if they start making games on HD DVDs for this new SKU then they are DUMB & DONE, better off releasing this new SKU in 4-5 years from now as the Next NEXT GEN.

by then the ps3 will be way to strong to be left out and the 360 by then might be not as popular as it is now

Hard drives are not manditory on all games. Only on certain MMO's. It would be idiotic to pull that move after releasing the 360 arcade SKU. It won't matter whether or not they put the HD-DVD drive in the 360. They will not use it for games. Same thing goes for the extra memory in the slim PSP, sadly enough they are not going utilize the ram for the game functions just extra' boost to speed things up.

None of the companies on the market are willing to alienate theire core customers.

Microsoft forcint their consumers to upgrade?  Never! 

by the time hd-dvd is built in the xbox 360 everybody will be wanting to get ps3s due to the games coming out and the price drop...anyway xbox 360 fans will not get the new built-in hd-dvd xbox 360 because they will already have the "un-built" one...so yeah...ps3 wins.

I have been saying this for over a year now. People are kidding themselves if they think the HD-DVD drive will not be used for games. The M$ camp has been pounded on the dvd front by devs. This will IMO release as a new console though. It wont be a 360. It will be there new nex gen unit. They will advertise full BC, because the hardware inside will probably be exactly the same aside from Wi-fi, HD-DVD, and maybe even some extra Ram. GPU and CPU will be the same aside from a die shrink.  This goes along with what every PS3 owner has said from the begining, the 360 doesnt have the staying power due to its limited space and that it will be replaced in a 3-4 years by a new version......this is pretty much proof of that.

Well, if Microsoft is going to keep screwing it's install base with constant hardware upgrades, then Sony should follow suit and make a PS3 with more RAM.

I though this was a PlayStation website?!

 

And by the way, a Xbox 360 HD-DVD machine is a RUMOR! God damn it...

I think this is definitely a good thing for PS3 owners, not so much for the owners of the 360.  I think the fact MS did not include this in the beginning says a lot, and with HD DVD really not up to par with the Blu-Ray sales, just solidifies the notion of Blu prevailing.

late 2008 early 2009?  thats why to late if you ask me.  at that point so many people will own ps3's and thus will be buying blu-ray's hd-dvd won't be much of a factor.  thats how i feel at least

Haha,That would be the stupidist move ever by Microsoft too little too late.

Due to its price being reasonable and the fact that Halo 3 has just launched, a lot of people who want a 360 have probably already bought it. If this rumour is true, i wouldn't imagine it being as cheap as the current SKU, so this probably won't sell well at first.

psn id: gingo.... this is excellent news for ps3 because this will definetely be much more expensive than what the ps3 is at the moment so i dont see this being a bad bit of news at all

They would have to release an HD DVD that can hold 50GB, because I all ready laughed my A** off when I saw that the Transformers HD DVD could not fit the HD Audio track on it, because it wouldn't fit on the disc. Ya good job Paramount for cheaping out on your customers by going with the crapier product!!!!!!

At this rate, HD-DVD will hopefully be dead by 2009, so it would really be a futile effort, especially since you'll be pissing off all the people who own 360's

Gingo is right. This is good news for PS3 fans. Now we can see who the real dummies are.

Hehe I seriously doubt they will take this road, especially when you can buy it separately any ways currently. :E

xbox is crap!

If I owned a 360 already I would be pissed about this. Say what you want about what Sony is doing, but at least they are not making their customers keep buying PS3's. If Microsoft does this there will be losing support and a huge opportunity to get a upper hand on this "system war."

if they expect us to upgrade from our FCUKIN 360 to another one in less than a 2 year span ..they are fCUKIN dreaming am selling mine tomorrow morning FCUK u PS3 wanabe

xbox sux

Yes I know this is just a rumor, but if it were true it would be good news for PS3 owners. MS is on a trend of coming out with a new system ever 2-3 years. That doesnt make consumers very happy.

