Well that's partially the point, if you don't have a blu ray player and you are either gonna get a
360 or PS3, it won't be a PS3 automatically because both can play blurays.

AdventWolf said: Squilliam said: What physical medium in say a couple of years time? Hmm, how about digital distribution and catridges! Physically an optical drive adds about $100 to the baseline cost of a console when you factor in the required HDD, Ram, packaging and optical drive itself. So much extra stuff has to be added to a console to make up for the deficiencies of the optical drive format. My guess for the next generation they will keep the console simple. Xbox next Arcade = 10GB of fast flash storage + cartridge media. Xbox next Premium = 10GB of fast storage + cartridge media + HDD Xbox next Elite = same as above with optical drive for BC. The transition to 450mm wafers is upon us! Flash is just getting cheaper. That would be tight, or if disks are still used then Microsoft should use bluray since there is suppose to be a good portion of people that buy the PS3 for the bluray player. Though it might be a little late by then.

They don't want people to buy an Xbox to use it as a BR player. They want people to buy an Xbox 360 and use it to download. Not only do they pay money for the optical drive, they would also pay between $5-10 for the ability to play back movies on every console if they enabled that. Theres a reason why the Wii can't play DVDs even though it plays DVD discs.

It depends on when the next generation starts. A console fully based on downloads is still impossible, there are only 5-10% who have a decent connection so being forced to use the internet to get every game is out the window for quite a few years.
Blu-Ray would make sense, DVD's will be outdated by next gen at any rate and there aren't really a lot of high capacity, HD alternatives.

Squilliam said: What physical medium in say a couple of years time? Hmm, how about digital distribution and catridges! Physically an optical drive adds about $100 to the baseline cost of a console when you factor in the required HDD, Ram, packaging and optical drive itself. So much extra stuff has to be added to a console to make up for the deficiencies of the optical drive format. My guess for the next generation they will keep the console simple. Xbox next Arcade = 10GB of fast flash storage + cartridge media. Xbox next Premium = 10GB of fast storage + cartridge media + HDD Xbox next Elite = same as above with optical drive for BC. The transition to 450mm wafers is upon us! Flash is just getting cheaper.

I remember reading that they are working 1TB and 2TB SD cards.  If they are cheap enough, I could see Microsoft going with that, and a cheap drive to be able to read DVDs, etc...  Microsoft wants to get into the home.  They will need to go higher than 10GB for storage, because 8GB or so is getting maxed out.

If Microsoft does go SD approach, they could then lead the way to eventually having a portable system that plays the same games.

I just don't understand why people think digital download is going to take over so soon. A large number of people don't have the necessary internet connection to download fast enough. There is something to be said for having the game in your hands as well.

richardhutnik said: Squilliam said: What physical medium in say a couple of years time? Hmm, how about digital distribution and catridges! Physically an optical drive adds about $100 to the baseline cost of a console when you factor in the required HDD, Ram, packaging and optical drive itself. So much extra stuff has to be added to a console to make up for the deficiencies of the optical drive format. My guess for the next generation they will keep the console simple. Xbox next Arcade = 10GB of fast flash storage + cartridge media. Xbox next Premium = 10GB of fast storage + cartridge media + HDD Xbox next Elite = same as above with optical drive for BC. The transition to 450mm wafers is upon us! Flash is just getting cheaper. I remember reading that they are working 1TB and 2TB SD cards.  If they are cheap enough, I could see Microsoft going with that, and a cheap drive to be able to read DVDs, etc...  Microsoft wants to get into the home.  They will need to go higher than 10GB for storage, because 8GB or so is getting maxed out. If Microsoft does go SD approach, they could then lead the way to eventually having a portable system that plays the same games.

I can see them going with a seperate 'elite' BC model and keeping the two main SKUs cheaper and offering a seperate drive to play older discs. I think that would be sufficient backwards compatibility if it means that they can offer a powerful console for cheap, say $200-$250 for the Arcade at launch. People already have enough optical players in the home, theres no real additional benefit to being able to playback movies really anymore. 10GB/20GB storage, the specifics don't matter and it can increase with time. Its just a quick way to include storage on the cheap inside a console for downloadable games and DLC.

