Who else but Microsoft?

MWAH-HA-HA-HA!!!

can hd dvd be play on a dvd player right? if thats right then why not buy hd dvds! for that price

EDIT: Hold on...50 bucks meaning 50 dollars?? if that so then you can buy better things with that kind of money lol

....tear*

I wouldn't pay $5 bucks for something useless.
Who would invest in HD-DVD media now, knowing no new releases would come.

LOL sore losers.

Leave it to MS to take avantage of "misinformed" consumers.

Neither HD format really impressed me. An HD player that can upscale for only fifty bucks and has quite a few movies in full HD is what has me wanting it.

Question is, can you get the 5 movies? OMFG that would be worth it. 5 movies cost over 50 bucks.

i dont see this as giving anyone the middle finger its called getting rid of their stock by lowering the price in hopes that some poor 360 owner isnt aware that HD-DVD is dead ... its like buyin something off ebay that isnt something you paid for and now u cant return it because no one wants it back

TO LITTLE TO LATE.

micrsoft is so low, they want to take " advantage " of there customers to get them to by a dead format. great customers service microsoft. im so glad there machiens broke down in front of all teh developers at GDC.

but still that's evil

this is great because the 360 hd dvd player has great upconverting features in it. and thats cheaper than most upconvertind dvd players.

random disagrees I see...oh well...

@50 bucks its still a rip off.

this is just a sale to clear out inventory. It won't last long and probably will not have any lasting affect for Blu-ray. It'll help MS make a little money, and make way for new products.

So basically you just admitted to having no common sense when it comes to being a consumer. Hey... if you want to buy useless things that apparently you have no use for, go for it. But just like I said, you're the exact consumer M$ feeds on.

Nothing will change the fact blu will win and DD is not going to takeoff anytime soon.

I guess your leaving how you came, huh? How classy....

Im so glad i returned the one i paid 200 dollars for last year and applied that money towards my ps3. I had no idea myself at the time which would prevail and since my 360 was broken i opted for the ps3. best decision i could of made.

yahhh... i'm not to worried.

That's still one expensive brick...

ok now I have a guys telling me a dvd player can't play hd dvds?? is that right?

nvm I found out most of them can...so >Scottama< if that was you disagreeing with me then you better agree this time lol

and round peg...why disagree with me?

WHATS with the disagrees when I'm saying nothnig wrong!!!

EDIT: Carbon it does...but you have to flip it on the other side :) some hd dvds has 2 sides, 1 side is ofcourse the HD version and the other is dvd

Figures! What a sleezy move to take advantage of all the missinformed consumers just to clear the shelves before these units go extinct. This pretty much confirms what most of us already knew about MS. MS doesnt give a rip about anyone. They run their buisness like they can just gobble everyone and anything up.

I mean this is a company thats trying to sue another company (Yahoo) because Yahoo wont sell to them... Microsoft=God

I feel sorry for all those poor bastards who will buy all that crap!

Amazingly Microsoft knows that HD-DVD is dead, yet they still want to sell this product to its loyal customers. Sad really, Microsoft would rather screw it's consumers over with a $50 brick rather than take the hit themselves. Wow!

Unless you didn't listen to radio, watch TV news, or read the newspaper yesterday than most likely they have a chance. I heard the announcement on my favorite morning radio station WZZO with Beerman, and Keith.

*sings* "i see skies are blu..." all together now! ;D

why would ANYONE with a brain waste $50 on a paperweight? And for retailers and MS to go that low as to fool the uninformed is just corrupt, but then again, it's MS we're talking about

Red is ded,Blu-Ray all the way!

They have to make some money back on that crappy add on. I mean what are they gonna do, ask the retailers to send them back and get nothing in return. They might as well make the chump change while they can. It's a dead format! Oh and I'm sure people will know something is up when they notice the price of 50 bucks for the HD DVD add on especially if they were looking at one before and now they notice it again at that price. I'm sure they'll have a couple questions as to why it's so low. Consumers might not know everything but their not that stupid.

Red is Dead, Blu is true...

The biggest issue with HD-dvd on xbox 360... I don't think I could ever trust the xbox 360 for more than an hour powered on. I don't see the xbox 360 running for more than 90 min without overheating. It's just not feasible.

I've left my Ps3 on for 5 and 6 and 7 days straight, folding before. I've left my ps3 on watching a Blu-ray and fallen asleep, only to wake up the next morning and have it still running like a top and quiet as ever.

The xbox 360 could never under go that stress test.

What I stress... What good are all these "so -called" awesome games if you're too afraid to play them?

Eh.. I'd rather buy a game with that money.

You people no nothing of the HD-DVD players do you? It's not necessarily a "dead Format".. it can still play and up-scale DVD's. It'd be a good pick up for people who don't want to buy a Blu-Ray right now..

If anything they're just abusing customer trust/stupidity.

that is what I would get it for. Also to try and make some hd divx files by ripping hddvd's to my pc using anydvd. Afterall, it was slysoft who recommended hddvd over blu.

5 free movies with the purchase?

come on im a sony fan and all but its only $50 its not like there spending $200 let them spend $50 and then later on find out that they wont be able to play new movie in a couple of months

bye HD - DVD

ms sells off the existing stock of hddvd drives. People with 360s buy them and then all of a sudden ms releases a 360 with built in hddvd and bingo they revive the format specifically for games. A fw is released in the spring to allow for games to work through the hddvd drive.

Wishful thinking but amazing if it did happen. So what that blu wins for movies and ps3 games. hddvd can still work for games on another platform. Afterall they both server the same basic purpose of storage. Like the dc using gdrom's and the ps1 using cdrom and ps2/xbox using dvdrom and the cube using mini-dvdrom. All are the same just in different capacities.