2-3 years, release a console? Sounds pretty common to me. either way, it doesn't affect me. Regardless of whether or not Microsoft screws their install base is a moot point when compared to the extension of the Xbox 360's Longevitiy. I stuck with PS3 because I knew from the start the PS3 is going to be around for a while. Anyone with half-a-brain will know that Asymmetrical processing is the true next-gen feature...along with Blu-Ray.

They can't do it at this point.  It would be pointless because devs couldn't use it.  There's nearly 13 million reasons why they can't - existing 360 owners.  I wouldn't put it past M$ to have a "new" console ready to come out in like a year from now with the hd-dvd drive built in.  It's just not gonna happen.

Cant wait till the next war of  2013 HD-Blu-Ray vs. HHD-DVD (HigherHighDef)

if they release a new SKU with bulit in HD DVD player n WIFI and start makin games on HDDVD it'll just a slap in da other 12million ppl who had already brought a 360 hahaha

why would it matter if they put HD-DVD in the 360? blue ray is still miles ahead in technology. and that would only jack up the 360's price.

Everyone knows microsofts next step will be this hd-dvd drive built in and then adding wifi in their upcoming xbox360 because of how the 360s looking now most devs are complaining about lack of space. And hd-dvd will probably be used for gaming space since how in the movie format war its not looking so good compared to blu ray.

 

 

When microsoft added just hdmi the consumers were happy about it but at the same time it makes the public bash them for adding it late, like how some ppl bash sony because they added rumble late. Whereas rumble isnt such a big deal to add late, since a controller would go for around 40 bucks whereas a console would go for 300+ which is really a big deal adding hdmi, the hd-dvd internal drive+ wifi would just make things even ugly for microsoft since a system on the market is already future proof. :)

who cares, let those 360 fools go out and spend more money on every upgraded system that microsoft brings out. Lets see 360 is cheaper than ps3  ha !. those fools brought the first 1, then when and got the 120 gig, then the hdmi model, now they're want the 65nm chip one.that close to $2000 and they still don't have the quality  and features that we ps3 owner have.

will never happen

so how many times is MS going to get away with bad mouthing their competitors then later do the exact same DA?M thing? if this is true then there's nothing you xbox fanboys can say to either defend or downplay MS reasons for bringing out this sku. just grab the crisco oil, bend over and say "MS screwed us again!" with this new sku purchasing a ps3 doesn't seem so bad and ken wasn't crazy after all. i can't wait to see if this is true or not.

Yea, like this would ever happen.

by 08-09 xbox will be dead(ish)
also this xbox will cost more than the ps3...alot more

POINLESS!

I think this is hilarious.  We all knew it was inevitable that this was coming from MS.  They always find a way to milk their customers.  I had a notion that they did their launch console the way they did to get the costs down enough to get out the door early at a "cheaper" price.   As an early adopter... we have the option to buy an HDDVD addon for a nominal fee but as MS stated....games won't be released on HDDVD because it isn't needed...hummmm....  Now that they have the installed base who bought into their cheaper system ... more than likely they are going to force those who want larger games to buy the addon or upgrade the entire console.  With games requiring larger and larger storage space... this only made sense.  I think this will backfire on them in the long run by pissing off many a MS fans.  Of course...the xbots will give some stupid reason for the insanity.

Xbox fans are just that loyal i dont expect a whole lot of them to be buying ps3's if they haven't at least ordered or pre-ordered one already yea Bill Gates is a nerd pimp....."no bigdaddy i didn't buy the superior ps3 because you are forcing me to upgrade to a newer 360 mediocre system I already bought that will probably overheat and kill itself anyways"

to Se7enthsign... Sony will never follow suit in the manner of putting more RAM in their system.  If you understand the structure of the Cell Processor then you would understand in the next few years developers wont even be using the RAM at all.  RAM is becoming obsolete because of the work load that processors can undertake... i.e. the Cell which can stream hundreds of thousands of calculations on each SPE without dumping on RAM.

Since when has HD-DVD had a stronger attach rate than Blu-Ray Players since currently the claim is HD-DVD has sold more players but Blu-Ray has sold more content and Blu-Ray has been selling HD movies 2:1 since the begining of the year? HD-DVD will be a dead format by 2009 anyway so what is the point?

