microsoft are WAY too proud to accept defeat and use technology of the "enemy"

Wow 4 reports and still goes through Great job :)

MS sucks

As long as the 1st party games get new inhouse engines like what is really happening and the multi platform games stay superior on the 360 I'm not worried.

I'll be glad when the PS3 relaunch sales spike ends these retarded articles are getting old.

Can't wait to see BRINK tomorrow at Eurogamer I don't think we will be talking about Disc space but I'm guessing RAM, Graphics card and GPU.

A blu-Ray add on, for what. The only real benefit is for watching blu-ray movies. How much would you think the Blu-Ray add-on would be? I can go buy a stand alone blu-ray player for $130 if not less than that.

some times this site just dont no what to say..... and ps3 funny fan boys love it.... Halo odst is smaler than HALO 3 so if they din t put, is beacause they dont care, but you guys love war you say your are not fanboys but in every word and coment we see you are....

Multi-disc swap in.

:'(

release a blu-ray add-on it wouldn't be used for gaming, common sense can tell you that.

I do think they should add it as an option MS needs to stop being prideful and admit its ok to be out done sometimes and adopt, $hit they really havent invented much in their history but ride coat tails why should now be any different

Blu-ray FTW! :)

Just wondering if anyone can cite the PS3 games that take advantage of the BluRay technology? Most, if not all, do not, I for one have grown with disc swapping from the early days of PC Gaming. There is nothing wrong with a disc swap, honestly.

How did this get approved? The last time I saw the article, there were 7 reports

What makes people think MSFT would use Blu-ray with new disc formats already coming or on the market?

Blu-ray tech isn't good for gaming the way the Blu-ray drive reads isn't something a game company would use unless they had interests in the movie market.

Will this not be a b1tch for developers as they will be forced to develop titles with 3 different SKU's in mind?

Xbox 360 Arcade.
XBOX 360 HDD; 20GB, 60GB and etc.
XBOX 360 HDD with a Blu-Ray drive.

Its way too late to be considering a new format for games to use, requiring an additional purchase for an add-on which as we have seen in times' past simply doesn't work ,( *wink *wink SEGA).

Besides its not like two DVD's is anything to balk at and its not like every 360 game has had multiple discs either. Alas! another exaggerated, overblown article graces N4G.

Even if they did offer a blu-ray add-on I wouldn't even consider buying it it when I can get a stand-alone
player of better quality and for cheaper no doubt the way MS overprices their accessories

Its not like DVD is dead yet anyways, its definitely outdated now thanks to Blu-ray but it isn't dead.

We will just have to wait for the next generation of consoles.

Logical thinking is in short supply these days. Was this article written by a 12 year old fanboy? Who keeps submitting this garbage?

Just stop it. A BR add-on would be worthless to the 360 no matter how much MS talked it up. If its used for more than to watch movies, its going to shove a divide between how games are made much less produced on the one console.

You want it on an Xbox, wait for the next one.

I didn't know we were still in the PS1 era. Yea, GT2 came on two disks as did many PS1 games but that was over a decade ago. MS needs to get with the times, multiple disks these days reek of two gens ago.

another way for ms to cash in

and then fans would be happy and devs can crank out [BETTER] quality games [WITHOUT LAST GEN DVD9] technology

They released the HDD-less Core/Arcade models ;, which was an extremely stupid move , the original Xbox had a HDD built-in and was a big advantage last-gen over the two other consoles for developers, I just do not understand why they would gimp themselves like that.

Even still all they have to do now is tell developers to make use of the HDD regardless and then put 'requires HDD' on the back of every game box, which would fly because most owners already have a HDD/

what a big pile of poo xb!tches jumped in

Multiple disc are not a problem, and as data is always growing faster then storage types, there will always be multiple disc's.

Just like how i got 5 hd's in my pc now, to store a total of 3.5 tb of data, before you know it, i will need to add another hd.

