Is X1 forcing Kinect on us any different than PS3 forcing Bluray on us?

[ViktorBKK]

Mr Puggsly said:

ViktorBKK said:

Mr Puggsly, you have clearly not been paying much attention to the format wars have you? There was another optical medium called HD DVD which was backed by the DVD forum. Companies like Toshiba, Intel and Microsoft had a big stake on this format. Early on, HD DVD was winning the format war, until PS3 was released and the rest is history. If it wasn't for PS3, HD DVD would have been the successor to DVD, and blu-ray would be a dead format today.

But you are certainly right that blu-ray wasn't essential for PS3. PS3 was essential for blu-ray :P

Bluray would have become cheaper technology regardless, defunt technology is often cheap because people are just trying to get rid of it.

PS3 was more important to Bluray than vice versa. Yet some people just keep telling me about the format war. The format war simply isn't relevant to this discussion.

Wrong. Defunct technologies are more expensive due to economy of scale. Recent example is DDR2 being more expensive than DDR3. If HDDVD was cheap today, you could bet on Microsoft using it on Xbone, instead of paying royalties to Sony and the rest of BR Association. It's not, because nobody produces HDDVD today.

The format war is the one and only reason blu-ray was implemented on ps3. Sub-hd consoles with hardware from 2006 didn't need a 50GB optical drive. But Sony needed to win the format war to make money.

In a very similar way, Xbone doesn't need Kinect. But Microsoft needs it, so that they can sell your private data to advertisers, the government etc. and make LOTS of money. The only difference is that blu-ray offered something to the consumer(blu-ray movies), while Kinect offers absolutely nothing.