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Microsoft drops the price of the Xbox 360 HD DVD Player
Microsoft drops the price of the Xbox 360 HD DVD Player
XboxCircle - December 5, 2007
Submitted by Bleezy (323) at 5:25AM PST on December 5, 2007
It looks as if Microsoft will be making the holiday season that much better, as retailers such as Toys R Us have lowered the price of the Xbox 360 HD DVD player to the low price of only $129.99. Just this summer the HD DVD Player was retailing for $199.99, and half a year later we potentially two price cuts on the hardware. Both Amazon and Toys R Us are offering the HD DVD Player at the new price, so if you waited all this time, wait no longer!
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MiniRagnarok posted on Xbox 360 (Xbox 360) at 5:23PM PST on December 5, 2007. RE: Microsoft drops the price of the Xbox 360 HD DVD PlayerAmazon still has the player going for $179.99
http://www.amazon.com/Xbox-360-HD-DVD-Player/dp/B000JHO4L0/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1196903603&sr=8-1
Toys "R" Us has it going for $129.98
http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2538552
They don't specifically say whether or not it's just a special sale. I know at Meijer they have Temporary Price Drops on products that are either going to be discontinued or if the price is going to drop permanently. We will see if this turns out to be a potential price drop. This should have been titled differently though. Nobody actually knows if Microsoft had any part in this. Even though I'm going to probably lose money, I'm gonna have to vote down on this one. Rumors are okay as long as they are stated as such.
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ixaarii posted on Xbox 360 (Xbox 360) at 3:48PM PST on December 5, 2007. RE: Microsoft drops the price of the Xbox 360 HD DVD Player@Bleezy,
MS saying that there's no real use for it seems right, but doesn't make it true. There's no need for it, now that is a true statement, just like there's no need for stronger hardware ... but people want it. And if it's available it is always useful to have more. Game creation is a chief field in which there's never enough resources. No matter how good you are with compression it doesn't mean that compressing/decompressing isn't an extra cost. It may be a minimal one, but it doesn't disappear. It might be offset by some other bottleneck such as transfer speed though.
However any extra plus that a game developer has can and often times is used to squeeze more. You said you can just unpack to hdd and use that... but that's where MS is in trouble: by supporting both HDD & Core versions it's forcing all developers to not rely on that, because they want to sell to all xbox360 owners.
One true thing though: as long as MS or the market forces can get a developer to go multiplatform chances are that developer isn't going to use the Bluray, because such development always uses the common denominator. However with exclusive ps3 games they can: a) include more assets b) higher resolution assets c) have more uncompressed stuff (though again, depends on where the bottleneck is) d) use the disk for a kind of swap to double the streaming speed by doing it both from disc and hdd. This is one thing that is a biggie IMO, both for developers and consumers: a consumer wanting to get a cheap 360 might think twice if he hears that on that version games dont' run so good... not to mention a developer who might get bad rep becaues.
It seems in this subject also, like with HDDVD/Bluray: if it's a draw MS wins: as long as the games are multiplatform chances are engines aren't going to use this... though it is possible, I wouldn't be surprised if Carmack's Rage engine uses this hdd streaming to increase speed on the ps3 while on the xbox360 uses what I understood was higher fill rate.
There's no need for all these things as even proved by the Wii, but every little bit helps, even the bits that may not seem important like convenience of programming (xbox360), standardization of hdd (ps3), higher fill rate(?) (xbox360), bluray higher storage (ps3)...
The big deal though is content IMO. I don't care about things like if the 5/7 channels of sound in MGS4 are better uncompressed, I may not even notice that, but I do care a lot for example about the next team ICO game and Heavy Rain, and I would love more things like Mass Effect... obviously that's just me, but I do believe that this holds true in general: people care about the content, not as much the technology behind them... except when technology makes or breaks something big. For example in this new generation something HUGE imho happened: the possibility of games that stream data with no more levels surfaced... now that I believe is a rule changing experience, one that redefines everything and justifies stronger hardware.