Microsoft has the done everything they can to make consumers "not" buy their console. Old DVD-9 format, faulty hardware, expensive storage and accessories, lack of first party developers. Then when they try and say you that digital download is the future, they hamstring you with expensive hard drives so its impossible to download games unless you upgrade your hard drive. Don't get me wrong I am a huge fan of my 360, but my ps3 has so much more value. Its amazing that the 360 has sold as many of these as they had. It was smart to come out a year early, except for the rrod, but it got me to buy one on launch day. They had better do something next year. I know Natal sounds promising for a lot of reasons, but please tell me you aren't haning your entire hat on that.

Most of my games are on the 360, i had it first, so it pains me to take off the fanboy goggles and try and figure out what they are doing. Yes I love netflix, yes I tweet and facebook all the time, yes I love halo and gears, but other than alan wake next year, I am not sure what they are going to do.

We shall see, but it looks grim for my 360.

Take this for what it is. A day of enlightenment for a former 360 fan.

Every company is about the money, look at Nintendo with the Wii... $250 for a last-gen system with motion control and they are rolling in the dough , and talk about accessories, talk to Nintendo. Of course they had to do it after Sony stole their thunder two console generations in a row.

I can see that the release of the Core/Arcade models of a HDD-less 360 made it $100 cheaper than the other models and more affordable to consumers yet its too bad that they had to make the 20GB HDD so damn overpriced, its ridiculous. Its proprietary so they can charge whatever the want..... I mean a 20GB HDD for a PC is like what? $10 now. Crazy.
Of course they had to do that because otherwise people would just buy the Arcade models and a cheap HDD and wouldn't even both would the Pro or the Elite so they messed themselves all up.

Xbox360s HD-DVD LOL

Thats why they are stuck playing one game over and over because they are so lazy to get up and change game disc.

At this point it's too late. I'm sure they are looking at bigger storage options for the next console. As a 360/PS3/Wii owner I find no problem with multiple discs on 360 games. Most of the time I just install them to my hard drive anyways.

I also find it interesting how much Sony Fan boys seems to care about Blu-ray for the 360. Why so much concern? It doesn't seem to hurt the quality of the games on both platforms.

when you got games like forza3 coming not just on 2 discs,but to get the rest of the tracks,you got to download the rest.that's just poor forward thinking.i don't care if they are trying to get you to buy it over used.that extra content would fit on a bluray.or should have been on that second disc.

i'm sorry but anyone that said that bluray wasn't necessary for bigger and better games was an idiot.

example 1:

gta4 and all the 360 dlc would fit on one bluray disc.but because of 360,gta4 was better looking for next gen,but lacked things that san andreas did on ps2.6.5gigs is poor for next gen open world games.

example 2:

games like uncharted have more detail that the best 360 game.that's not possible on a dvd disc.listen up....all the objects onscreen,all the animations,all levels,all the sounds...stream directly from that bluray disc.you can't spread that across multiple discs as all these things are happening at ONCE on ps3 in that same level.

that's why devs say you can't do it on 360.you can make a game with the same name.but it won't have the same content because the dvd can't stream it all like a bluray.let's say 360 can have the same visuals as ps3.the problem you hit is all the other stuff.

as an example,if 360's dvd can hold 10,000 animations,what do you think a bluray 50gig would hold?let's say 50,000 animations.you are telling me that that game will look the same on 360 as ps3?GET REAL.

that ps3 game would have characters that wouldn't do the same animation twice.but it doesn't end,objects onscreen,physics,lighting,etc would just be more.so when someone says bluray doesn't help graphics,i just face palm myself and think these guys just don't see the bigger picture.

microsoft missed the boat and are paying for it.no wait....360 gamers are paying for it.in dlc and whatever microsoft comes up with.sony knew better and acted for movies and games.

idiotic. no need to even explain why, common sense

Next generation wont be using optical media. Large DRIVES WILL TAKE ITS PLACE.

Disk swapping = XBOXFIT

Isn't it time people quit complaining about this non-issue? I mean, seriously. It isn't that big of a deal. How many games require a disc change during gameplay? And if they do how often does someone really change the disc?

When Microsoft released the Xbox 360 high-capacity discs weren't really a cost-effective option. Heck, when the PS3 released they weren't either. It's pretty easy to look back and say that things should have been done differently, but honestly what good does that do?