" Microsoft has continually stated that the HD DVD drive would never be used for games, but similar promises have been broken, such as the claim that the hard drive would never be mandatory. "  

Thats wrong, the hdd thing was for a mmo that was developed for last gen consoles with Hdds.

MS WOULD HAVE TO BE STUPID TO MAKE A HD DVD game or let one be made, and Im sure that they know this.

By the MGS4, GT5, GOW3, FFXIII(maybe), LittleBigPlanet, among with other great games would already be out rocking the ps3.

lol 360 will be a failure in the future.

 

lol Microsoft giving the middle finger to those who alrady bought their consoles

Well, if they do this I guess we won't be hearing anymore "what's with all the sony SKU's?" I don't think it will help M$ by then. BluRay has more backers and PS3 is all over the world, not just in NA

I say let them do it so that M$ can tell their consumers them made the thing just for movies but not for games again and piss them all off. On top of that Best Buy's Bluray section is 3 times the size of the HDDVD section. People want ONE HD format and the majority has chosen Bluray. A HDDVD equiped would just be a waste, and a drain on M$ resources so go right ahead.

In all honesty, I think by the time xbox releases the "new" HD-DVD drive for the 360, Blu-Ray would already finally be seen by all as the True HD experience both for gaming and movie viewing. Xbox, too little too late.

i lost

Anybody remember the PSX? The all-in-one DVD-burner/DVR/PS2 that cost about a grand was only released in Japan and reportedly didn't do all that well. The bigger question is that if this is a joint effort who will have final say as to what box will look like (different color maybe?) and how it will be marketed. The word Elite is already taken so I guess The Ultimate or maybe The Prestige model. Either way this goes against everything the 360 originally stood for...choice. The fact that MS has been copying the PS3 on nearly every front (HDMI, bigger HDD, black housing) it was only a matter of time before but 2 years later is way, way, way too late to start to introduce what is basically a brand new console. I love the fact that MS said that devs don't use all the space on DVDs in the last generation and already getting slack for not having enough room (thanks Assasin's Creed devs). Bottomline, a good decision but so late they might as well wait until 2009. But by then Blu-Ray would've won. Checkmate.

I just had to comment on this.  You know what is sad, is that most of these xbox players will sell or give away they're older 360's to get this one.  Just so they can rub it in the PS3 peeps faces.  What's even sadder, is that most of them won't even realize Gates just whipped it out, with no lube shafted them all a real good one.  My cousins friend is a good example, he had one of the first 360's, but then he had to have the elite when it came out with HDMI, he gave his older one to his little brother and spent another $400+ on it (at launch).  Just for an HDMI port and overpriced HD......

Although PS3 has Blu-Ray, do any of the games "really" take advantage of it?  Halo3 was released on DVD and is supposed to be an amazing game, makes me think that "at this stage" PS3 would be fine with DVD too.  MS are just evolving the 360 for future games.  As for movies... anyone who seriosly thinks PS3 is going to decide the next format is demented.  The jump from video to DVD was a no brainer- but DVD to hi-def (with the existence of up-scalers) isn't as obviose.  Besides the PS3 and Xbox will will be low end/poor Hi-Def player, same as PS2 was a crap DVD player- ie. not really what the movie buffs are after.  It'll be 2009 b4 a winner starts to emerge.

Too late microsoft.....you couldnt make a good console if it jumped up and slapped you in the face. Sony had the foresight to make a true next gen console, including from the start all next gen features. Go ahead MS make ANOTHER console, 360 fans are going to be ssooo skint they wont have any cash to buy games for their fourth console. HD-DVD sucks Microsoft SUCKS admit it.

If this turns out true, Microsoft will turn everything they can to make this sound like a good idea in the ears of the consumers (trust me on that!), and half the things they will say are pure bulls*it (as usual).

hahahaahaha

I new it

Brothers and sisters this is the END OF GAYBOX

 

MUAHAHAHAHAHAA 

Well I've said it for 2 months now, Microsoft will make a new model to compete with Ps3. And I'm right.

