Ballmer: Microsoft to support Blu-Ray in "ways that make sense"
By Jonathan Schlaffer
Microsoft played the HD-DVD field with Toshiba and lost. There have been lots of rumors that Microsoft would adopt Blu-Ray for the Xbox 360; while that is still not certain, it just got a little more concrete poured in it. The CEO of the company, Steve Ballmer announced at the MIX08 conference that his company will indeed be working with Blu-Ray.
Following the rapid death of HD-DVD, he announced that Microsoft has already been working on device driver support for Blu-Ray drives. He was quoted as saying, “Toshiba has moved on. We’ve moved on, and we’ll support Blu-ray in ways that make sense.”
There was no mention of the Xbox 360 or the rumored Blu-Ray drive but if Microsoft is working with it in “ways that make sense,” I think that makes sense and they just don’t want to talk about it. GameSpot quoted Ballmer as saying, “Games are what are driving consumers to purchase game consoles, and we remain focused on providing the largest library of blockbuster games available.”
That may be the case but games are getting larger with more content; the capacity of DVDs is becoming limiting and having multiple discs is not an ideal solution but it is a solution. Come on Microsoft, give us a Blu-Ray drive for the Xbox 360. Yes, I realize I’m talking forced upgrade if games were to use it but such is the way of technology.
If device driver support for Blu-Ray is improving for Windows then consumers will need some way of playing the discs without purchasing $80 software. Perhaps there will be a free update for Windows Media Player; keep in mind that in order to play Blu-Ray discs on a PC, you will also need a HDCP capable graphics card and monitor.
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March 8th, 2008
While i realize what your saying about games getting bigger and need more space than a standard DVD, i do not think it is practical for them to start making blu-ray games.
If they did for whatever reason include the blu-ray drive inside of the 360, it would for movie playback only.
The only thing that i could imagine, is possibly having “enhanced” versions of games for blu-ray equipped systems. It could include special content, extra multiplayer maps, etc.
But even then, the stuff that they cant fit on the DVD itself can always just be transferred the 360’s hard drive via xbox live.
March 9th, 2008
At today’s resolutions, console games will most likely not exceed that of regular DVD dimensions. If sony’s teams of developers are really making blueray games that are reaching significantly above 10 gigs, then they are horrible programmers. IF you think about it, you can take seriously huge pictures with your digital camera, but when it comes time to put it on your monitor, shinking down pictures makes them all look simmilar. What I’m trying to say is that with today’s mainstream hightest resolution of 1080p, there just simply no excuss to have higher res images. Blueray will fade too, and Digital Downloads will be the next big thing.