If the bluray would mean better and bigger games, it doesn't really effect me, having to switch disk every 6 hours or so was such a chore(!) though, don't make it seem like having multiple disk drastically hampers the experience for you, it's almost instant, although of course it'd be better off not having that nuisance in the first place, it's really not that big a deal.

Either way, I am fine with what it is now, but wouldn't protest against another format that allows higher capacity, be it bluray or something else, as long as of course the cost remains in the realm of reason.

What. Do you know anything about 360?

Zune pisses all over qurocity. it has more music. Better cost and lets you use the same account across 3 platforms. Zune has the most 1080p HD films download or stream than any other service. Over 1000 I believe now. And over 1.2 million albums.

You can watch live televison. Record, rewind and with no remote. In fact the nea update makes everything remote or controller free.

Social video kinect. You can watch films, trailers and well anything with someone across the other side of the world.

Pictures and photos can be viewed either through the awesome media center or the dashboard. Slide shows, slide shows with ur own music to. And photos can be used as ur dashboard background.

Sorry but the ps3 has bluray. That's it. And its pointless to me, both in cost and in future proof. Bluray in my area is dwindling. Not increasing. 3 Major supermarkets. Tesco, Sainsbury and morrisons all stock DVDs but no blurays. 5 Years on. In fact if you look up on Bing or Google blurays sales compared to HD downloads last year, downloads was alot more.

Let's get one thing straight. When using blu-ray, you pay royalties to the Blu-ray Disc Association, which consists of lots of different companies, each of which gets a part of the royalties that are payed to the BDA. Sony pays royalties to the BDA too, but it gets a small part of this back because it itself is part of the BDA. So Microsoft's royalties would be slightly more expensive than Sony's, but PS3 games cost the same as 360 games already. This royalty doesn't change anything.

And secondly, why in the world should Microsoft have a new factory line opened to produce their own discs when they can benefit from the increasing mass market production of blu-rays? Why spend money developing something new, when the stuff that's already here will more than get the job done? 

Using blu-ray means Microsoft will save a bunch of R&D costs and Microsoft can offer a machine capable of playing blu-rays. It's not going to make your games any more expensive.

First. If you are right then Nintendo just made the biggest error in the history of games. Not using bluray. Yet have a new type of disc the same size as bluray.

2Nd. Bluray has peaked. It will never mass market like DVDs. Even pcs in pc shops still have a limited number that include bluray. Not to mention the dwindling floor slace given to bluray films.

3Rd in my country it is not uncommon to find ps3 games 5 pound more expensive than 360. Say hello dirt 3. Some shops will match prices. But usually upping the 360 version. ( Thanks bluray ). Game doesn't do this though thank god.

Hddvd would be the best option. It costs very little to convert DVD lines for hddvd as Toshiba stated years back. And the tech already exists. I can see them doing this. As the film side of things is going DD very very quickly indeed. Last HD film figures says it all. And Zune marketplace is performing amazing in that field. Having no bluray on 360 and quality and quantity on Zune for HD stream or Download has helped push forward DD of HD films. You can now buy tvs with internet and HD film downloads service as software.

I can only think that if they choose to avoid it for their next console it will be because of fear for piracy.

I prefer my ps3 for multimedia since 360 is lacking in a few key areas.

- No uncompressed surround sound output, limited to 640 kbps 5.1 DD or lpcm 2 channel.
- It can't play my 24mbps m2ts (h.264) videos, I have to down convert them to a max 10mbps format compatible with 360 first which takes forever.
- It won't display gif, not even bmp files, again I don't want to convert all my pictures to lossy jpg.
- It doesn't display 1920x1080 pictures correctly, there is some down sampling going on before it comes back out as 1080p. Fine detail is lost (Maybe that's only on the old fat model I don't know)
- The video player is not as responsive and has way less options for slow/fast motion back and forwards and no 1.5 speed with sound.
- The cd player has a slight pause between tracks, pretty annoying for trance mixes.

Both don't support uncompressed digital audio file formats, so I'm still stuck with CD's for now.
Both don't support the lossless jpg format.

The nextbox has some catching up to do if it wants to become my preferred multimedia machine.

Where do you live that you get unlimited fast internet but crappy blu-ray selection in stores? Although I used to have that until internet became widely used here, then it got slower, capped and more expensive sigh.
Blu-ray is thriving here at the cost of dvd shelf space. Plenty older blu-rays are priced 10 dollars and lower nowadays in stores.

Plymouth UK. Bout 300,000 people.

I'll put it this way. If you were to buy a bluray film and have a good selection of choice you would go to one shop. Hmv. Even blockbuster which have 2 store in town centre, have 2 bays. The rest of the store is DVD ( guessing 20 bays ). And games.

I've only ever seen 1 bluray film up close in its box in 5 years. Avatar. You never here anyone talk about bluray or suggest bluray. But many are downloading films. It did buzz when it released. But it just turned into nothing. I've never seen a bluray player in someones house other than a ps3. Obviously they do sell. But it is very poor. However, 50 Mb broadband is readily available here. K currently have 30 Mb. It isn't expensive either. All the companies are trying to get your custom with best price and highest speed. There's like  8 different high speed providers in the UK.

Its great for internet. No capping either.

1) They did the same with DVD on the Wii, I don't know why they prefer it that way, but they do apparently...

2) Did you see websites I pointed you to? Blu-ray growth dwarfed DD growth last year in the US (Microsoft's key market). Blu-ray is nowhere near having peaked.

3) I can't speak for the UK (other than saying your prices seems to have had a bumpy ride in the last few years), but where I live, the games cost exactly the same. 

HDDVD would not be the best option, blu-ray would. As a multimedia device, the NextBox should be compatible with the popular disc standards, so unless Microsoft wants to give Sony a point in their favor, they need blu-ray. And looking at the US in 2010, DD had 12.2% of the total movie revenue (with a growth of 21.9% compared to 2009), while blu-ray had about 18-18.5% (derived from numbers in the first link with this link) of the total movie revenue (retail sales growing 64.2% and rentals growing 105.5% compared to 2009).

So regardless of the quality of Microsoft's services, in Microsoft's key market, blu-ray not only had a 50% larger marketshare in 2010, but grew more than four times as much in 2010 than DD did. 

If Microsoft wants to rule all our livingrooms (and they want to), then they need blu-ray in the NextBox. End of story.

Blueray may be dwindling in your area,but not in America. The bluray players and movie prices have actually went down a great deal. The store space for bluray movies is actually pretty decent. I think microsoft is going to go with another format next gen. They might not go with bluray,but I don't think there going to go with DVD either. That's just my humbled opinion though.

Of course it should have blu-ray there's no reason why not, I mean

DVD: Space is too limited
HD-DVD: Would probably be more expensive seeing as there's no mass market production for it
Blu-Ray: Sales are increasing each year, has good storage space, will get cheaper

Using Blu-Ray offers Microsoft the ability to play all three major media formats for film, so it would be win win for them

PS3 has replaced my 360 as my main media centre since I got it. Since it has blu-ray and the drive is also quiet! I also have my external hard drive connected to it and it works much better on there