or physically damaged
Need storage and maintanance
Need to keep swapping discs

DOWNLOADS
Pros:
Buy at any time of day
No disc waiting times
No storage space needed
No swapping
Watch film right where you left it after watching another film in between

Cons:
No physical product

Sorry G1GAHURTZ but No storage space needed ? FAIL. It may not be physical storage space but you still need a big enough harddrive to fit everything that you want on.

Giga, you forgot

Pros for Blu Ray
Almost indestructable unless you deliberately set out to damage it with an implement of sorts.

Con for Download
DRM making you have to beg to get access to your purchase.

Also, I’ve been known to watch DVDs on my PS3, stop watching, watch something else in between, go back to the first one and start from where I left off.
I was quite impressed by that.

@G1gahutz
Doesn’t Bluray avc-4 or whatever have 40Mbps rate. How on earth can you get that via download (for the average adsl user)? You can’t, you’ll get a good picture for sure but it will be compressed and the audio usually suffers.

Nothing will ever beat the disc format for clarity. Until of course we jump 10 years into the future and all have very high internet speeds.

Also if you hard disk gets corrupted then you lose everything on your hard disk.

SSDs FTMFW!

Yeah, I was going to put about the discs having a better quality but didn’t, so I did miss that out.

Not sure about having to beg for passwords though, as I’ve never had to do that before.

But as I said, those pros and cons are the way that I see things personally. In the last few years, I’ve only bought one film on DVD, and that was just to really test out a new home cinema system. All of my other film purchases have been downloads, as I personally prefer the convenience and ease of access.

“Also, I’ve been known to watch DVDs on my PS3, stop watching, watch something else in between, go back to the first one and start from where I left off.”

That’s cool, but did you remove the disc during the time that you watched something else?

@Giga
You missed quite a few cons for downloads matey.

DRM: how many times can the download be activated, or how long is the rental period?
also I don’t fancy lugging my PS3/Xbox360 around with me so friends can watch films I downloaded.

Usage cap: not everyone has a unlimited cap on their net, download speed is also a big factor.
HD space: will be eaten up fast if you want your downloaded film to have the quality of a disc.(at the moment this is not the case)

I’d be ok with paying for digital download movies on a pc (provided either/or but preferably and of unlimited download attempts or the ability to back up to a physical disc.

I’d never outright buy a digital movie on a console, it’s more like a long term rental. New console? bye bye movies.

Discs are a pain in the arse, i nocd crack every game I can get away with it on. personally

@Giga
Yeah I watched a seperate DvD between.
I was confused at first, but have done it again and it’s pretty nifty that it can recognise the DvD.

Granted, maybe beg was a bit strong, but I’ve lost count of how many times I and others I know have had to ask for account resets just to get access to content they’ve already paid for.

Maybe because your secluded on an Island and cut off of the rest of the world(thats a joke btw), but you are all missing the standard for movies today and in the furture. Its simple and two fold.
It is NOT buying highpriced blurays(thats stupid), who wants to drop 30usd for a new movie?
It is NOT buying HD Movies that need multi GIGs to store. They are over priced anyways.
And it is not being a criminal and downloading illeagel, often virus ladden Torrents.

Fools.

Say hello to NETFLIX.

I can STREAM HD movies to my xb360. And watch them there. I can recieve Blu Ray movies in the mail, and it takes a one to two day turn around. Cost? Less then 10usd/month. Three times less then buying just one Blu Ray each month.

What? Don’t get Netflix in the UK? You poor Sods. You must have something else like it … right? If not, demand it. You don’t have to be a tool and buy overpriced movies and you don’t have to steal them.

Right now I have 250plus movies on my Netflix instant Q ready to watch on my xb360 – no storage needed. And If I like I can get any Blu Ray for my PS3 by this weekend. Do I buy movies? Sure do, I buy em cheap(less then 5usd) at Walmart(they are SD, but the xb360 upscales(better then the PS3 I might add – I own em both so I do know).

““Well I don’t know if we need to put Blu-ray in there – you’ll be able to get Blu-ray drives as accessories, can get Blu-ray drives as accessories.””

I really think that’s a slip of the tongue, tbh.

I think he means you can get stand-alones, so why bother.

So the future is renting everything and owning nothing? No thanks. I’ll stick to being a tool and buying movies I love on Blu Ray so I can watch them whenever I like and share them with my mates.

I rent movies from my local Blockbuster quite a bit too, but I’m happy to drop the cash on a great movie that I feel warrants a purchase. I guess I’m just old and like the feeling of having my favourite films on a shelf where I can see them.

