Ballmer: Blu-ray accessory for 360 coming (Microsoft PR/Major Nelson: No it's not.)

[jaw04005]

"Well I don't know if we need to put Blu-ray in there—you'll be able to get Blu-ray drives as accessories."

http://gizmodo.com/5387238/ballmer-talks-natal-says-blu+ray-add+on-for-xbox-coming

Of course, Microsoft PR followed up with:

"Our immediate solution for Blu-ray-quality video on an Xbox 360 is coming this fall with Zune Video and 1080p instant-on HD streaming. As far as our future plans are concerned, we're not ready to comment."

Yay. I can finally ditch my PS3, and I'm sure the external Blu-ray add-on will work like the HD DVD add-on so I can use it with my PCs and Macs too.

 

[Eidorian]

It was bound to happen. Kudos to Microsoft for the tight media integration among their platforms. It's really shaping up.

 

[0098386]

Predictable, but required. I hope they let you plug it into a PC/Mac as well

 

[MRU]

There is a lot of reading into what he says with this article all over the net at the moment. If we look at his semantics he actually does not state that they HAVE a blu-ray drive themselves only that you'll be able to get blu-ray drives as accessories.

They may in fact simply allow third-party USB external blu-ray drives.

It also could quite simply be a mistake with confusion over the previous HD-DVD drive.

Either way until we have an official announcement one way or the other, I wouldn't get my hopes up too much if your wanting blu-ray in your 360.

Predictable, but required. I hope they let you plug it into a PC/Mac as well

Well the HD-DVD did so if this does come to fruition, then I imagine that would be the case. Not that the mac can playback Blu-Ray films on OSX anyway.

 

[cycocelica]

MS wants the 360 to be an all around media console so this was an obvious. Glad they finally made an announcement on it. Cant wait for it.

 

[macfan881]

sorry to burst your bubble guys but acording to Maj Nelson, No

http://majornelson.com/archive/2009/10/22/we-have-no-plans-for-blu-ray-on-xbox-360.aspx

 

[MRU]

During an interview yesterday, Steve Ballmer was asked about Blu-Ray and the Xbox 360. I wanted to clear something up. Steve was referring to Blu-Ray accessories for the PC. As we have said in the past, we have no plans to introduce a Blu-Ray drive for the Xbox 360.

There is a lot of reading into what he says with this article all over the net at the moment. If we look at his semantics he actually does not state that they HAVE a blu-ray drive themselves only that you'll be able to get blu-ray drives as accessories.

They may in fact simply allow third-party USB external blu-ray drives.

Mmm see Well still unsure on whether they will work on the 360 but it's more of a possibility than them releasing one themselves.

 

[jaw04005]

Well, I hope 'Major Nelson' is wrong. I get that Microsoft hates Java and Blu-ray would require them to put Java on the 360, but still ... damn.