Golvellius on 02 October 2008
If the new Xbox is supposed to provide full-fledged media-center capabilities, they will have to include an optical disc drive, for CD and DVD playback alone (these two won't be gone by 2011). Whether they're also going to include Blu-ray will probably depend on how popular it is around that time. If it remains a niche format, they could as well choose HD DVD and thereby prevent piracy more easily (HD DVD was not made for data storage via burning, that's why no HD DVD burners were ever available). If it's significantly popular by then, they probably have to include it, but if it's popular it will also be cheap, so I don't see any real disadvantage.
