Microsoft: No 360 HD-DVD Bundle

Moore says that offering Xbox 360 with the drive will further fragment the userbase.

The announcement of the external HD-DVD drive for the Xbox 360 was barely out of Microsoft's corporate mouth before people started to wonder whether the company was considering using this newfound capacity for not only movies but games too. It won't.

"Right now it's focused purely on movie playback," Microsoft's Peter Moore told GameSpot at the Consumer Electronic Show last week. "If you want to watch HD-DVD movies and if you own an Xbox 360, there will be no reason for you to go out and buy another player."

As Sony has been quick to point out, only it will have a true next-generation DVD drive in its console - the Sony co-developed Blu-ray drive. The company has spun this into meaning only it will delivery a true next-gen experience, something Microsoft has argued is a matter of semantics.

"HD-DVD from the gameplay point of view is primarily about media storage as is of course Blu-ray," Moore said. "Our developers are very comfortable with the [Xbox 360's] storage options - I think they're utilizing Xbox Live very creatively, and the hard drive, we have a very strong attach rate for the hard drive," he said, referring to the number of Xbox 360 owners who have the hard disc too.

To drive this point home, Moore said that Microsoft has no intention of creating a new version of the Xbox 360 with the HD-DVD drive included, mainly because this would further fragment the userbase, beyond what has already been caused by Microsoft's decision to make the hard drive optional.

Moore confirmed that the new drive should be out this year, but there's no word on exactly when.

Alex Wollenschlaeger
Editor, Kikizo Games