by Playfuls Staff |
20th September 2006
At the beginning of August this year, Microsoft demoed the HD DVD drive they have been preparing for its next-gen gaming console X BOX 360. Now they’ve announced its availability and pricing for the Japanese territory.[more]
Microsoft Corp. said on Wednesday it would launch an HD DVD player for its Xbox 360 game console on November 22 in Japan for 20,790 yen ($177), matching rival Sony Corp.'s PlayStation 3 in high-definition DVD functions.
The world's largest software maker also said 110 game titles would become available for Xbox 360 in Japan by the end of the year. That is up from its previous target in April of 80 titles.
Offering a wide-ranging and attractive software line-up and state-of-the-art functionality is critical as the industry heads into the year-end shopping season.
Although Sony has decided to lose a lot of money and integrate Blu-Ray as a standard component in PS3, which is priced at $499 or $599, Microsoft thought it’s better not to force its existing owners of an X BOX 360 to buy another X BOX with an HD DVD upgrade. They will be offered the alternative to buy the HD DVD drive separately.
This would make it the cheapest HD DVD player on the market at the moment of its debut. Generally, an HD DVD player in the US ships for a price between $430 and $500. Blu-Ray drives on the other hand are much more expensive (between $840 and $1,000) but they offer an improved quality of the displayed image and they read discs that reach up to 50GB of storage capacity.
"If you buy this along with Xbox 360, you can enjoy HD DVD content at a low price of about 60,000 yen," Takashi Sensui, general manager the Xbox division of Microsoft's Japanese unit, told a news conference.
Since the heavy processing duties are all taken care of inside X BOX 360, the $200 price for the separate gadget added to the X BOX is considered fair and with a lot of advantages. Kevin Collins, senior program manager at Microsoft, said: "All the audio and video processing is done inside the Xbox."
Collins also added that a recent study showed most of the X BOX 360 owners posses a HD display, which makes the HD DVD useful. An X BOX drive provides them with all the other equipment they need to watch HD DVD movies, he said.
"This gives consumers choice and keeps their cost down," Collins was quoted saying.
In choosing Japan for the launch of the HD-DVD add-on, Microsoft is testing a market that is one of the world's biggest but holds a deep allegiance for to homegrown Sony. Microsoft has plans to release the HD-DVD elsewhere, but no specifics about other markets or timing were disclosed.
Of course, Microsoft’s move comes naturally since Japan is the traditional home ground of Sony’s PlayStation console.
As of earlier this month, only 158,000 units of the Xbox 360 had been sold in Japan since its release late last year, according to Enterbrain Inc., a market researcher. About 5 million units have been sold worldwide in the same time period. Microsoft has big hopes though for its console, estimating that by the end of 2006 they will sell more than 10 million Xbox 360 consoles.
"We've always known Japan was going to be a challenging market. It has been since we launched the original Xbox," said Shane Kim, general manager of Microsoft Game Studios.
In order to make Xbox 360 more appealing to Japanese gamers, Microsoft Game Studios will be offering "Blue Dragon", developed by Hironobu Sakaguchi, the original producer of blockbuster "Final Fantasy" games.
The Redmond giant also promised 110 game titles will be available for Xbox 360 by the end of this year, in order to reduce the difference between the amount of games ready for PlayStation in Japan and the amount of games for Xbox 360.
"We will have 110 titles this holiday, with 70 of those titles being developed by Japanese creators," said Peter Moore, Microsoft's Corporate Vice President in charge of its video game businesses.
The design of the drive, which has the internal codename of Sapphire, was all done in-house by Microsoft while Toshiba was selected to manufacture the drive. It will feature two USB 2.0 ports on the back to make up for the one USB port that the device itself uses. It also features the same cut-out on the back as the XBOX 360 to hold Microsoft’s XBOX 360 Wireless Networking Adapter if you chose to mount it there. The HD DVD interface, while not yet finished, was also on display.
The new interface basically replaces the "old" Open Tray button on the dashboard with a hybrid button that can toggle between DVD and HD DVD options with the up/down arrow keys. The drive will also be software updatable via XBOX Live so as new features are introduced, they can be automatically downloaded and applied.
"If you buy this along with Xbox 360, you can enjoy HD DVD content at a low price of about 60,000 yen," Takashi Sensui, general manager the Xbox division of Microsoft's Japanese unit, told a news conference.
