Microsoft Slashes Xbox 360 HD DVD Add-On to $130

Really it is so obvious all around the net and now here that Sony is paying off not only Warner Bros. to switch but so called "tech reporters" to write pro blu-ray articles so they make it to google when people search for HD DVD.

HD DVD is a better more stable format and when the studios see all these millions of people buying "fire sale" players they will release movies again because the temptation willl be to great to pass up making money!

Once the Bluray buyers realize their "Profile 1.0" and "1.1" players will be obsolete by October they will have to purchase one of the "fire sale" HD DVD players or spend $400 or more on a new Bluray player.

I have no dog in this hunt, gtc954. I could care less which format wins in principle. I just *want* one to, so I can stop worrying about buying movies in triplicate. Before everyone pretty much sided with Blu-ray, I was just as ready to commit my future collection to HD DVD.

Whatever happens, I say hurry up and get on with it. Consumers like me are sick of waiting for *years* for company cat-fighting to culminate in a viable standard.

Reverse the game and put four of six companies in HD DVD's court and I would've picked up a copy of Planet Earth for the latter format instead of Blu-ray. Aside from the storage differences (which don't matter to me at all) I see not a whit of practical visual difference.

Wow, what a completely disgusting article. How biased can you be on this one? Sonys viral marketing is one thing, but for an industry insider to buy this hook, line and sinker, you should be ashamed of yourself. I'm thinking if sony put an offer on the ps3 you'd laud their commercial savvy.

We all know that the films and interllectual property is what will earn a company money, throwing spin phrases like 'fire sale' in an effort to sound like the cool net journo's make you sound like an inept clown. If both formats died tomorrow HD players would still be useful until the machines die of old age. Most bluray machines are already obselete and the ps3 which is the only moddable, machine upscales dvd far softer than any other i've seen.

Why are you pushing a region restricted, over-priced and possibly rootkitted technology onto the consumer instead of the user friendly format that is finished on it's machines and perfoms to the same quality. Poor journalism.

@ mattpeckham. There is no visual difference or in sound for that matter. In regard to Planet Earth the difference in the formats are bluray have dead storage on their discs and regional coding (so no shopping for a bargain internationally). Saying you 'could care less', do you mean you are just rambling incoherently and aren't trying to enlighten readers on the subject? Delete the thread and get a backbone.

I agree there is absolutly no difference in quality, only excess storage space. a high deff movie only uses 8 gigs anyway. so that only leave a 50% waste of space for HD-DVD if there are no special features. yet an 80-85% waste of space for blu-ray. and considering the cost of buying individual discs, HD-DVD takes the cake. its just sonys marketing of blu-rays overpriced and neutrally powered technology to people who dont understand these key differences and people who actually think they are getting something more by having blu-ray, thats helping them in the format wars. i bought a PS3 for good and long lasting experiences, and yet i cant seem to find any.... so im relegated to surfing the net on my 50 Inch big screen TV instead of playing games or movies.

It's kind of amusing reading your rant digriz, misguided as it is, though I'm sympathetic to your points about Blu-ray's limitations, even if I'm not persuaded by them.

Digiriz is just a bitter hd-dvd adopter, just be happy it still upconverts your regular dvds...lol

mattpeckham is a sony hack... He would know that prior to just a couple months ago, blu-ray was inferior. Lack of good video encoding, lack of extras etc... You've also not mentioned in your post that all those blu-ray owners are gonna get shafted once more profile 1.1 and profile 2.0 discs are released because they cannot upgrade their firmware. Get off your high you have from sony paying you to write this junk and realize that at 130 bucks with nearly 5 free movies, only a moron would think this is a waste. Granted hd-dvd is the one most likely to die out but with paramount and universal reclarifying support, toshiba announcing its hd-dvd drives in all of its laptops for 2008 and obviously 2009. Im guessing that this format will last another 2 years at the minimum. And by then the market penetration from sub $100 players, the free drives in hp and toshiba laptops/pc's will allow it to survive. Why pay 400 for the ps3 to watch movies when you can pick up a standalone for barely $120?

Great HC1234, so if HD DVD loses -- and I'm hardly the only one suggesting it will -- you'll be first in line to buy your movie collection all over again on Blu-ray? Or was that you saying you're never buying another movie again once the remaining HD DVD holdouts go Blu-ray exclusive?

perhaps blu-ray supporters should start to sweat a little. yesterday amazon test-fired the xbox 360 add-on for $80. and it sold out in no time. do you know there are over 3 times as many 360 players out there as opposed to ps3. if even half of them buy into these hd-dvd players blu-ray is behind. then we'll see if the studios made the right choice in who is the best bet. blu-ray better get it in gear or they'll be on the short end of the stick again.

If the studios switch gears, I'm there kasjun. But it's a pretty big deal when four out of six go exclusively one direction. We can bicker night and day about the specification, but those four studios made the decision to back Blu-ray *in spite of* the fact that the PS3 is far and away getting its tail kicked by the 360 in console sales.

Bear in mind that most people who own a 360 *don't* own the HD DVD add-on. That's fine with me, by the way. Microsoft's add-on solution is far more consumer friendly than Sony's. I absolutely despise the fact that you have to pay for the Blu-ray player whether you want it or not when you pick up a PS3.

I confess I struggled to read your article and you set yourself up for the inevitiable Sony hack retorts.

