[Greg_S_H]

It's supposedly coming in the third quarter, and will be made by Pegatron. Not many other details, but this possibly erases one of the arguments for the PS3 for those of us still consoleless. I say possibly, because I understand the PS3 has the best Blu-Ray player on the market, and the 360 will have to compete with that reputation. Of course, one of the big pluses in the PS3's favor is that *everyone* has Blu-Ray, so the game manufacturers can take advantage of that and not leave anyone out in the cold.

XBOX 360 Finally Getting Blu-ray - Tom's Hardware

[Ronald Epstein]

Hmmm....

If this is true I would not hesitate to buy the add-on as long
as the firmware could be upgraded like the PS3.

[Aaron Silverman]

The article it links to seems to imply that they're going to manufacture consoles with built-in BD-ROM drives, not that they're going to make add-on drives. Who knows?

At any rate, I'd wait for a second source to confirm it.

[Adam Gregorich]

I'll believe it when I see it. It doesn't make sense to add a 4th SKU to the line, and I don't see why they would want to eat the price increase for something only a small % of people will use. Sony makes $$ on BD in the long term, so there losses and the PS3 are worth it. MS will make nothing on BD longterm (they would have on HD DVD) so why should they take a loss to support it?

[Greg_S_H]

Microsoft denies this today. They couldn't support it for games, so it doesn't make much of a difference, other than as an all-in-one solution for those who don't have Blu-Ray.

I don't follow Blu-Ray too much, but I was reading today that the industry is worried about it because it's not taking off even with the demise of HD-DVD. I read this in the video game press, so I don't know if it's accurate, but I can definitely see the reluctance to jump to a new format on the part of the general public. Heck, I'm there myself. But, it's also the case that after watching HD for a couple of years, going back to SD-DVD is tough. I hope this statement isn't against forum rules, because I'm not trying to argue. It's just my personal view.

[Aaron Silverman]

If "the industry" doesn't understand why BD isn't taking off as quickly as DVD did, then "the industry" is pretty dumb.

[Greg_S_H]

I didn't say they didn't understand. They just hoped the end of the format war would spark sales, but it apparently hasn't. According to whatever I was reading yesterday.