Likelyhood of the next xbox inculding a blu-ray drive?

[webdev511]

Blu-ray? Zero chance because as many have said here, movies and TV will be download only.

Games is a bit harder to do via download only. I think that HD DVD-ROM (sorry folks there is no dash between those two Ds.) could be likely. Right before Warner went Blu only, Toshiba had all but finalized both 17GB per layer and triple layer discs. So blue laser ROM drives (now much cheaper than six years ago) reading 51GB optical discs that no one can burn at home, would give both the capacity and anti-piracy in one fell swoop. The equipment to press HD DVD-ROMs is still out there, so bringing them back online isn't total crazy talk. Maybe a little bit, but not complete.

The other likely option is SDXC, but media prices have to drop some more before that becomes feasable. $50 just for the media doesn't leave much room for making money on anything else.

What they won't do is pull a Sony and create a propriatary flash memory form factor, or at least I hope they don't.

[pickytech]

Blu-ray is just as dead as DVD.

Digital / Cloud is the way forward.

Streaming and physical mediums are not mutually exclusive things for a console. By using Blu-ray, they can have 40+ GB discs in the short term, and when broadband finally catches up with serving such enormous amounts of data in the future, then they can become to offer downloading of games over the internet.

People running on cable with ~250 GB data caps are not going to enjoy having to download 40+ GB games, which will take the majority of a day on most people's connections anyway. Until our ISPs pull their heads out of their butts, then we cannot really successfully have purely digital game downloads given the massive size of modern games.

[ndoggfromhell]

I've often thought they should just use thumbdrives for the games. Make it a proprietary connector, game has to be inserted to load even if installed to HD. It only needs to be Read Only flash... not rewritable. I'm sure the cost is more than physical disc media... but should have a higher storage capacity.

[Shadrack]

I suspect that it will probably come with a bluray drive. Game consoles target a very large audience and I doubt they want to lose out on sells because their device is download only. Also, brick and mortar places like Gamestop and Best Buy would throw an a fit because that will mean they are squeezed out of the equation.

[Shadrack]

I've often thought they should just use thumbdrives for the games. Make it a proprietary connector, game has to be inserted to load even if installed to HD. It only needs to be Read Only flash... not rewritable. I'm sure the cost is more than physical disc media... but should have a higher storage capacity.

Oh..that would be nice. I would love it if the new XBox goes back to cartridge based ROMs. Don't think it would happen though because they will probably want backwards compatibility and they probably don't mind it at all if you scratch the disc up and need to buy a new one.

[oliver182]

There are services which stream at 1080p, which is good enough for most people. I think the "it must be of ultimate visual quality, 20.1 channel audio" crowd is pretty small these days.

streaming 1080p<Bluray 1080p , there's a difference in video quality

[pickytech]

I've often thought they should just use thumbdrives for the games. Make it a proprietary connector, game has to be inserted to load even if installed to HD. It only needs to be Read Only flash... not rewritable. I'm sure the cost is more than physical disc media... but should have a higher storage capacity.

I've always wondered about that myself, but I suspect that the costs must be too high. A Blu-ray is less than a few dollars, while a 16 GB flash drive still lingers around $10 at consumer facing prices. Stacking that up to a capacity necessary for hi-res textures of the next generation games, and I think we would watch the publisher lose all of its profits as webdev511 suggested. The nice perks of it is that read speed would almost certainly be improved, and publishers could buy the smallest size necessary to fit the game, but I think that cost must be too high to make it all feasible.

[George P Global Moderator]

It will either be a Bluray drive that can play movies as well or it will be some form of blue laser drive that will only be used for games and NOT support BD movies, which is still an option in the end. As for it NOT having some type of blue laser, and thus larger optical disc format that is needed for future games I'd say that's not possible. Going back to some type of Flash media/card would be great of course because it would crush the already growing loading times, but price is the issue in the end.

I think it'd be interesting if the next xbox had support for playing games on HD, optical (default) and even flash card/memory stick. Think about it, game devs could release their "limited edition" version of games, which already come with an insane price tag imo, on a flash card etc.

[HSoft]

Given the business model I could actually see Microsoft coming out with 2 versions of the console, one without a Blu Ray drive that would have to connect to the internet for game downloads etc. (a cheaper version of the console) and one with a blu ray drive (they would be nuts to ignore the potential loss of revenue due to people not having a good enough internet connection) which would be priced higher to account for the extra hardware involved. I don't think we're quite at the point yet of download only.

[threetonesun]

streaming 1080p<Bluray 1080p , there's a difference in video quality

There is, but most people don't care, and most people who do already own a Blu-ray player.

[123456789A]

It'll use cartridges, like Super Nintendo, except they'll come in 1GB through 64GB sizes. No Blue Ray, sorry.

[MorganX]

BDXL with no movie playback.

[MorganX]

The thing is, 4GB of flash is sooooooo cheap now, throw in USB 3.0 and why use optical?

[giantpotato]

The thing is, 4GB of flash is sooooooo cheap now, throw in USB 3.0 and why use optical?