As for the HD DVD and its demise I think it is on its seventh or eighth now so maybe this is the ninth and will be the end. The problem as I see it is people seem to be trying really hard to kill it off. The poor attempt at stats minipulation suggesting huge wins for blu ray based on one weeks sales was picked up by the journos who it would appear made no attempt to look deeper. In fact it was so bad NPD had to step in and counter the argument yet I still read references to that article almost daily.

You might call it a fire sale but in the UK we can now pick up a HD DVD player with 7 movies for £120 which believe me is cheap for blighty. The thing is even if they do not manage to sell enough to convince the movie houses for more support they all get a cheap upscaler and some movies.

Can this effort counter the PS3 trojan, maybe just maybe.

Which is why I didn't reference that NPD article here or anywhere else when it broke almost exactly two weeks ago, so that's almost straw-manning my point. The NPD's "well duh!" dismissal of trend extrapolation from a single week's sales data is totally irrelevant to the point I'm after about studio backing.

You either have studio support or you don't have a product, period. If someone wants to convince me how HD DVD survives with no one producing movies for the format (and only a relative handful released to date), be my guest.

okay, our 2 cents, why not? first, we are certainly NOT going to re-buy our 60 or 70 HD movies in bluray; we're gonna watch'em on our toshiba Hd player; why would we re-buy in bluray? Second, we will probably buy another HD player because we have never seen ANY other player up-convert SD as well as the HD players, and we tried the oppo's (all of them) one has to be a rocket scientist to adjust the damn things & they have lousy black level (our opinions, of course) & we are not rocket scientists. For our work & hobbies, we have a 9200 & a 1710 with bluray burners so we can sue dell if we cannot upgrade them over time; we hope the burners will upgrade, unlike the standalones, and a toshiba A2, an HD burner in an HP9500, & the usb add-on which works great on a desktop of sufficient power as well as an xbox(upconversion could be better on this one); who says you can't own both? in a few years, after HDdvd goes south, the players will be 1000 bucks just for the up-conversion; YHIHFirst.

mattpeckham is a sony hack... He would know that prior to just a couple months ago, blu-ray was inferior. Lack of good video encoding, lack of extras etc... You've also not mentioned in your post that all those blu-ray owners are gonna get shafted once more profile 1.1 and profile 2.0 discs are released because they cannot upgrade their firmware. Get off your high you have from sony paying you to write this junk and realize that at 130 bucks with nearly 5 free movies, only a moron would think this is a waste. Granted hd-dvd is the one most likely to die out but with paramount and universal reclarifying support, toshiba announcing its hd-dvd drives in all of its laptops for 2008 and obviously 2009. Im guessing that this format will last another 2 years at the minimum. And by then the market penetration from sub $100 players, the free drives in hp and toshiba laptops/pc's will allow it to survive. Why pay 400 for the ps3 to watch movies when you can pick up a standalone for barely $120?

Most biased article I have read in a long time. I just bought a Toshiba HD-A3 and fully expext that movie houses will have to support it or I won't buy there HD DVDs

Currently Blu Ray has 16% more content (based on Amazon) and yes I will grant you in theory the Warner Brother move along with some if not all of its sister companies will expand that number. The thing is WB have already moved the cut off for single format to June and the sales of the HD DVD players have actually proved very strong with major retailers struggling with demand. How long can this continue before the numbers demand support from the studios after all these guys are buying players not gaming consoles.

I find it hilarious to read all these accusations of journalists and studios being paid off by Sony to promote or adopt Blu-Ray.
The HD-DVD camp is the one "buying off" everyone.
The massive reductions in price for HD-DVD players is the real bribe here. They produce equipment which costs many hundreds to manufacture and then practically give the things away when they get their clocks cleaned by Sony.

Whoops! Too late -- shoulda, woulda, coulda, etc.

I have backed HD-DVD over Blu-Ray since the beginning because two of the most dishonest high tech companies in the world were pushing Blu-Ray, that being Sony and Apple. Yes, some of the movie companies sided with Blu-Ray too, but with the sales of HD-DVD players outstripping Blu-Ray player sales, those movie companies just might wake up and reconsider. I agree with the other posters that pointed out that Mr. Peckham's article seems to be very one sided and that he may well have some ulterior motive for pushing Sony's product for them. Come clean, Peckham, what's in it for you? Why aren't you being honest?

Well, of course he won't admit to any bias, will he.

VCRs man! VCRs! I'm not buying anything till VCRs die! and yes smartypants, I do have an 8-track player so ha! I'm waitin till everything is settled!

What I find ridiculous is the eagerness of the press to declare Sony as the ultimate winner in the game console race, when all the numbers clearly show they're losing bigtime, and probably near a catastrophic defeat.

The most conservative stats from reputable market-research sources indicate that the Xbox 360 has about THREE TIMES the installed base of the PS3, with the Nintendo Wii close behind and likely to take the lead soon. No need to pull out the crystal ball -- in the past, those kinds of numbers have spelled certain doom for the straggler. (Imagine a game publisher targeting its next $20-million game exclusive at a market of 3-4 million users, when they could be targeting a market of 10-11 million!)

The only optimistic projections are ones that look at Sony's sales surge since its last dramatic PS3 price cut, and extrapolate that. But there's just no imaginable increase that would put them back in the running. They've *traded* dominance in games for success with Blu-ray.