SvennoJ said:
wilco said:
Heavenly_King said:
By how their restrictions are, they should just not include a BR drive considering how your retail disk is pretty much worthless. BUT considering they are aiming to be your media center they need a BR; and If it was all digital (which it practically is) Gamestop would not sell the console. For me the vision of the console is disjointed in term of gaming aspects, media aspects, and how the market works. Those aspects seem to have been envisioned separately; and then in order to make both functions compatible the console ended costing more; without offering the advantage of the hardware it has; and with lots of restrictions gaming-wise; and quite a convoluted mess in the other aspects..
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No they don't need a BR drive. You can get movies through the internet just like you get games, and assuming they are downloaded the quality will be equal to Blu Ray. For all we know BR could be irrelevant in 5 years but digital downloads are guaranteed to still be viable 10 years from now.
And as far as gamestop is concerned, I seriously doubt they would stop stocking it, but even if they did, that is where IPTV providers come in. If microsoft could get into business with a company like verizon they wouldn't even need gamestop anymore and seing as how gamestop even sells tablets now, I doubt they would stop stocking xbox anyways.
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Downloaded movies are no where near in quality to blu-ray, and lack all the extra features. Downloading 40gb movies is not feasible yet for most of the population. With my bandwidth cap it would take me 8 months to download the LotR extended edition. (6 dual layer discs)
They could have gone with 2 sku's, one digital only, and promote Ultraviolet copies of blu-rays to stay an all (most) in one system. It would probably not get more then $50 of the retail price though, better to release a version without Kinect.
At least having a disc less SKU would also help the message: End of disc ownership.
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You're only thinking about the present. All these things could change. 10 years ago people were still using dial up, if you told someone back then that streaming HD content would soon be possible they wouldn't have believed you. Technology moves forward and if microsoft is serious about making a future proof console they need to anticipate that. If the console makers allow current limitations to hold them back they will have an outdated console in a few short years. You have to bet on the future, its possible to bet wrong but thats the reality of the tech industry.