Because games won't fit on a 4GB flash drive, not to mention a 4GB flash drive is 100X more expensive than a pressed single layer DVD.

[Vice]

Outside of a few choice countries internet speed is still very slow. Especially in south america, Australia and in many places in the US. For these reasons Microsoft won't abandon optical media so that discussion isn't even worth having right now. The question about DVD vs Bluray comes down to what the developers want. If enough game developers tell Microsoft they need more than 9GB of storage then Microsoft will have to put a Bluray reader in the next XBOX. Personally I don't see it happening I think they will stick with DVD and supplement it with a heavy focus on digital distribution.

We will see what happens. Another thing to consider is that some game shops won't carry a console that doesn't have some media for them to sell and you also need to think about piracy. A lot less people have Bluray writers and the writeable discs are still kinda pricey so Microsoft may feel it's better to go Bluray to cover both these bases.

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

Very likely, developers won't be happy if MS stick to DVD.

MS will get some flak if they don't support BD movies as well, look at how hard they're pushing the 360 as your all in one media stop now.

[episode]

Blu-ray is just as dead as DVD.

Digital / Cloud is the way forward.

Not when you're talking games that are anywhere from 30-50gigs and you have ISPs that cap their monthly service at 250GB or less.

[Elliot B.]

Blu-ray is just as dead as DVD.

Digital / Cloud is the way forward.

Downloading 10-40+ GB on a massive majority of Internet connections sucks balls.

[AdamLC]

I think games will be digital download tbh.

They could also have the option of going into a game store and plugging a flash drive into a console or vending machine and buying a game that way?

[webdev511]

Very likely, developers won't be happy if MS stick to DVD.

MS will get some flak if they don't support BD movies as well, look at how hard they're pushing the 360 as your all in one media stop now.

That might be valid, but one must remember that Windows 8 isn't going to include MPEG-2 or MPEG-4 decoders which apparently cuts $10-$15 off the price of windows. Granted if Xbox Next is going to be an entertainment hub, the decoders are going to be in there and someone's going to have to pay for them. That said even fully featured Blu-ray players are under $100, so maybe that's a factor in the decision?

IMHO if there's an optical drive, it will be both red and blue laser, but probably not have Blu-ray video playback in it. No video played via 1080p streaming isn't going to have the bit rate to compete with 1080p + lossless audio off of Blu-ray, but it is good enough for most rentals (provided you have the bandwidth).

Flash WILL be the future, but prices are still to high for that to be the case today. I wouldn't be surprised to see Xbox Next have a USB 3 and/or an SDXC slot, but for future use.

[HawkMan]

There are services which stream at 1080p, which is good enough for most people. I think the "it must be of ultimate visual quality, 20.1 channel audio" crowd is pretty small these days.

Zune stream 1080p at very high bit rates, any perceived difference the average person sees is mostly imaginary.

[+Eternal Tempest MVC]

Blu-ray is just as dead as DVD.

Digital / Cloud is the way forward.

I would agree with this, but not at this time.

With running out of spectrum and use exceeding ability by 2014 (cell phone, mobile internet), and our capitalist system causing (not wireless) data caps, high cost of broadband, slow internet speed (vs other parts of the world), unwillingness to to cover parts of the country, etc.

It's not as soon as you think, at least in the United States.

Sony and MS have already started a hybrid model, a lot of games sold both electronically and physically. I see this trend going on for the next 5-10 years.

In fact Sony mentioned PS4 will still have a drive is due to our infrastructure situation.

Also, there still people that like to own physical copies.

[Colin McGregor]

I know hd-dvd lost the nerd wars but MS should have still put a hd-dvd drive in the newer xboxs and just used that for games. Sony did it with UMD and i dont think anyone ever used them aside from psp.

[jerzdawg]

Very likely, developers won't be happy if MS stick to DVD.

MS will get some flak if they don't support BD movies as well, look at how hard they're pushing the 360 as your all in one media stop now.

this. I would certainly skip the next xbox if they dont have a BD drive in it. I dont want to download my games or use some cloud system. I want a physical disk that I can re-sell or let a friend borrow if I choose to do so. I do have my stand alone bd player but as AB said - if MS wants to be an all and powerful media device it needs to support whats going on in the markets.

[~Johnny]

I thougt it was more or less given it would have a Blu-Ray based drive in the next Xbox? They certainly can't go download only without hurting their sales immeasurably (and I'd also not want it, considering the prices of their games on demand games), and DVD doesn't have enough space.

At this moment in time, Blu-Ray would also be cheaper than producing HD DVDs, whose factories are largely shut down given that no one produces them (bar the Chinese variant). At the VERY most, it may not be able to play Blu-Ray movies, letting them avoid paying the Blu Ray forum - as with the WiiU which uses a proprietary variant of BluRay, which still allows them the 25GB per layer, but removing support for playing movies avoids the license fee.

But given how media centric Microsoft are trying to position the Xbox brand, forgoing disc based movie support is nearly out of the question. And why wouldn't they pay? There's so much they already pay licensing fees for anyway.