I never thought I would get a dozen posts out of this topic,
but what do you know! Some said I was
dead wrong when I predicted that Microsoft wasn’t planning on adding Blu-ray to
the Xbox 360. After covering the issue
from every different angle possible (Here,
Here,
Here,
Here,
Here,
Here,
Here,
Here,
Here,
Here,
Here)
I still couldn’t come up with a good reason why it was in Microsoft’s best
interest to add Blu-ray to the Xbox. It
isn’t hard to come up with reasons why potential or existing Xbox 360 buyers
want Blu-ray, but taking a Microsoft perspective is a bit different.
Cut to today, Forbes
has a story that quotes Shane Kim, vice president of strategy and business
development for Microsoft Entertainment division
saying “I
can categorically say that we’re not working on a Blu-Ray player for Xbox 360.”
What is Microsoft’s focus?
Digital distribution. As I’ve
talked about either today Netflix
adds just another option for downloads/streams on the Xbox 360 (but
not Media Center Extenders) and while I don’t
think Microsoft should just focus on digital distribution you know that is
their goal and it isn’t going to change.
Hi Chris, I really think the future is digital distribution, but I think Microsoft is centering in their American market and letting out most european countries. I live in Portugal, my Xbox Live, can’t access any movies (it’s not about my broadband speed, since I have 16mbit connection), I can’t rent anything, neither can I slide a Blu-ray into my Xbox (not that I care, but some people do). I do understand Microsoft’s vision, and I support it, but they have to make sure they are offering the same Live experience across all supported countries. We don’t have netflix over here either, so… so much for movie renting…
That is a problem with digital distribution. The issue is generally that content owners want to limit distribution to the US (who knows why), so Microsoft can’t deploy a worldwide service.
I understand that Blu-ray doesn’t make sense in the 360 (for aforementioned reasons). Even though I would like to see things move to digital distribution, there are still problems to be resolved (studios and bandwidth for rural areas are a couple). MS needs to have Blu-ray on the horizon. They were behind the curve on DVD (only with Vista did they get native DVD decoder and burning software), so I would expect them to be a little late with Blu-ray. Of course they could always do things better this time around and have native Blu-ray support in Windows 7 and xbox 720.