Ok now we all know i love my ps3. So to start i am not bashing xbox 360 in fact this thread is about me giving it its due. I have all systems (besides DS i sold it) and i love them all.

M$ showed us at E3 that soon we Will be able to Install any and every game to the Hardrive and play it from there. If thats the case then is blu-ray disk space that important enough for Sony to lose the leadership over?

hear me out. (example)

MGS4. It would take 3-4 disks on 360. SO every one says it can not and will not be made simply because of DVD. But if at the start if you install each disk at the, then its the same as having a huge disk. (again you need a bigger hardrive and what not be you know what im trying to say). Then you have a seemless play time straight from the hardrive (like pc games which are far ahead of ps3 but they use DVD) and M$ has found a super cheap solution for thier disk space problems.

Any thoughts?

Lol, I reread a few times, it is still much more like the other thread, but it is pretty confusing what your main point is with this download onto hard drive stuff and multiple discs.

I have 13.9 free GB on my 360 (well 5GB at the moment), so all but the elite owners are going to be suffering because of their "smart" decision to choose to DVD, and even the elites will only be able to fully install a few games at a time

Not a problem. I have yet to know anybody who cares about swapping out discs for games.

That said, not having a Blu-Ray player is a underwelming, but I don't buy movies anyway.

So I don't think it was that MS wasn't looking ahead, ust that they didn't think of that kind of problem, a problem which has yet to exist in most people eyes.

P.S. If it came between having a BR player and paying $600 for it, I would have shoved that Blu-Ray player right back up MS ***. Too bad I had to do that to $ony instead.

Microsoft had 2 options on their optical drive:

1. Go with DVD, release early vs. the PS3/Wii, and maintain a reasonable price
2. Go with HD-DVD or BR-DVD, pay through the nose due to massive, extra R&D costs getting a viable HD-DVD drive to market, or wait and lose their competitive advantage.

As much as some might feel that having a BR-DVD or HD-DVD drive would of been better (of course it would have), the issues of bringing a player that's viable to market would of been nearly impossible to do.

Sony's strategy of using Blu-Ray works fine for them, as they were able to wait an extra year to bring their product to market, and since then, have been able to reduce their costs by winning the format war, which works great for them. But again, I don't think MS was really in a position to be able to do that without hurting themselves (higher launch price, delayed development) to pull it off.

However, next generation, it'll be interesting to see what happens. I would think that MS might skip a generation, and go with HVD or another format beyond the BR-DVD format we have now.

Yeah they did think ahead, back during the PS1 era multi disc games weren't seen as a bad thing (heck i saw it as a feature figuring there was more to the game).

Plus for the kinds of games that work on this gen of consoles rarely need that kind of space (Audio and FMV compression anyone?) Plus the added cost of an integrated HD-DVD drive (MS's Format) would have cost an extra $100 a console and been an additional cost, plus the fact that a HD-DVD drive would have been slower loading than the standard 12X drive used in it currently.

Trust me, this was the part that Microsoft got right.

They were very smart, It seem all games except for very few exceptions need anything other than a dvd. LO, MGS 4, FFXIII, BD. While the other hundreds are just fine. Very expensive hardware for only a handful of games is not worth it. They saved themselve probably about 3-4 billion dollars because of it and saved consumers about $200-$300.

Even I think that adding blu-ray has been generally negative for the PS3. Of course, the potential market for Blu is hyuuuggggeeeeeee, so it probably made some sense to sacrifice Sony's games division and its profitability in order to guarantee that Blu would be the standard HD format.

As far as MS, I think that they probably made the correct decision to stick w/ HD-DVD. If they went blu, well, they'd have to put blu ray drive in a year before the PS3 when its manufacturing cost would have been a lot higher than what it would have been a year later when the PS3 came out.

No, MS did the right thing for this generation. For the next generation, though, it seems around here as a general consensus that MS would be well served to put a BD drive in its next console, b/c BD will be a bigger thing by then.

Well for one I believe they did do a smart job by not adding an HD DVD player of some sort to there console (Microsoft) because if they did there 399 price point would have stood high at 599 as well...without a wifi connection which would have been 699... not to mention 5 bucks a month

Now do you really think all those people who didn't buy a 360 are gonna be happy they just spent 279 on there console then to actually use this feature not only will they have to buy a HDD 149 for the 120 gig but they will also have to buy a wifi unless they want to just hook there modem up to there 360 but that would of cost 100 too so 279 just went up to 530 about just because they wanted to use this "smart" disc install

Yes i know i admit that i am a Ps3 fan but the facts are layed out correctly and by all means correct me if i'm wrong. Sony knew what they where doing when they built the ps3, all Microsoft was thinking was the here and now and then maybe they could keep up the lead. Yes they are getting exclusive content for games and third party exclusives from Sony's camp but what else besides Gears will they bring. If you add up the value of each system you will then understand that 399 isn't that much exspensive than the soon to be discontinued 299 for the more expensive 349...

Speaking of 349 will it come with wifi? probably not. As well as 20 gigs less yet are people gonna go get it? Probably. I'm getting off topic so My apologies for any "Fanboy" bias comments here most of it should be facts.

Renai; exactly, i mean what would MS have to gain by adding a HD-DVD player? MS wasn't getting any product royalities from Toshiba or a cut of the $$$ from H-dud sales.