But you see, this is what I don't understand. Why must a perfectly good piece of technology be trashed by Toshiba when it could have been sold/leased solely to Microsoft for its gaming media. Just because it lost to Blu-ray doesn't mean it needs to go away. I remember the dreamcast using GD-ROM (1GB CDs)  instead of the mainstream CD-ROM at the time. I know Sega dropped support for the Dreamcast in the End, but Microsoft could have done wonders with the HD-DVD drives and Media taking advantage of the fact that it wasn't going to be mainstream.

Edit: Had to fix who I quoted from.

Well HD-DVD was actually much more capable than blu ray when it came to "extra" content. It could even access online extra content.And in terms of audio/visuals.. both are pretty much the same. The main reason the format died was because SONY bought their way into victory.. As for MS.. yup their one greedy company.. but sony isnt much different. It obviously expects ps3 owners to gobble up Bluray movies and make profits from there...

To me, the limitation of not having a harddrive in every 360 is far more damaging than having DVD9. For eg tekken loads a lot faster on the 360 vs ps3 without an install. SO dvd9 does have certain advantages too.. Devs can technically compress enough 1080p content onto DVD9 and make mandatory installs if they have to- were it not for the arcades' HDD-less existence.

@ Deneidez

I don't know, I'm very skeptical about trusting a hard drive to keepsake my whole game. I heard that's the route MS wants to eventually take--a complete media download into the console. (correct me if I'm wrong on this) If they do, then higher capacity hard drives are a must if you want to keep a few games in hand. Many also don't have a fast enough connection to download 25+GBs fast enough.

doesn't mean you can't buy the disc which has the whole game on it you can install onto your hard drive. 

@ arsenicazure

Isn't that what they are doing right now? Wasn't Bayonetta an HD install and showed very fast loading times. I don't know how fast Blu-ray is, but it would be interesting to see if Sony starts following the HD install from a blu-ray just to keep up with loading times or if the they can achieve similar results from disk play.

Either way, I think MS needs a new media because DVD9 will not cut it for the next generation. I'll keep saying that they should pay toshiba and revive HD-DVD.

yeah but DVD is fine if installs are mandatory anyways.  That's how it operates on PC.  You can put way more data to be unpacked that way and multiple dvds is not much of an issue this way.

Yes, sacrafices which the gaming public so far wouldn't know if they slapped them in the face and raped them on the side of the road with 38 witnesses and then stabbed the gaming public and fled the scene and then when the sacrafices came back to finish the job and killed the gaming public. Noone would call the police or help the gaming public. We like to call this effect the 'over-exagerated technology effect' or as its commonly know the 'bystander effect'.

@ WilliamWatts

Developers have often complained about this, but they usually don't want to damage the reputation of their product in public by highlighting how much better their game could have been if they would only have to take into account Blu-Ray.

Final Fantasy XIII for example, comes on three 6.8 GBs 360 DVDs with downgraded ingame textures and cinematics on the XBox 360. They also stated they cut so much out of the game they could release a new game based on that alone. I think it's not unlikely that if the 360 would also have enough capacity more of this content would have made into Final Fantasy XIII.

It could have been a consideration as that would mean even more discs on the 360 or more downgraded assets quality. Square Enix prefers to claim both versions are on par, because bad PR and upset people does not help their bottom-line.