I’m very curious about the PS3 video store and I’m looking forward to giving it a go, but I don’t see it stopping me from buying discs just yet.

Don’t you folks have a decent stream service? Thats the gem of Netflix/xb360 Those 250plus movies I have on my instant q can be watched at anytime with the press of one button. And they stay there till I remove them. And Blockbuster? Gimmie a break, I don’t think you truely comprehend Netflix. Its all 100% online. I get the movies in the mail. If i put a movie in the mail monday, I have a new on on wednesday. It costs next to nothing for everything. And it does TV shows too. I know a lot of people that canceled Cable/sat TV in favor of Netflix.

Your old? What does that have to with it? I am 38yr old myself And being older with two teenage kids to feed(Yikes) I love being able to have all the movies I want at such a low price. Buying movies can add up, esp blu ray ones.

I will never prefer digital distribution over going to the store and picking it up.

1. I love driving my evo, so every chance I get I will.
2. Last time I trusted a digital distribution (ITunes), I lost all of my purchased products when my HDD failed. GG ITunes and not letting users re-download. GG me for not backing it all up.
3. I standing in my movie room and seeing the massive collection of blu-rays.

ITUNES allows you to redownload songs into your libary so long as you use the same account. No charge, maybe you should look into it.

I used to love having game boxes lined up on my shelves, movies too, to a lesser degree. Now if I can play it/watch it, I am happy. If I had buy movies/games instead of renting them, I would indeed have a few more boxes on my shelf. But I would have far less movies watched and games played. The price of buying just one new blu ray = 3 months of Netflix. You have any idea how many blu rays I can watch in three months? Same type of thing with Gamefly. One new game = 60bucks. Gamefly is 20/month. Buy one game, play it, put on my shelf to sit … or rent Gamefly for three month, play the same said game, and LOTS more. I own 100plus Saturn Games, 100plus Dreamcast games, and I honestly don’t know how many Gen, Nes, SNES, TGrafx/TDuo, and Neo Geo carts I own. Every once in awhile I go back and play something. But 99% of the time I never touch them. I used to buy, I felt the need to own it, see it, have it. But I am older now, and can use the cash for more important things, like bills, wife, kids, etc.
I think peoples stance on this topic may very well be affected by their age and marital standing. For me, heck yea bring on the renting. And don’t even get me started about those fools out there that buy and then trade em back in at gamestop. It nearly kills me to think about that kind of loss of cash.

Netflix HD is not the same standard as BLU-RAY, audio compression and (currently) only plans for 720p.
i love physical products…

So? Oh wait, I get it your one of those folks that will look you in the eye and claim that there is a HUGE difference between 720p and 1080p. Bagh, Can’t talk about stuff like that with you, your head is too hard. I mean solid like a cement wall. Sure there is a difference, but it is minimal. And yes I own a 42 inch widescreen hd tv that has hdmi and 1080p for my living room. I also own a widescreen 36 inch, hd tv that only does 720p for my bedroom. No one in my house can tell a noticable difference. No one. So ya netflix 720p streamed off my xb360 looks damn nice. But then again i am old enough to remember when we only had three channels over the analog air waves. And my first TV was a Black and White set. In the end argueing 1080P over 720p is like comparing two high end sports cars, maybe one is tad nicer, but they are both outstanding rides.

Also something else to think about in the whole “Real” hd line of thinking. More and more TVs are sold with 720p native then 1080i/p. They are cheaper to buy. Take a trip to walmart, take a look around. Average folks don’t care. To them HD is HD. Gamers care. Sometimes. I don’t. My smaller Tv has HDMI, but I was disgusted to learn that I couldn’t use my PS3 to watch blu rays in the bedroom with it. Again because of said resolution. It however didn’t make me hate of the TV I got, instead I thought well that was dumb of sony.

Pracer can you explain this bit in more detail please?

My smaller Tv has HDMI, but I was disgusted to learn that I couldn’t use my PS3 to watch blu rays in the bedroom with it. Again because of said resolution. It however didn’t make me hate of the TV I got, instead I thought well that was dumb of sony.

???

Yea sorry a bit muddy, still drinking my caffine.

I own a HD TV. It out puts at 720p. I can use the HDMI out of my PS3 for games. But I can NOT watch my blu ray movies on this TV. They simply won’t play. Inorder to watch blu ray from PS3 I need to use my TV in the living room. That TV is 1080p.