If they did this, Microsoft would be shooting themselves in the foot.

Could you imagine the stick that Sony would have got if they'd released the PS2 with a CD-ROM drive then changed newer models to DVD 2 years after launch?

I can't see it happening, to be honest. It would be a stupid move, even for Microsoft. Suicidal.

Ha ha ha, well like alot of people on here i knew this would happen i,ve been saying it since i got my ps3 in march, xbox just rushed it out and didnt think towards the future, after all this time of waiting for the ps3 im glad that i did, all we need now is for every xboxer to get the red ring (im hoping it happens to my mate cause he's done nothing but slate me having a ps3!) HD DVD will be a dead technology if they did bring out another console in 2 years, and with blu ray sweeping the floor over HD i wouldn't be surprised if they gave in and said ' ok sony you win, what were we thinking to go against you in the format war?! We were stupid to think we'd win, can we use Blu ray in the future xbox's please?

f**k me how many frigging SKU's do they need

As much as I am NOT a Microsoft supporter... this may actually be a bad thing for the PS3... With the deep pockets of Microsoft, and we are well aware of how deep they are, the may just be willing to take losses on the machine to make it a very interesting price point upon release.. now remember this is not just because of games needing more capacity but also the increase in HD DVD in the market... Lets face it... there are alot of die hard 360 fans as there are PS3 fans. If it does come to fruitition then this just shows that Sony was right all along to include the Blu Ray in the PS3 despite all the flak they got over it... But they do face an uphill climb.... PS3 developers would have had ample time to exploit the PS3's undeniable power and further the gap between the two consoles...

I just had a very disturbing thought....what if this is NOT the xbox 360???? Think about it, the original xbox launched 2002 and had a 3 year life span, as Microlimp released the 360 in 2005.  SOOOOOOO what if this is a new console that is set to replace the 3 year old 360? Think about it, in 2008/2009 the xbox 360 will be as old as the original one was when it was replaced. IF microlimp comes out with a new box, then sony is i think seriously screwed.... think about it, as cool as the ps3 is, could the Cell chip really compete with a 65nm 8-core Penryn? A what if this new M$ box had double the memory of the ps3? Not hard considering the plummeting price of solid state memory these days. So of course microlimp is going to write off the 360 as a "failure", now that sony is finally getting their act together, and what would they care? they sold twice as many units and made a ton of money off of software sales. The fact that the 360 is a failure is what should have us all worried, as m$ may make a new box that would strike a massive blow to an already unsteady ps3.

Oh Playstation 4 SAVE US!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

@SRT4Chris401:

To say that the PS3 is a low-end Blu-Ray says that a few things. 1) you most likely don't have a PS3 or 2) you don't have an HDTV to notice the difference in picture quality or 3) you just don't know you're talking about. The PS3 is a great choice for an all-in-one DVD/entertainment system. It upscales DVDs and plays Blu-Rays with no problem and with great clarity. So do a little homework before commenting crap like that. As for 360 rubbing anything in PS3 owners faces; hard to do that when you're system is gone for 5 to 7 weeks at a time for an RRoD error. Besides, what will all those current 360 owners do? What will devs do? MS has a good lead on the PS3, no doubt. But something like this could really hurt them in the long run. Sony will just say "I told you so" and will have earned the right to say it.

Come on, have you guys seen the 360’s inner workings. The thing is just a bunch of other companies parts put into a grey box that says Microsoft on it. The thing is a Frankenstein that has absolutely no creative engineering thought into it what so ever. It’s pretty much a home made PC to tell you the truth with a one of a kind video card. Because it has no ingenuity, you get the RROD as a result.

 

That being said, Microsoft can go anyway witch way with that monstrosity of a console. That includes built in HD-DVD, wi-fi, and a smoothie maker god forbid. If you spent more time on making a console that runs efficiently, rather than spend all your efforts on XBL you might have blown the PS3 away and would have turned many if not all PS2 owners over.  