MS has not much to gain and very much to lose by doing this. It's going to be another PR nightmare for them unless they do something ethical, like place large and obvious signage by every HD display explaining the reasons that the drive is so cheap, and what limited value it will have to the consumer in the future.

I hope they were just floating a trial balloon, and after reading all the negative customer reactions and thinking about this, change any plan that takes advantage of anyone.

Come on guys, think about this. You might gain a million or two. How much will you have to spend in ad dollars to get back the goodwill this will cost you?

HD movies....??? huh what is that? I am having fun playing games on my GAME console. If it came with a hddvd drive so much the better for the programmers.

As far as movies go....that is why they have video marketplace with hd versions and sd versions. Besides, take the hd drive and plug it into your pc and rip the hd movies to an ext hdd and watch all the hd movies you want through the ps3 or 360.

viva la technology!

Xboxfamily posting "what they've heard" without giving a source again. Complete and utter bollocks.

dvd= digital versitile disc. HDDVD= the same only higher capacity. Imagine how many sd divx rips you can put on a single hddvd. Games would not need multiple discs. Movies...ah to heck with that. It is an optical disc for petes sake. No different than all the other optical discs before it. Just different capacity. T120, T160, T180 VHS tapes all served the same purpose as a storage medium. Just different run length (capacity).

edit: sony has this thing called mini disc. Anyone remember that? It tried to persuade people away from cd's back in the day. Yet it had a comeback in the new generation of digital storage for MP3's, avi's and other media. Go figure a dead format making a comeback. Even if it was not as universal as a cd it still had another use than just for music

No thanks. I'd rather spend that 50 bucks on Blu Ray movies or games. Buying anything related to HD-DVD would be a waste of money...well unless you want to salvage one as a collectors item.

Does anyone remember the Laserdisc sales at your local video/music stores?

God I'm old.

This is actually an excellent solution for people with a few HD DVDs in their library or whatever.

first of all upscaling is nothing to gawk over... HD-DVDead Point blank ...the only reason i can see someone getting one of these is if they already have a HD-dvd library and their original hd-dvd player broke so they can get this for 50 bux and still play their movies

even though i have a ps3 and back blue ray i would consider picking up a 50 dollar player if the movies dropped to like 5$ you could pick up quite a few movies for cheaper than buying the blue rays and i could use it in the living room to upscale my old dvds since most of what i watch is dvd anyways.

Sounds more like MS is sticking a middle finger up it's own butt.

NEVER!

(sarcasm)

this is just M$ leading the blind over the cliff again...watch the landing, THUD.

They are trying to screw over the uninformed consumer and wanting to trash customer loyalty even more. gotcha!!

Thats a dirty play in my book, boo on you M$

But seems more like a middle finger to anyone who isn't smart enough to wait for a blu-ray add-on. I'm sure it's coming. Save your money.

I'm taking my 50 bucks and buying a game. I wait for the movie to come out on the blu. Buying a add-on drive and HD-DVD movies is kind like buying an old xbox, its pretty much obsolete even though there are games available. Just a little side note, I can see everyone running out and buying an HD add-on, I wonder what percentage of those will have wasted their money when their 360 RRoD's. I'm not waisting 50 bones.

@GamesBlow - Because of the price difference you dumbass. Some people probably don't want to spend $400 on a blu-ray player right now.. Besides $50 is not a lot when you get close to the same quality of a blu-ray player.. Hence I said "close" don't spaz out people.

@SSCOOLCHEA - ..... You can't tell MUCH of a difference unless your eyes work as good as a dogs ears work. Which they don't.

Why not just buy a regular DVD player. Some of those upscale. Plus they look a hell of a lot better than that ugly add on.

Wow after adding all of you little sony pricks to my ignore list, it's astounding how many sony trolls skulk around on this site.

MS is just getting rid of stock thats all, I mean who's gonna want a HD DVD player now?

I might buy one. I say that because 50$ is cheap as hell for a good upconverting DVD player.

360 can upscale your regular dvd without having to purchase the HD-DVD add on. So whats the difference here? You are only buying it for use of watching HD-DVD and these HD-DVD movies you can get are only those LEFT in the market now. No more future release...and are you sure you want to spend money on what that are left? Seems like you choice will be limited. I rather save money and watch upscaled regular DVD.
The manner some of you mention seems like 50 bucks is cheap skate. I feel sorry to hear that, knowing that 50 bucks can aid some poor and needy fellows out there.
To mention that some of us already spent probably more than that taking your girl out for a nice dinner but at least she might appreciate you even better. Can your add-on do that?
Personally, even for 50 bucks (50bucks is still MONEY), i will not spend it on some obsolete equipment and a dead format. There is no chance to watch my favourite future HD movies. I see it as MS clearing their stocks to minimise losses.
If you are really that supportive, go ahead and spend your $$$. I bet you used to help SONY minimise their losses too when Betamax was declared dead.

That its useless to anybody now is self evident - thats why they are slashing the price to level, it simply wouldn't make sense to buy it at any other price.
Obviously, it doesn't make sense to use it as a upscaling dvd player, as nearly all 360 systems will allow this anyway. so its simply for playing the rather limtied (and never to grow) catalougue of HD DVD's.
Given the fact that this box is technically gimped (no 1080P output), has consistantly been reviewed as the worst HD DVD player, and necessitates you having the noise of your 360 switched on while you watch, I would suggest that those after a bargin HD DVD player would be far better served by picking up one of the stand alone Toshiba players that will be selling for next to nothing about now... apart from the other reasons, they also look a lot better!

If you are a gamer anyway, chances are you may get a PS3 in the next year, in which case there seems little point in investing anything at all! After all, blu is the future for HD movies and it comes free with a PS3..