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kspraydad posted on Xbox 360 (Xbox 360) at 2:35PM PST on December 5, 2007. RE: Microsoft drops the price of the Xbox 360 HD DVD Player1 bids
Bleezy posted on Xbox 360 (Xbox 360) at 2:11PM PST on December 5, 2007. RE: Microsoft drops the price of the Xbox 360 HD DVD Player@ixaarii,
When would you expect MS to go with built in HD DVD? Also you are right about more space less computing as it relates to compression, however MS has pointed out that all tho blu-ray can hold 50 gigs, there is no real use for that right now at all. And MS isn't worried about it in the future because of downloadable content. Anything that doesn't fit on the disc can just get downloaded. Also i think upon the first run of a game, some information gets decompressed and stored on the hard drive and is ready then every time you run the game. I think there's tricks MS uses to combat size issues, i know they are really on point with compression technology which is good i think because that is a big deal in the world of information speed and stuff. I don't know, just some thoughts...
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welshbloke posted on Xbox 360 (Xbox 360) at 12:24PM PST on December 5, 2007. RE: Microsoft drops the price of the Xbox 360 HD DVD Player@ixaarii,
Oh I can see the high end model getting some HD DVD loving. Obviously it will be for movie playback only. Will be a nice revenue earner when folks reconsider replacing the existing Xbox for the perceived goodness of the new model. Obviously prices still need to fall some before this happen routinely.
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ixaarii posted on Xbox 360 (Xbox 360) at 10:28AM PST on December 5, 2007. RE: Microsoft drops the price of the Xbox 360 HD DVD Player@Bleezy,
seems to me like things are heating up between bluray & hddvd and each side is trying to pull off a decisive move. Problem is IMO Sony already did: even if only sells as little as we're predicting now, 50 mil bluray players in the world is something, even if they are mostly used for games once there the consumers might get a movie sometime if it's convenient/cheap enough. And those 50 mil will be out there no matter what... so while it was forced on consumers and Sony felt the lashback for that it is a fact now.
Do i think it's a bad thing that they did? Actually no, I think it was a great move in the long term, if they do keep the platform for 8+ years... but in the short term I agree whit what David Jaffe said in an interview: if it was me I probably would have released the ps3 sooner and cheaper not losing so much marketshare to xbox360... but then again this was kinda of a necessary sacrifice for longer term success. I do believe the problem with games these days is lack of content, not as much lack of processing power... and while the hard part is not storing that content, but producing it, as the industry matures and the art tools get better the space to store that will be needed. (it's no coincidence that so many games happen in Canada. I myself am a old Softimage:XSI fan and there they can work hand in hand with the developers) There's the old programming tradeoff that I think could still apply: more space - less computing because the data can be kept unpacked or somesuch trick.
Now the big question is if MS is willing to break the Xbox360 standard by going with builtin HDDVD. I mean it wouldn't theoretically break anything, except the possibility that some developers would realease for it, which could make DVD machines feel 'older' or (the horror!) less supported. The only other thing would be HDDVD + very compatible but slightly better hardware marketed as Xbox360++ ... but while that could guarantee them a sure next-next gen position I don't think even MS is willing to burn that much money... so while MS has been supporting HDDVD I don't think they'll go to insane lengths to do it.
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Bleezy posted on Xbox 360 (Xbox 360) at 5:45AM PST on December 5, 2007. RE: Microsoft drops the price of the Xbox 360 HD DVD Player1 bids
ixaarii posted on Xbox 360 (Xbox 360) at 5:32AM PST on December 5, 2007. RE: Microsoft drops the price of the Xbox 360 HD DVD Player40 bids
Bleezy posted on Xbox 360 (Xbox 360) at 5:25AM PST on December 5, 2007. Article: Microsoft drops the price of the Xbox 360 HD DVD PlayerIt looks as if Microsoft will be making the holiday season that much better, as retailers such as Toys R Us have lowered the price of the Xbox 360 HD DVD player to the low price of only $129.99. Just this summer the HD DVD Player was retailing for $199.99, and half a year later we potentially two price cuts on the hardware. Both Amazon and Toys R Us are offering the HD DVD Player at the new price, so if you waited all this time, wait no longer!
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It isn't a Microsoft price drop according to their own site...see my previous comment with link directly to them.
Again, retailers tried this last year at $99 (I think Sam's Club even had them at $72)