Microsoft: 'We have no plans for Blu-ray on Xbox 360'
By Thomas Ricker 
posted Oct 23rd 2009 9:03AM
posted Oct 23rd 2009 9:03AM
A recent Gizmodo sit down with Steve Ballmer led with a headline exclaiming a Blu-ray add-on for Xbox was coming. See, when Ballmer was asked about making the Xbox a home theater companion of choice and where Blu-ray might fit in, the Windows 7 wild man said, "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." He then added that on-demand is the future of movies, not physical media. Now our bud Major Nelson, Director of Programming for Xbox Live, has stepped up to lay the conflation to rest. The Major says that Ballmer was referring to Blu-ray accessories for the PC and reiterated Microsoft's focus of bringing instant-on 1080p streaming movies to the Xbox 360. So... that should end speculation of Blu-ray on Xbox right? Not if history serves, nope.
This is 90% of the reason why I am buying a PS3 because I want a console with Blu-ray. If the 360 had it, I wouldn't even consider a PS3. And I have had a 360 or two since it was launched. So now I am buying into Sony when I could be buying more into Microsoft.
If people want quality, they ain't gonna buy no bluray for xbox or get a ps3.. They'll get an OPPO or a Panasonic bluray player.
I have a PS3 and a 360 and all my movies(Blu and DVD) are watched on my Panasonic dmp-bd 35.
As of the 360... If MS does not want to sell a BD drive they can allow a 3rd party to make one or allow a user to hookup and external BD drive to the 360.. All Ms would have to do is provide the software or they can have a 3rd party create one (cyberlink or arcsoft).
Just read a review on CNET of the Panasonic DMP-BD35, from what I can tell they say that it's quality was on par with the Playstation but with slower navigation.
Just wondering if you've seen any differences in image/audio quality on your player.
Microsoft doesn't like physical media especially when it competes with their own offerings. It "confuses" customers with choice.
Remember M$ said they were considering blu-ray after the loss of hd-dvds? Well I and almost everyone I know said that it will not happen. They have their vod service and some folks enjoy it. Right then I knew it was time to get a stand alone BR player. So no surprising.
In one of their commercials, MS takes a jab at the Mac not having blu-ray.
Maybe Sony should spoof the MS commercial?
Except it is like comparing apples to oranges, no pun intended. Microsoft will push for streaming services over physical media on the 360 because the 360 is their entry to home theater entertainment. Microsoft makes money with streaming because others use their technology, microsoft doesn't make any money from br licenses. At the same time, microsoft will want consumers to have br on their computers because it will increase the capacity of software discs. Microsoft dig on apple about br is routed in apple championing their machines as superior in terms of graphics.
1080P in 16:9 aspect would be about 28-30 Mbps using MPEG-2, and about half that using a modern video codec like MPEG-4. Anything less means that are reducing pixel resolution, over-compressing the video, or both.
Let us assume a righteous case of 15 Mbps video stream for 1080P. What portion of the Xbox Live Gold membership base a) has this kind of bandwidth, and b) has it and can sustain it interruption to the video.
And considering you can buy standalone Blu-ray players for $98, we can see that this is 100% political agenda and not technological. And the curious question I'd like to offer is this:
Are there more people interested in a Blu-ray player for their Xbos 360s, or are there more people with a sustainable 15 Mbps Internet connection?
15-20mbps 1080p video looks the same as 30+mbps video. You don't need absurd bitrate to get the same quality.
15mbps and above internet speed is needed for quality that would match Blu-ray, but only if you are picky and it really bugs you that you are not watching higher bitrate movie. 90% of people don't care about that and it's not like HD on Netflix or Xbox 360 HD looks bad to majority of people. This is just a natural progression to bring in 1080p streaming. If this happened in a year, you can imagine where it will be by the end of next year.
There's a reason why quite a few people that are relevant to industry say that in 2 years it will be come a primary distribution method.
Considering the percentage of people who actually have Blu-ray is still super small I don't see a reason why Microsoft would need to introduce Blu-ray at this point, especially when you consider how far they've come with streaming quality and digital downloads.
Even Blu-ray manufacturers are integrating HD streaming sources in TVs and players.
The future there is unavoidable. Sure you can still use Blu-ray but mainstream will most likely just jump directly onto streaming because they won't see a difference between DDL/Streaming and Blu-ray and it's so much more convenient that there's no real competition.
It's quite understandable why MS doesn't want Blu-ray.
Vudu on my LG BD390 can stream HDX formatted 1080p with surround sound that looks great and streams just fine on my 6.6MBit cable internet connection. They claim to only require 4.5MBit. Looks indistinguishable from Blu-ray to my eyes on a 52 inch screen.
I do know that MSFT has working models of the 360 with Blu-ray drives. I know this by a buddy of mine who works in that area in Redmond. But that doesn't mean they will release it. Companies always test and and things like this being worked on. Such as Apple always had MacOS X running on an x86 CPU years before they switched to Intel CPUs. I just wish they would switch.
kevon27 - The majority of people would like to have it itegrated. People buy the PS3 because it's Blu-ray. People bought the PS2 because it used DVD. Quality is nice but most will say something is :good enough". Look at MP3s, they are good enough for most for music.
I feel this is Microsoft covering for Ballmer's slip up. The questioning was all centered around the Xbox 360 and where else would you call a Blu-Ray drive an accessory? In a PC a Blu-Ray drive would be called just a Blu-Ray drive. Also, look at what Toshiba did. They lost the format war. So instead of just being bitter about it they put on their big boy pants and released a Blu-Ray deck. If Microsoft wants the Xbox to be an all encompassing entertainment center, they are going to have to release a Blu-Ray drive. Its all about options. They had the video marketplace in place and also had the HD DVD drive out to give people options.