The next generation will be upon us in a couple of years and at that time I'm sure that the lessons learned from this generation will be addressed.

Well since 360s scratch the hell out of discs, disc swapping is eccential. The more time spent on one disc is more opportunity for your 360 to tear it up in it's shįttee disc drive tray. So if you swap discs, you'll be able to minimize damage and complete your C- mediocre RPGs...lol

it makes sence now.

Smart M$...You have to find a way to bypass your 10 year old disc drive and laser reader system.

Ok so im not 100% sure if this is viable this generation... but why not start selling games on flash drives!

ive seen 8GB drives for as low as 8$. and 32GB drives for 50$. have the different factions subsidize this cost so it costs 80 - 100$ for the drive + a selection of games on the drive.

Allow people to backup these files on their pcs/external hardrives ( pirates are going to get their hands on the files no matter what...)and let people re-use the thumb drives to download new games at the stores/booths at the mall.
People for the most part dont have the capacity for full on DD because of caps so this is a viable alternative!

If they want, attach the game to an xbox live account. If you want to lend it to a friend then you can set up a temporary license for his account for a small fee ( 2 $ perhaps). If you want to sell it to someone else, transfer the license permanently for a 5$ fee. That way publishers get some money from the used game market. Games can still be bought "second hand" or lent.

will not use bluray.I think Microsoft will use hddvd drives in the next xbox.HDDVD is not dead because China just turned their back on bluray and their using hddvds.I actually think hddvd would be great for games because 30gb disks are plenty of space for games at this point and time.
http://blogs.zdnet.com/stor...

That'd be admitting Sony was right! They'd lose so much face.

Microsoft needs Blu-Ray for the next XBOX. They would never go Digital Distribution only and if they use DVDs they will end up with low quality, last generation games while Sony pushes forward the gaming market with Blu-Ray or even Holographic Versatile.

It'll be interesting to see what happens, considering if Microsoft drops the DVD format they will have no backwards compatibility.

MS will stay with DVD this gen, no big talk over that.

Add cheaper HDDs instead, so people can install the discs.

this is where I think MS went wrong! I think they should have made the Elite with HD-DVD feature instead of being 120 GB maybe 60-80GB.

M$ can't add blu-ray, the price would be way to much on top of the way to much price now.

And it would be external. Yuk.

They should have kept HD DVD going themselves. @Then there wouldnt be any problems.

We were quite disappointed when we had to add another disk with extra content for our game, it would have been much easier if we had Blu-Ray.
But we support Microsoft no matter what silly decision they make.

Che Chou
Turn 10 Studios

...are feeling really stupid right now. :D

the 360 despite its problems has been a success for MS. It has performed better in the marketplace than the original Xbox, and has kept the PS3 in last place for 3 years. MS's next console will no doubt add larger storage capacity for their games.

This is not to say that the storage that bluray provides is unnecessary, Killzone 2, Uncharted 1 and 2, and other games are great examples of what that extra storage space can do for a game. There is no question that the PS3 is pumping out graphics that put 99% of other games to shame.

None the less, people will deal with multiple discs, its not that big of a problem to swap out. Also the games that can be placed on one disc on the 360 look good especially on an HD TV, they retain that basic wow factor of HD gaming.

in conclusion nearly five years into the 360's life it has been successful without bluray and will continue to be until the next console comes out.

it works as a games machine, what more do you want, it does what it says on the tin.

I just had to grace the forum with a appearance since both the article and I are using the same pic.

How are you supposed to experience HD Gaming with a console that uses DVD.

9 GIG DISCS ARE A JOKE, I HAVE USB KEYS THAT HOLD MORE THEN 9 GIGS

WELCOME TO 1995

I can't wait to see that day.

While I do agree with the points the article made, it's too late in the game for Microsoft to do this. Nobody now is denying that going with the DVD9 format was a mistake, but adding Blu Ray right now, in the middle of the 360s life cycle, would be an even bigger mistake, and would completely fracture the 360 fanbase.