I would say at launch 8-16GB flash would be all they would need for 99% of games. A couple of years later as the price of flash comes down the capacity would increase so the games could scale with time and the cartridges would become cheaper.

Squilliam said: richardhutnik said: Squilliam said: What physical medium in say a couple of years time? Hmm, how about digital distribution and catridges! Physically an optical drive adds about $100 to the baseline cost of a console when you factor in the required HDD, Ram, packaging and optical drive itself. So much extra stuff has to be added to a console to make up for the deficiencies of the optical drive format. My guess for the next generation they will keep the console simple. Xbox next Arcade = 10GB of fast flash storage + cartridge media. Xbox next Premium = 10GB of fast storage + cartridge media + HDD Xbox next Elite = same as above with optical drive for BC. The transition to 450mm wafers is upon us! Flash is just getting cheaper. I remember reading that they are working 1TB and 2TB SD cards.  If they are cheap enough, I could see Microsoft going with that, and a cheap drive to be able to read DVDs, etc...  Microsoft wants to get into the home.  They will need to go higher than 10GB for storage, because 8GB or so is getting maxed out. If Microsoft does go SD approach, they could then lead the way to eventually having a portable system that plays the same games. I can see them going with a seperate 'elite' BC model and keeping the two main SKUs cheaper and offering a seperate drive to play older discs. I think that would be sufficient backwards compatibility if it means that they can offer a powerful console for cheap, say $200-$250 for the Arcade at launch. People already have enough optical players in the home, theres no real additional benefit to being able to playback movies really anymore. 10GB/20GB storage, the specifics don't matter and it can increase with time. Its just a quick way to include storage on the cheap inside a console for downloadable games and DLC. I would say at launch 8-16GB flash would be all they would need for 99% of games. A couple of years later as the price of flash comes down the capacity would increase so the games could scale with time and the cartridges would become cheaper.

Optical Elite is silly!

why would they make another design?  It should have the full 360 chipset, but only allow play of installed games that are transferred over from a 360

It really depends on what direction MS wants to go. I know they WANT to go DD, but I imagine they'll let Sony do the legwork with the PSPGo. If that flops, they'll know they need to use a physical medium for the next system. But which one? Holographic storage and crystals are still going to be too pricey for consideration. Flash memory cartridges are an option, though it depends on when the system comes out. They'll probably want to look at 32-64 GB for the games, and as things are now, those are also too expensive.

On the disk front, I really think they'll lean more toward a HD-DVD based format. If they go with BR, it means paying a royalty to the BR consortium, which increases overhead and directly allows one of their competitors (Sony) to profit. HD-DVD may require a payment to Toshiba, but I don't really think anyone else, and I would see that as being cheaper than BR, both in pressing costs and royalties. Add to the fact that burning HD-DVDs will be tougher than BR due to the lack of drives and media, and it'll allow them to market that to the developers as a form of anti-piracy. If MS really wants to go with a multimedia system over a gaming system, then I could see them biting the bullet for BR, but that's really the only case.

^32-64? Huh? Probably 32GB would be about the absolute highest they would need with say a FF game and they could get away with the typical 8/16GB cartridges for 99% of everything else. A Stock SD card reads at twice the speed of the PS3 Optical drive @ 20MB/s with no latency. Thats almost as important as having additional storage space and theres no noise.

@Communisthater: The Elite is the hardcore gamer SKU. Hardcore gamers are the ones who care more about BC and things like that and it helps them turn it into a profit centre.

I actually went up to 64 for those who feel the need that they have to use all the space of a dual-layer BR. (Truthfully, at that much space, I think one really needs to learn code optimization, which may also be easier with the lower load times.) Although yeah, I could also easily see the smaller sizes in use, I just need to think for worst case games, which is where I'm always afraid of things going.