Lately, there’s been a lot of talk about Microsoft’s commitment to releasing physical media for Xbox console games. Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer acknowledged in a recent interview that most Xbox gamers buy digital games, but said, “Removing the physical is not strategic for us. ” he added.
All of this is reminiscent of when Microsoft decided to join the last physical disk format wars in the mid-2000s. This was a battle between Blu-ray and HD DVD, and ultimately Microsoft ended up losing.
Of course, this format war was meant to support efforts to replace the DVD format with movie and television discs created to support high-definition television. Sony has developed a new disc that supports blue lasers. This format he branded as his Blu-ray in 2002.
But the DVD Forum, an organization of companies that helped develop the old DVD disc format, wasn’t convinced that Sony’s Blu-ray technology was the way to go. Toshiba and NEC introduced competing technologies in 2002, also using blue. Although it used a laser, the physical specifications of the disc were the same as a DVD. In theory, it meant that DVD makers could easily convert to the new format. The DVD Forum officially decided to support Toshiba and NEC’s technology, and it was renamed HD. Released on DVD in 2003.
Prior to the release of the Xbox 360 console in 2005, Microsoft and Intel announced that they would both support HD DVD. At his CES in January 2006, then-Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates announced that the company would release an HD DVD add-on disc player for his Xbox 360.
Microsoft launched its HD DVD external player in November 2006, several months after the first standalone HD DVD and Blu-ray players went on sale in the United States. The Xbox 360 HD DVD add-on player cost $199 and came with his HD DVD copy of Peter Jackson. king kong Remake.
In a post on Microsoft’s Xbox Engineering blog shortly before the add-on device’s launch, Microsoft revealed that the process of running HD DVD movies did not involve a special chip inside the disc player itself. . Instead, the company created his 4.7 million videos so that the video and audio codecs for playing movies actually work with the Xbox 360’s CPU and GPU. He further added:
All six of the Xbox 360’s hardware threads work hard during HD DVD playback. At the moment, players’ software is taxing the Xbox 360 more than any other software (with the possible exception of Gears of War during particularly busy parts of the game).
As a little side note, Microsoft released a bizarre commercial for its Xbox 360 HD DVD add-on player featuring a break dancer. Check it out below. I won’t say any more.
Microsoft may have favored the HD DVD format, but Sony’s Blu-ray support and technology will be built into the company’s PlayStation 3 console as a regular disc drive for both games and movies for release in fall 2006. , thereby giving it legs. It has been uploaded to the Microsoft HD DVD add-on. Sony was helped by the fact that most of Hollywood’s major studios decided to support his Blu-ray. Universal was the only studio to exclusively support HD DVD, while Paramount supported both for a while.
In 2007, it became clear that Blu-ray would win this next generation disc format war. During the first few months of that year, sales of his Blu-ray discs in the United States far exceeded HD DVD discs.
On February 19, 2008, Toshiba announced that it would discontinue manufacturing HD DVD players. A few days later, Microsoft confirmed that it would no longer produce HD DVD add-on drives for the Xbox 360. The company has reduced the price of the add-on to just $49.99 to clear its remaining inventory. It’s actually remarkable how long the war lasted, since this was the end of this format war, and it was clear to most observers that his Blu-ray movie format would win.