W/e.No matter what MS does as long as they don't get FF XIII and MGS4.There is no way they could beat Sony

@ incredibilistic

I believe you meant to direct your comment at chimmy,because I was thinking the same thing when I read his comment.After watching 300 and Casino Royale in Hi-Def I don't think I can ever go back

fortunate for me i stuck with sony all along.hahahaha.. xbox owners wil be forced to make a choice between ps3 and xbox.....personally i would feel robbed if i bought a xbox with dvd and then they release a HD dvd 2 years later, and i had to buy it to keep up.

Nice but sony have already done this with the ps3, if only them americans listened to the rest of the world and they might come out trumps someday...

dont they know they wouldnt be able to call that a Xbox 360 anymore? it wouldnt be a 360. this is microsoft making a whole new system, and way too late. just like they do with windows lol. make something crappy, then make something slightly better and make you pay for it, then make something else slightly better and make you pay for it. nvm that crap. go ahead and put your 8core whatever in it, this is the only way they can beat the PS3 is to make a whole new system, losers. HD-DVD will bea dead by the time this thing hits.

We'll if they did this..it would just show microsoft is trying to catch up with ps3 technology..and also cause so much confusion over the sku..how many sku they have now?..like 4? plus this one would be 5+

"shockingly" Toshiba denied all rumours, but then again who knows with these companies.

Obviously xbox is trying to following in PS3's footsteps, but everyone knows HD can't be compared to Blue-Ray

Playstation_3 now dont go bashing all of us americans. I waited for the PS3 to come out I read reviews and read what each system had. And I figured I wouldnt purchase the PS3 5ill almost a yr was up. And I waited got the PS3 60gig set up. What really sold me on the PS3 that the 360 didnt have was the Hi def blu ray player let alone my PSone is still working so I know they build things to last.

There's no way that they would start using this for games. They would be forcing there whole fanbase to by the new player which would probably alienate a lot of them. Microsoft is smarter then that unless they are that desperate to have a system that atleast slightly matches the power of the ps3.  The reason the ps3 is great is becuase it uses the best and largest HD disks which is of course Blue-Ray. Even if they did use HD-DVD's for games then they still wouldn't have the space the Blue Ray Has.

Unbiased opinions only please.A friend sent me this and was wondering if someone could shed some light on this.

I read various game forums from time to time, and often see gamers complaining about 'lazy ports' to the ps3. They often mention how the ps3 is the most powerful game console and blame developers working on the console for doing a bad job. Sony has all of these people duped by impressive marketing spin, and I'm often amazed at how potent this type of rhetoric proves to be. For those unaware, I'm going to break it down simply and explain exactly why ports to the ps3 will never be as good as their 360 counter parts, and why most ps3 exclusives will likely continue to suck. First, lets debunk a few common misconceptions:



"The PS3 is more graphically advanced than the 360"



Fill rate is one of the primary ways to measure graphics performance - in essence, it's a number describing how many pixel operations you can perform. The fill rate on the PS3 is significantly slower than on the 360, meaning that games either have to run at lower resolution or use simpler shader effects to achieve the same performance. Additionally, the shader processing on the ps3 is significantly slower than on the 360, which means that a normal map takes more fill rate to draw on the ps3 than it does on the 360. And I'm not talking about small differences here, we're talking roughly half the pixel pushing power.



"Ok, fine, but the cell is like, super powerful"



In theory, sure, but in reality it doesn't work out that way. Game code simply doesn't split well across multiple processors. You can probably find a way to split a few things off fairly easily - put the audio on one processor, animation on another; but generally the breakup is always going to leave several of the SPUs idle or underutilized. On top of that, it's usually not CPU speed that restricts the visuals in games - it's fill rate.



"Uh, Blue Ray!"



Great for watching movies, but not so great for games. Getting data off the blue ray drive takes about twice as long as it does to get the same data off the 360's DVD drive. That translates into longer load times, or god forbid if your streaming from disk, tighter constraints on the amount of data you can stream.



