If you’re an Xbox 360 fan and you’re holding your breath for a Blu-ray equipped console or peripheral add on you might find yourself turning blue in the face before long.
This is after Microsoft recently confirmed, in its characteristically bullish fashion, that it had no plans to feature Blu Ray functionality in its console any time soon.
At a Square Enix release event earlier this week Microsoft’s director of global platform marketing for Xbox Albert Penello gave his insight into high definition players within consoles, specifically Blu-ray drives.
In fact he went as far as to tell customers to “go spend $150 (R1000) on one” if they want that kind of technology.
When questioned regarding what Microsoft considers to be the future of high definition video within consoles director of Xbox and Entertainment at Microsoft Stephen McGill explained to CGV that “the future is already here.”
“We have no plans to adopt a Blu-Ray drive for the Xbox 360. In fact, the future of home entertainment started last autumn when Xbox 360 became the first and only console to offer instant-on 1080p streaming HD movies.”
While Microsoft might be favouring the likes of Netflix, the online video streaming service which has fast gathered popularity in less bandwidth starved parts of the world, for the future it seems somewhat short sighted for its emerging markets.
Unfortunately the state of broadband in South Africa is simply not such that we are even close to being in a position to affordably stream HD content.
As a result, places like SA are likely to be left out of Microsoft’s grand HD streaming plan. Nonetheless Microsoft has chosen to ignore the plight of the third world by pushing forward without an effective high definition optical drive.
It’s not just HD movies, it’s also games that are now taking up massive amounts of space. It is now widely known that upcoming third person PS3 exclusive God of War III needs 35GB of optical disk space – a number only achievable on the 50GB Blu-ray disk. Instead Xbox 360 users have been, and will continue to be, forced to use multiple disks for large titles such as Forza 3.
So will this pay off for Microsoft? It’s more than likely. But once again we are holding the short straw with regards to console development.
PS: Dear Microsoft, how about you spend some of the money you’re saving on Blu-ray drives and give us official Xbox LIVE support already?
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