Blu Ray needs 1080p to work. I didn’t understand that when I bought the TV in my bedroom. And again because it doesn’t supoort 1080p(only 720p) I can’t watch my blu ray movies on it. I can play ps3 games in there. As long as they support 720p. Otherwise they default to standard deff at 480i.

The part I got upset with, was that Sony built a blu ray tech to only work on TVs with 1080p resolution. Had I known that I may have bought a higher resolution TV for my bedroom. But maybe not as they were much more expensive at the time. And I still have the better TV in the living room.

Have you tried changing the default resolution on your PS3 to 720 when using the other tv?

Pracer
http://www.hardcoreware.net/ps3-can-now-play-blu-ray-movies-at-720p-thanks-to-18-its-official/

http://www.avforums.com/forums/ps3-media-streaming/477721-can-ps3-play-blu-ray-720p.html

Those links should help you

I don’t know if it is a NTSC thing or not? I live in NA and we tried everything. It just wouldn’t work last time we tried. Ty for the links. I haven’t tried it in awhile I will try again maybe something got fixed in a firmware. I will let ya know.

I don’t think we have a comparable streaming service available to us in the UK, so I guess we’re losing out.

“And Blockbuster? Gimmie a break, I don’t think you truely comprehend Netflix. Its all 100% online. I get the movies in the mail. If i put a movie in the mail monday, I have a new on on wednesday. It costs next to nothing for everything. And it does TV shows too. I know a lot of people that canceled Cable/sat TV in favor of Netflix.”

Nope, I understand you. Blockbuster, LoveFilm and a host of other companies provide this exact same rental service over here. A load of my mates use them but I don’t really rent enough to justify it so I just stop into the local shop instead. I’m a little younger than you (33), with no kids (just a missus with a serious shoe habit) and if Netflix was a viable option then maybe I’d give it a go but I think I’d still buy the odd Blu Ray.

Maybe I’ll change my mind when the PS3 video store opens up over here, can’t knock it too much until I’ve tried it but I still like feeling like I’ve got something to show for my money.

Ummm you guys are talking bullshit you can play blu-rays at many supported resolutions even on a 480i tv at least with the PS3 that is. Second if you don’t have a 1080p set then you aren’t doing your PS3 any justice. The PS3 is a 1080p native system unlike the xbox360.

@ the XBOTS who are trying to downplay Blu-ray… AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA..(BREATH)…AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!

1080P streaming is M$ answer to Blu-ray and it still doesn’t look better than a physical disc. I understand why M$ is doing this streaming stuff for a number of reasons.

1. They can’t afford a Blu-ray Add-on
2. There system don’t support a wide variety of codecs like the PS3 does.
3. They know that netflix exclusive deal is about to run out soon.

As for downloads I have video files stored on my PS3 (500gb btw) HDD that are 1080p resolution and they look awesome. They also come in about 4GB in size. Is it better looking than a Blu-ray disc…Hell NO!

As for streaming the only way I will ever do that is if I have the files on my backup 1tb external and the PS3 can’t decode the files properly so I’d need to use a program like Tversity to make it play through my PS3 onto my TV.
Sorry PSN and Zune Store I will never rent anything from you.

RoarrrUK: you are right +2 upgrade/thumbs up
G1GA: you are wrong…once again -4 downgrade/thumbs down

(G1GA’s next opinion will become transparent like stupid joystiq comments)

The 360 can output native 1080p as well, TEA. You clot.

I’ll have you know that my Gametrailers comment score is +32!

I always get thumbs up man, yeah!!

Blerk my little naive padawan. The 360 is not 1080p native. It upscales to 1080p. You see when you finally get a PS3 as a gift you’ll be able to compare just like me.

The PS3′s UI XMB looks like a Blu-ray compare to the 360′s NXE that looks like a upscaled DVD. If M$ was serious about making the 360 a 1080p native system they would have included a HDMI port way before the PS3 released….not a year later….oh and they would have probably used the 1.3 profile instead of 1.2 but they knew there system was never meant to be 1080p native so they didn’t install HDMI 1.3 ports. (Betcha I just broke a bunch of xbots hearts with that one ).

Good example: Do you have a HDTV?…NO?..of course you don’t, but hear me out on this. Let me school you as they say. HDTVs marketed as 720p often have labels claiming the set can also do 1080i. If the HDTV can do 1080i then why don’t they advertised that you might ask. Thats because the 720p set “upscales” the image to 1080i which isn’t hard considering half the lines are only showing up in
reality.

If you put a DVD in a PS3 and upscale it to 1080p is that DVD suddenly a Blu-ray? The answer of course is NO. This is what happens when you see anything on the 360 while the settings are at 1080p. ITS NOT NATIVE.