"But it's got a lot more space than DVD"



Ok, you got me there - it does have a lot more space, and there is the potential to use that to do something cool, but thats unlikely to be realized in any useful way. There are tons of compression techniques available for data and I'd personally rather be able to get my data faster than have more of it. Most developers who use the entire Blue Ray drive are doing it to work around other problems with the ps3 such as it's slow loading - for instance, in Resistance: Fall of Man, every art asset is stored on disk once for every level that uses it. So rather than storing one copy of a texture, you're storing it 12 times. If you took that entire game and removed all the duplicate data, it would likely fit on a DVD without any problem. They do this to speed up load times, which, as I pointed out before, are painfully slow on the ps3. So in this case, the extra space is completely wasted.



"Once developers figure out the PS3 they'll maximize the hardware and it will be amazing"



I suspect a small number of PS3 only developers will optimize the hardware to do something cool. However, this will be an exception to the rule, and will likely involved game designs that are specifically designed for the hardware and funded by Sony. If those will prove to be fun or not is another question.



Most of the performance centric research into the PS3 has been around making it easier for developers to get the same level of performance you get out of the 360 naturally. For instance, some developers are using those extra SPU's on the cell to prepare data for the rendering pipeline. Basically, they take the data they would normally send to the graphics chip, send it to an SPU which optimizes it in some manner, then send it to the graphics chip. So, once again we see an 'advantage' in hardware being used to make up for a disadvantage in another area - a common theme with the ps3. And this introduces an extra frame of latency into the equation, making controller response slower.



So, the common theme is this; developers must spend significantly more time and resources getting the PS3 to do what the 360 can already do easily and with a lot less code. Lets look at how this translates into practical realities for a moment:



Why the PS3 version often pails in comparison to the 360 version, and why exclusives often suck:



As outlined above, getting equivalent performance out of the PS3 requires a lot of work unique to the platform, and in many cases, even with all these tricks, you still won't see equivalent performance. Thus, many ps3 games have simplified shaders and run at lower native resolutions than the 360 versions. On top of this, there is shrinking incentive to do this work; the PS3 isn't selling.



The code needed to make the PS3 work is most likely only useful to you on the PS3, as the types of tricks you need to do to make the thing perform are very unique to the platform and unlikely to be useful on any other architecture now or in the future. These issues all stem from unbalanced hardware design, and any future hardware that is this unbalanced will likely be unbalanced in a completely unique way.



Finally, there's the problem of resources. Game Development is, at it's heart, a resource management challenge. Given finite resources, do I have these five engineers work on optimizing the PS3 version to look better, or do I use them to make the game play better and fix bugs? Do I change my design to fit with what the PS3 hardware does well, or simply run the game at a slightly lower resolution on the PS3 to make up for it? Developers striving to push the PS3 hardware have often sacrificed their game in the process.

Everyone has pretty much forgotten what Microsoft's whole goal from the first launch of the x-box 360. Choices. You are given a choice at the current time between 4 systems so far. You are given a choice of what accessories you would want for it. You are given a choice to purchase the hard drive, or small memory unit. As far as I'm concerned, this is just another choice. If you want to play HD-DVD from your x-box 360, purchase the drive, if you want Hi-Def movies to sound extremely well (aka audiophiers) a stand-alone player of either format will be better than playing through a console system. I currently play the 360, Wii, DS, PSP, PS2, Gamecube. I do have plans in the near future, depending on game availability, to purchase a PS3, but at the moment, I'm holding off till MGS4 and the rest hit the shelves first.  I agree with almost everything bungledude, I haven't had the best quality Sony products in my hands either.

I still think the ps3 will sell better, because including the HD DVD in the xbox will put the price up, making it nearly as exspensive as the ps3, and it looks like Blu-Ray has been favoured over HD DVD because in all of the adverts the dvds are out in blu-ray and not HD DVD, i think the ps3 will have an even bigger advantage over the xbox if they add the HD DVD player.

by then we will have a blu-ray buner on our PS3s with 200gigabyte blu-ray discs

all im gonna say dat xbox sucks d**k .............their just tryin 2 make their crapy system more better.and ppl who think its better only cuz they play halo in it is stupid!!1