The reason why I think blu ray is possible is this.

The 20gb Pro only gives you about 10gb of space after all the other space gets stolen by the machine etc. You can't easily use this to download movies/series etc, its simply too small. Its cutting the potential revenue sources from media/ online games down and it really needs to be increased if they want to gain market share in this field. So I think they're looking to increase that space to 60gb like a few test units showed up a couple of months ago might indicate.

The problem is once they do that, the Elite SKU is no longer viable. It wouldn't really serve any useful purpose in the lineup. So they have to differentiate it somehow. So the addition of blu ray would do just that.

As far as decoding goes... ATI could work in their decoding chip no sweat into the Xenos gpu so using too much power or being too noisy wouldn't be a problem.

So if A - They want to increase HDD space, they must also B include blu ray drives in the Elite and to do that they have to include a decoding chip in Jasper C.

A - Some small rumors.
B - Consistant rumors KEEP popping up, some originate in Asia where the drives are made.
C - If they were to do B they need to include a decoding chip in a revision which is right about now.

@montrealsoon

When it comes to sales between the HD systems, don´t you think the 360 will remain relevant since it´ll still take a lot of time for the PS3 to catch up and surpass it?

And even when the PS3 does surpass the 360, wouldn´t we (probably) be approaching the 8th generation, kinda nullifying the advantage one HD system has over the other?

double post.

@montrealsoon, I remember that puzzling statement about the add-on stressing all 3 cores. It must have been due to bloated software:(

Edit: Apparently it used 4.7 million lines of code:

http://blogs.msdn.com/xboxteam/archive/2006/11/03/emergence-day.aspx

"The Xbox 360 HD DVD Player, for the most part, is an entirely software based implementation. Other players on the market have specialized chips (called DSPs) that decode things like H.264, MPEG, VC1, DTS, Dolby Digital, and other codecs. Much like how backwards compatibility for Xbox 1 works on Xbox 360, the heavy parts of HD DVD are all done on Xbox 360's triple-core CPU.

If DVD is an audio/video pipeline with some navigation data (go to the menu, start playing, etc.), HD DVD can be considered a runtime environment where audio/video playback is just one major feature. So let's break down that 4.7 million lines of code. I don't have the numbers for each component, but each of these is a very significant chunk: Video Codecs: H.264, MPEG-2, VC1, Audio Codecs: Dolby Digital+, DTS, TrueHD, LPCM, MPEG, HDi: The HD DVD runtime engine, GDI: Drawing stuff like menus, AACS: Cryptography/DRM stuff, MF: Audio/Video pipeline.

That's a lot of stuff. Some of the acronyms may not be recognizable. GDI is the Graphics Device Interface, which has been a mainstay of the Windows operating system for many years, providing facilities to draw stuff on screens. MF is Media Foundation - a framework for audio/video pipelines that was being built for Windows Vista. The Windows teams in charge of the above components all pitched in to make them work on Xbox 360 while continuing to work on other Windows projects (Vista, CE, etc.) - quite a task. "

Who gives a shit. M$ is in a position where they will continue to recieve great games for the duration of their console. As long as they continue to improve Live and get great games, M$ has my money for their next one.

I absolutely believe the 360 will remain relevant (as in can sell enough software to warrant its development) for the entirety of this cycle.  The killer is,  in terms of broad software support is the market leader will get it, not the third place console (especially when the leader is vastly outselling it's two competitors).

I am not totally convinced the PS3 will outsell the 360 at the end of the cycle.   I think MS/SONY have "gone for the icing on the cake" while Nintendo "went for the cake".  To top that off (oh, bad bad pun!) MS grabbed most of the icing early.

SONY forecasts roughly 9 million more  PS3 sales in the next year, NINTENDO forecasts roughly 28 million more Wii sales in the same time frame (if I remember correctly).    SONY themselves do not expect a very high marketshare.  Anybody know what MS has projected for the next year?

sorry, but Blu-Ray isn't an option to MS

they have said time after time, that they don't think physical media will succeed anymore and therefore are concentrating on their movie dl portal - considering they couldn't use BR for their games anyway, their statement seems/is absolutely coherent and they won't go back on their decision there


I agree with you, that this year or better this point of time seems vital to the 360's future and if MS does think so aswell, then they surely will have something to offer at their E3 press event.

Hehe I really wish I could post what I've been told about what Microsoft will be doing at E3...

why cant you???

Source, can you at least say if it´s something that´ll (maybe/probably) positively affect the 360?....or negatively, in your view?