I totally agree. Another example is Walkman vs iPod. Sony lost the war, but now they make accessories such as dock station for iPod.
This rumor was silly to begin with. They are about to launch a 1080p instant stream service in about three weeks. With all the success they are having with Netflix why in the world would the go with Blu-Ray to satisfy a niche audience.
Actually, it's my understanding that people who have; a 360, a Gold XBL membership and an internet connection fast enough to even allow for 1080p streaming as well as US residency is a far smaller audience than that of BD's current install base.
The niche audience I was referring to would be the people who would want a Blu-Ray accesory. Plus, with the time people who use VOD is a much larger audience than the Blu-Ray install base. Microsoft is trying to appeal to those people and draw them in.
That being said the amount of people who care about Blu-Ray quality video is a niche audience. The digital download audience has already surpassed the Blu-Ray install base and it will only grow bigger over time.
The Problem with DOWNLOADED/STREAMING movies is the following.
1. NO Closed Captioning or Sub-titles for the hearing imparied.
2. NO extras... Some movies I don't care about the extras. SOME movies I WANT the extras.
3. Limited viewing time ie 24hrs, when you rent. DVD/Blu-ray rental stores give you 2 to 3 days for the SAME price as a DL/Streamed movie.
4. Overpriced (Both for sales & for rentals). I can buy a perfectly good "pre-viewed" Blu-ray for $9.99 at my local Blockbuster or at my local "used" book/movie store. I can buy a perfectly good "Pre-viewed" SD-DVD for $4.99 at Blockbuster or at my local "used" book/movie store. So why would I want to spend $15-$25 for a movie download that DOESN'T even contain extras, OR Sub-titles....
Currently physical media is your best value for buying movies, and depending on your rental history, physical rentals could still be your best economic choice.
They have along way to go before they can replace the use of physical media.
TGC
And of course downloads/streaming can't match the audio and video quality that physical media provides.
Another problem about streaming/downloaded movies is that if you ask anyone they'll tell you "its the future of media." Well, last time I checked I don't live in the future and I don't own a DeLorean, I live in the present. In the present, physical media is still a better value, its cheaper and has superior picture and audio quality.
For me personally, the exclusion of closed captioning is a huge thing for me. I like reading the dialogue and both my parents are deaf. I really wish Netflix worked on providing subtitles for every instant stream movie.
You forgot the biggest part. It is tied to that one device. You buy a show on the 360, well it's only going to work on your 360. You buy it with Vudu, it's only going to work with Vudu. What if you don't want Vudu anymore? You can't transfer it to anything else. To me, this is the biggest reason why physical media is better and will stay ahead in sales.
movie downloads will only take over the rental market. Buying downloaded movies just isn't practical, now many 15 GB 1080p movies will an xbox hard drive hold, not many. Blu-ray isn't a niche market. Discs are still the best delivery method for movies that you want to buy and will be for quite a few more years. Bandwidth just isn't up to the challenge to be delivering 15 GB movies to the whole country.
Foolish move by Microsoft to shun Blu-ray, people appreciate consolidating devices. Nintendo Wii should play DVD without having to hack too. Physical media is not going to die until it is guaranteed that we can endlessly download the content when needed; otherwise, it just makes sense to have a physical copy when the costs are similar.
It's a games console first and foremost, what is wrong with that?
If sony had left blu ray out of the PS3 and concentrated on the standalone market instead, they would probably still have dominance, or close to it, in the games console market.
Blu ray has been a massive festering sore for sony, why on earth would MS want to buy in?
Nintendo is the clear winner and they don't even play DVDs, so the answer is clear. Keep games consoles and jack of all trade movie consoles separate IF you want to make money, simple really....fanboys please mark me down.
...and I'm with kevon27, buy a separate blu ray player. Anyone who is anyone knows separate componentry gives a better quality result in most cases, I don't want an ugly games console, 360 OR PS3, in my A/V rack to play my movies on.
If Sony had left Blu-ray movie playback out of the PS3 we would probably be watching HD-DVDs today.
Blu-ray is absolutely a niche format for videophiles and a short-lived one at that. DVD will easily outlive it.
However, I also believe that digital downloads and streaming are destined to replace only the disc-based media rental market.
For the folks who now buy there must be another physical format and memory card based media is the only reasonable next step. No limitations on size (the BDA has just stated that 50GB is the absolute limit for movies) and far greater bandwidth.
Isn't Blu-Ray based on Java technology? Putting that on a MS box with their blessing would be like Jews converting to Catholicism. Get a LG BD390, the Swiss Army knife of HD playback. You get Blu-Ray, Vudu, Netflix, streaming/DLNA, Wireless-N, and USB device storage device file playback for less power consumption than a gaming console.
Microsoft is just leaving money on the table then.
Not everybody wants to play in their sleazy "Microsoft Points" ecosystem. You are always left with some soft of unusable balance which means you to buy more points to use up the the remainder and so on and so on. I may rent a digital movie on occasion but it wont be through my Xbox360 because of this very fact.
In spite of what the marketing departments at Microsoft and Apple say, iTunes and XBLM are NOT "the only solution you really need". 5 and 6 dollars a pop for digital streaming is not a substitute for Netflix when you rent more than one or two discs a month. Its not even close.
I use netflix on my 360 and I have a 15mb connection and my moves don't look so good. I find the best way to watch movies is on the PS3. You can't stream high quality 1080P and high quality audio at the same time. Think of DTS Master Audio or Dolby True HD, it's just not possible to get that kind of audio from streams. Even if you get the audio in raw form and let the player or receiver do the decoding, it still requires really big files. So, the best way to go is using Blue Ray disks.