At this point, Microsoft made the error out of their own foolish pride. Now they have to deal with it for the rest of this gaming generation.

EVERYONE IS LOOKING AT THIS THE WRONG WAY. Of course MS knows that they should be using a DVD's with bigger storage space...or add blu ray. However, why should they?? when MS has customers, who will continue to pay for multiple and practically unchanged Halo and Gears of War titles, it is not necessary to make blu ray. As a Detroit Lions fan, I see that the owners have raised the ticket price..while mataining the same garbage product on the field. Guess what...it's all my fault too! All I need to is STOP SUPPORTING and both the product and price will get better. (Or...the franchise will no longer exist.) Although I feel bad for their workers, the Big Three auto makers have been "stealing" form consumers for years...and they are now getting what they had comming to them.

MS will continue to make as much money off mediocre quality for as long as customer let them. I don't have a problem with MS charging XBL, making the same Halo (Like EA does with NBA Live), and not delivering on next generation experiences. (THEY JUST WON'T GET MY MONEY UNTIL I SEE SOME CHANGE!) I would like to play Halo and Gears of War, but not at Microsoft's asking price. They could have easily brought the 360 price down....BUT they waited until Sony (Which was already a better deal...system wise) to make their console the same price. IN the future, after robbing blind Halo lovers, Xbox Live will end up free. In fact...the only thing stopping it is Bungie's Halo games. THERE WILL BE NO BLU RAY ON THE CURRENT 360! MS doesn't want to provide quality (That will cost a little more)...they are in it for quanity. As long as people accept "Crimes against Humanity"...with XBL fees, the uninspired Halo: ODST and Left 4 Dead PC ports...why the hell should MS change it's ways? Yea, Sony's PS3 was priced too high....BUT they made price adjustments plenty of times, AND as soon as people asked for a rumble controllor, Sony brought that back ASAP. (Which cost them $30+ million to pay for the patent infringment.) Paying for rumble and blu ray were both HUGH gambles that Sony risked. That's REAL leadership and customer service.

I think MS are testing the waters with their games on demand service. XBOX lIVE Arcade titles are generating a fortune in revenue, MS will go direct download, much like sonys PSPGO, making any optical drive redundant

all the comlications this would bring and if you dropped your console and went out a bought a blu ray versin of the same console and couldnt play any o your games that you had before you the biggest idoit in the world and should be burned alive and have your privates stuffed down your throat. why would anyone rebuy the same system and not be able to play any of the old games.

game will get bigger better and 5 more yrs from now the 360 will look out of date while the next next gen is starting to come alive and if sony comes first its over.

Blu Ray is not necessary. We just need cheaper hard drives so we can install our games. Sell cheap HDD, sell games online, sell retail games with an (or a few) install disk(s), and away we go. You install the game once and forget about it. An external cradle addon that would allow you to insert your own 2.5" HDD of your choice would be excellent, just like the PS3. Microsoft won't allow it though, and will definitely loose out on a money making opportunity this way. Alas, it's not always the smartest people at the top making the decisions, just the ones who have kissed to most butt.

Hell, this could even work in better ways. Imagine a game like Guitar Hero or Rock Band, where you install the game to the hard drive, and when the next one comes out (with guitar hero, that seems every couple of months), the new game stacks on top of the other game. So, you get a new campaign mode, and your QuickPlay mode gains a new song list, without the need to relicense all the tracks for another game. Oh, I wish companies where smarter. Again, stupid people at the top making these decisions.

on 360 but im sure developers would not go for it. They would have to make a dvd multi-disc version to accommodate those who dont switch to blue ray and a blueray for those who do buy the add-on. Which wouldnt make much sense and be cost ineffective. Not to mention if MS officially released a blueray add on many ppl will go like errr cant I just buy a ps3??? MS just need to hold on as much time left they can until this gen comes to an end and squeeze as much money out of their fanbase they have left.