THIS HAS BEEN ANOTHER PBS PRODUCTION SERIES OF “OWNING XBOTS 101″
thank you for reading

Umm… there are a number of 1080p native titles on the 360. You own one… you should at least have a vague idea of its capabilities.

Oh, and you don’t need HDMI 1.3 for 1080p (v1.0 covers that). All HDMI 1.3 gives you over 1.2 is deep color and a theoretical max output of 2560 x 1600p (which neither console can do).

Of course, that’s academic anyway because you can do 1080p over component or VGA provided you have a semi-decent TV / monitor.

Gametrailers…. the same site that has made faulty PS3vs360 game comparision videos in favor of 360 when it wasn’t the truth and try to say ooops we didn’t know, we fucked up…. The same site that has Kentucky fried chicken ads…. The same site that has Michael Patcher,Patcter,(whatever his name is) making stupid guess and gets proved wrong 90% of the time….chyea……(speechless you actually bought that site up to justify your popularity)… go…. G1GA?… A+ for you?….what?…I mean WTH?…I really am speechless you bought that site up

I need a nap now….

@TEA
I was going to pick holes in your arguments but there are so many it’s near enough a BDH post.

You know that they gave Sony almost all of the best awards from E3 though, right?

Movie streaming, technically, it’s not the same standard as playing from a disc. Image and audio are compressed over streams, no matter how ‘HD’ the vendor is claiming they are.

It seems hypocritical to me that there are those that seem deeply offended by compressed textures flashing past their eyes for a second or less in a videogame but are seemingly oblivious to a couple of hours of compressed visuals elsewhere.

“It seems hypocritical to me that there are those that seem deeply offended by compressed textures flashing past their eyes for a second or less in a videogame but are seemingly oblivious to a couple of hours of compressed visuals elsewhere.”

There is a difference. The film already looks real, because it is. If there are artifacts on the screen, or it’s a teeny, tiny bit grainy, or whatever, it doesn’t matter, because you can see them (the visual problems) for what they are.

But with bad textures, all that they do is remind you that the game doesn’t look as good as it could, because the quality of the visuals are suffering due to some technical issue. (Or just bad development.)

It’s like wearing shoes that are dirty versus wearing shoes that are dirty and don’t fit properly.

What?

What he meant to say is that it’s like wearing a thong backwards.

Ok I knew you were going to show up, I just had a feeling. Here it is ladies and Gents. I attempt to prove MR. Daily Star Psychotext wrong for the 50,003 time.

HDMI vs Component.

“IF” you have a 1080p set and connect your PS3 with both cables you know that HDMI is 10x better. Thats FACT. Plain and simple.

HDMI 1.3

I never said you needed HDMI 1.3. I said M$ knew there system wasn’t made to do 1080p native so they didn’t bother to add that profile even though the PS3 had it for a year already. Whats the price difference between adding v1.2 over v1.3…what like 5 cent. They only added HDMI because it was a great strenght only the PS3 had and when people go into to best buy and buy there new Home Entertainment set ups, HDMI would could out that salesman mouth more than a pimp would say “bitch wheres my money”.

There are 1080p native titles on 360 market place I never said there wasn’t. There was also a popular game I beleive that was 720p native and I remember many people crying it was hard to see the text on their 480i tvs. That game is Assassin Creed BTW.
Just because a game supports a higher resolution than your tv, doesn’t mean you can’t still play it and vise versa (mega man 9).

Component and VGA

Yes they can put out nice decent quality. But nothing beats HDMI on the market as of today.

MY POINT

360 is not 1080p native but only upscaled. when you see those nice streaming 1080p videos. It will be similar to someone who has a PS3,480i,p tv and watches Blu-ray disc movies. aka nothing to get excited about.

You’re utterly clueless. I’m not even going to bother because your argument is just going around in circles. Do you even read what you’ve typed or is it just a stream of conciousness?

Oh, and those 1080p streamed videos… are 1080p (native). Bitrate is another story, but I get the feeling that you wouldn’t understand even if someone spelt it out for you.

Don’t you *dare* bring Assassin’s Creed into this!

[stamps feet/]

poke away Dr.Damn prove me wrong if you can. because nothing can beat 2 40″ bravias side by side with a PS3 and 360 hooked up at their max supposedly resolution via HDMI and see which one is cleaner and crisper.

If you don’t have what I got than don’t bother kiddo.
(yea I said kiddo)

never said they weren’t 1080p quality but blu-ray has a 40mb bit rate compare to their inferior streaming method