The selfish acts of Microsoft is what killed the HD DVD, period. Let me explain how this came about.

During the VHS vs Beta Max battle adult content played the big role in who won the format war, supposedly.

This time around, it is the gaming crowd that decided who won the war. Gaming community was willing to take sides. Both camp had their opportunities. Sony played well and decided to include the blu-ray drive in to every next gen console they sold. That was smartest move in this round of format war I have to say. The price of the console kept it from becoming the leader in the overall console sales. But Sony kept its focus on the big picture.

Sony owns a big movie studio, they have both movie and music content that is reasonably large. They also own a consumer electronics division that makes HDTV, Blu-Ray players and everything latest. They also have a strong computer division that makes PC’s and laptops. All these elements along with PS3 played into getting blu-ray in to hands of maximum number of customers. In the case of PS3, customers did not have to think about buying separate pieces of hardware to watch movies in high definition. They got that free when they bought the console.

Microsoft had an early lead on current generation consoles. They decided that the consumers should make their choice by buying a separate piece of hardware to watch HD DVD. It was in their interest not to sell too many HD DVD add-ons because that would impact the market place movie rentals. So, they never made the HD DVD drive an integral part of xbox 360. That one decision probably is going to be the single most reason why xbox 360 may loose the console war this round. Can xbox 360 play catchup?

Toshiba says marketing was their weakness. I think the partners who were not fully committed to the cause were their weakness. One way Toshiba could have won is by making arrangements with Microsoft to include the HD DVD drive in ever xbox 360 sold. Microsoft could have extended the technology to have games on the format as well.

I always knew Sony’s gamble with PS3 will payoff in the long run. I also knew HD DVD lost the battle when Microsoft decided not to build the drive in to Xbox 360. HD DVD camp did not recognize the power of game consoles in the current market. As I said in my previous posts, Sony knew and understood more about consumer electronics market. Too bad I am not a Sony fan. I have both xbox 360 and HD DVD player. I might end up with a toy nobody wants or supports in a while. One benefit to the blu-ray camp is that I can get a player just by buying PS3. I am pretty sure that the PS3 prices will come down in a year. Even without price drops, a PS3 is a better deal than xbox 360 with an HD DVD player. If you plan to get the next gen DVD player and a game console, PS3 is definitely a better option. The online options of PS3 are getting better by the day.

One aspect of PS3 most people ignore or don’t pay attention to these days is the cell processor. It may not be as much as Phil Harrison says, but definitely the current gen games are not taking advantage of the architecture. Most developers are slow to understand the realities or dual core programming let alone the 8 core, stream based programming (I guess that is what cell does) that cell employs. Once they get a hang of it, the power pc architecture in xbox 360 will not be able to match up. But that is a long shot.

For now I am staying with the xbox 360 and HD DVD camp.

My first HD DVD rental from Netflix should be arriving tomorrow. They don’t charge extra for HD DVD or BluRay rentals. The new HD DVD add on to XBox 360 will get some work to do.

I was browsing through the new movies list at NetFlix and found that many new movies are available in either HD DVD or Blu Ray. Since I don’t have a PS3 and other Blu Ray players are too expensive, my option was to get the HD DVD player for the xbox 360 if I wanted to watch these new movies in HD. Some of them are available for rent from xbox live video market. But the rental rates are pretty high. I already have a NetFlix account and I do not need to pay extra to get HD DVD or Blu Ray rentals. So I decided I will buy the HD DVD player for xbox 360. Right now there is no other use for this piece of hardware than watching HD DVD or DVD or playing some CD. More wires and and bulky power supply unit as well.

I searched for shops that sell the add on locally but could not find any. Went to xbox web site and they had listed and only BestBuy and CompUSA as the stores where I can get it. BestBuy web site saysthey do not have it in stores and it is online only. CompUSA had it at only one store in the complete Bay Area. At the San Bruno store. I reserved it online and drove about 35 miles north in the rain and traffic to get it. Crazy. It took a while for the store clerk to locate my pick up. He tried to sell me their warranty but I have stopped buying these warranties for anything less than $400 (a random number I picked up). He said there is warranty for this item from Microsoft. can you believe he said that?

The box had one movie came with it – the new King Kong Movie. I also purchased the Superman Returns movie. King Kong looked spectacular in HD though the regular DVD version had better sound recording on it. On my home theater system the regular DVD sounded a lot lot better. It may be an xbox 360 thing, I don’t know. I don’t have a 1080p TV. My TV supports only up to 1080i. So, I may be missing something. This add on also does not support HDMI or new HDMI 1.3 so that is another lack of feature. That is not problem for me right now because I do not have a TV that supports HDMI and my HT receiver does not have HDMI input. It is more than 4 years old.

I was disappointed by the Superman Returns movie though. Nothing spectacular. Nothing entertaining about this movie. But that’s not the point of this post.

I made a post a while back about what am I going to buy.