Microsoft's original decision to use DVD9 on X360 were based on several reasons.
Blu-ray and HD DVD were in the format war.
HD DVD for X360 was done as external USB drive as a safe experiment.
Blu-ray disc reading was too slow. See how many PS3 games have to do by installing the game to the hard drive to get a faster loading. Sure several great PS3 games are optimized well for reading off the Blu-ray disc at good speed but game developers often don't want to figure out how to optimize the game reading off the Blu-ray disc.
Of course, Blu-ray format closely lied to Sony, Microsoft doesn't want to use "Sony's" format.

Being a game console, whatever decision good or bad made during the console launch is stuck with the life of the console if changing/upgrading it makes all the older models of the consoles incompatible with future games. The only feature that can be dropped from the newer models is if it's not related to the console generation such as backwards compatibility. PS3 has dropped PS2, Super AudioCD and Linux features.

If Blu-ray would have lost the format war to HD DVD, Sony would have to continue supporting Blu-ray on PS3.

Many JRPG games that came 2 to 4 DVD discs use too many pre-rendered cutscenes that take a lot of space. What happened to the hype of X360/PS3 being so powerful that all cutscenes can be done in realtime (remember the hypes during E3 before either console came out)? Sure are many excuses to use pre-rendered cutscenes to look better but there are also several games that have incredible details cutscenes done in the realtime. My theory is it's easier to use pre-rendered cutscenes because it's recorded and don't have to deal with possible glitches in the rendering engine if done in realtime. The pre-rendered cutscenes can be done by a different company that specialized in making cutscenes. It's the reason why many games have cutscenes that look out of place.

Having a large capacity Blu-ray disc doesn't always make a large game better if not done properly. Large games like Uncharted 2 is optimized to load off the Blu-ray disc but games like Metal Gear Solid 4 have to install the game in segments or the game would need about 20GB of the hard drive space. When I was showing to a friend different parts of MGS4 saved game in different chapter to impress him, we have to wait about 5 minutes in between each saved game chapter. He eventually asked what was up with PS3 having to frequently installing segments of the game?

The quality of the game really depends on how clever the game developers optimize the code to be smaller and load faster off the disc not how many DVD discs or how to fill up the Blu-ray disc to make the game larger than what it should be.

The reality is we live in the world that sees larger has to be better, not how to make it smaller to be better.

I don't need Blu-ray....Until Blu-rays consistently are priced at the current DVD price, I'm not interested anyway.

I don't have any problem getting up and changing the discs if it's a multi disc game either. But, I'm 21 and in good shape so maybe the people complaining about having to get up need to do it more often for their own health anyway.

Seriously, people blow things way out of proportion if it serves their goal of pumping up their console of choice...which ironically sums it all up. You have a CHOICE of which console to get....one isn't light years better than the other. It just comes to down to what you want. Nothing more and nothing less

No longer a fanboy as of 10/27/2009. My PS3 died on me. No 3 yr warranty with PS3's. They are just a piece of shiat just like the Crapbox, but at least they offer a bette warranty. THIS is the second time this has happened within three yrs and they tell me - you MUST PAY $150.00. I bought the system at its launch and refuse to pay that.

Sony d*ck riders -stop acting like Sony is the bomb. Stop licking their balls and realize they don't give a f*** about the consumer. When Microsoft gets their shiat together, I will be getting their system.

I will wait. Sony may offer free online, but they don't offer good customer service to loyal customers who own over 30 (incl. PSN) games , PSP with 10 games. As far as I am concerned, I will concentrate on selling this piece of shiat!!!

If M$ does put add BR, then what will happen to all those Xboys who need their daily disc changing exercise?

On that article on the link sums it up well.

This article is incredibly retarded. What the writer wants is for MS to stop making games on DVD, and instead make games on blu ray for the extra space.

So now everyone with a 360 right now wont be able to play any games unless they either buy a new 360, or buy a blu ray add on which would cost at least £80. You alienate every single customer you've had so far, rip them off, raise the cost of your console, pushing potential cutsomers away as they go for the cheaper ps3 and basicly tell everyone that youve made the wrong choice using DVD9.

Now this already sounds completely idiotic right? but wait, theres more to say how dumb this idea is.

