Most of us are basicallly assuming that MS will have to incorporate a Blu ray drive in its next console, right?    

Well, both MS and Sony will have to pay patent fees to Panasonic/Samsung/etc for the right to use it, BUT, Sony has the modest advantage of manufacturing Blu-ray drives due to a new joint venture with NEC and therefore won't have to pass on money to other manufacturers in order to make these drives.  

http://www.sonynec-optiarc.com/products/index.html

http://www.sonynec-optiarc.com/

If the 720 uses a blu-ray drive, then it will likely use Blu ray discs, correct?  Then, Sony, as the sole patent holder of the blu-ray disc will demand some $$$$ from MS and anybody else that wants to use a BD disc.        

Also, if MS is in fact wanting to go this route, then they will likely want to have a relatively beefed up CPU/GPU combo in order to take advantage of the Blu ray drive, it doesn't make sense to pay for having a blu drive, and then receive unimpressive performance from the games played with it.

So, all in all, MS looks to not have the cost advantages that it has had with the 360, and therefore I might be able to conclude that this just won't help MS one bit.            

Thoughts?

I'm betting they won't have discs anymore, only downloadables

One too many bites from a snake?

I don't think they'd care that much about it...SONY would be charging them the same they charge everyone else, it's not like MS is trying to end SONY, just the games division=P

Indeed, I thought MS said the future was downloading / streaming, so I doubt they'll go for the Bluray adoption.

 Why would Sony want a competitor to have it easy?  If I was Sony, I'd be a d@%k and make MS pay a bit more, b/c I'd know that they'd basically need the technology.  Hey, everything is negotiable.

@Kane

puhhhh-lease

90% of the western world can't download at decent speeds yet

That's a good point, basically every game out there requires a CD at least.  But perhaps MS  *can* start a revolution and bring downloadable games through cloud computing to fruition but it just don't seem likely at this point.

Meh, this is almost like saying DVD drives are going to drive up the cost of the 360. By the time the 720 comes out it will be a moot point.

And games aren't going to go the way of download only for quite a while.  Not everyone has a connection that could handle that well and fast enough and that would drive up the costs by making have larger hard drives or a BluRay burner, take your pic.

Must be lack of negative news day for MS, so fanboys have to dream stuff up to bash Microsoft.