MS has already found a solution to the space issue. If you have a hard drive, or you could just buy one, then you can install extra disks straight to your hard drive, eliminating the issue altoghether and decreasing load times. And reducing fan noise. Forza 3 did this to include extra content.

Or extra content could be put on XBL for free, once again, forza 3 does this by including a voucher with a code with each game. This also encourages people to buy the game new instead of second hand, meaning developers get more money.

Not only that though its clear that MS wants sell more games through downloading. XBL's games on demand shows this, and chances are that next gen MS will be using this much more to eliminate the nthe need for disks.

So yeah, this has to be the most retarded, ill thought out post Ive ever read. Cinsidering that this person created the article youd think he would have reaserched before creating it?

Obviously not...

Im literally amazed...=S

There is absolutely no reason to use BR now.Changing discs >> buying blue-ray when I already have it on my PS3.

Its pathetic to see some of you guys try and diss the 360 because you might actually have to get up off your fat as*es and change a disc. You guys are good at reaching for very bad excuses to rip on the 360.

Furthermore, it looks like with your reasoning Blu-Ray will be obsolete when GT5 comes out, because that game will have multiple discs. That doesn't count because that is a PS3 exclusive right?

That would alienate some of the current market and that would most definitely not be good for business. Microsoft is better waiting for the next-gen before they change formats.

I don't think it is a huge problem, but they can't stay with DVD for the next gen.

I think the only big drawback of having to swap discs is that developers can't really do huge open world games. Final fantasy 13, the producer said that they had to change the way the game was designed so that the player couldn't go back to places they had previously been in the game due to the multiple discs on the 360.

Because it is pretty much guaranteed that the 360 is going to scratch one of those discs with its ultra loud scratchtastic DVD drive - this way you double your chances of being able to play the game before the thing locks up and catches fire.

Microsoft should make an add on that would basically be a 3 dvd disc changer. It would hook up via usb to the back of the xbox 360. They could streamline it so its flat and not clunky and take up little space. It could lay right on top of your xbox360. So you have one disc in your xbox 360 and you could have up to 3 discs in the external drive. It would be very inexpensive to manufacture and it could cost as little as $25 to purchase. The first big game to use it could bundle it in with the game. Halo Reach. That would guarantee a good 10 million of those xbox360 dvd changers in peoples homes from jump. The beautiful thing is....it still wouldn't be needed. People could get up and change the game discs manually and play the same game. Or they could purchase the add on for the FEW SELECT games that use multiple discs. This way MS never has to invest in a blu ray add on and they wouldn't alienate all the millions of consumers who may not want to purchase an expensive blu ray add on. That would be bad business for Microsoft to add a blu ray player for games. But a multi disc changer would be excellent business and cheap enough to be a reasonable option for 360 owners "IF THEY WANTED".

PS3 w/ the times well thought out AND tested.360 M$ thought it was ready after the alpha stage of testing. Funny how different 360 would be if it was a rushed piece of s$#t that M$ created. They probably wouldn't have half the problems the have now. Thats what an extra year of development can do to a console. Sucks for you Microsoft,money is all that matters!

When I had a 360, i bought Lost Odyssey, A FOUR Disc game (ridiculous right?) The game was great, i installed all the 4 discs to the hard drive and after long periods of playtime changed the disc when necessary. Game braker? hell no
Inconvenient? yeah, if one disc brakes the game goes useless, other than that no big deal.

Of course depends on the type of game, but the whole multi disc issue does not prevent the Assasins Creed, Borderlands, Fallout 3 etc from happening, not every developer is so eager to use the Blu Ray capacity, but being a PS3 owner i like it a lot when developers such as Kojima use the whole Blu Ray disc :)

THEY CAN'T JUST ADD BLU RAY IN MIDDLE OF A SYSTEM LIFE CYCLE!!!!!!!!!

EITHER YOU HAVE FROM THE VERY BEGINNING OR WAIT TILL THE NEXT GEN SYSTEM

This isn't going to happen, for one it will isolate most of their userbase and secondly they make a lot more profit sticking a $20 DVD-ROM drive inside.

Xbox 360 cannot compete with PS3 anymore they would be better putting their efforts into their next generation console.