Xbox 360 HD-DVD £129.99

Apparently the 360 HD drive is gonna be £119.99 on December 1st.

See Here:
http://www.neoseeker.com/forums/index.php?fn=view_thread&t=758131

 

IF that is true, which I doubt it is, then that is one seriously good price.

 

Fingers crossed

 

We will find out tomorrow if its true or not

 

The source of information - or lack thereof - is suspicious but £119.99 is believable considering the Japanese drive will be similarly priced.

 

I would be THRILLED if the Xbox 360 HD-DVD drive is £120.

 

How? Is there going to be some conference?

 

Yes, the X06 in Barcelona, Spain

 

it would make a change if it was as uk gets shafted with all the high prices,this could be microsoft's chance to put one over sony.......cheap prices to force people to buy there console instead of ps3 specially from the rumore that sony is dropping the price of the console on release date.

 

If even half of what he says is true then I'll be happy. But I seriously doubt the HD-DVD drive will be £120 and with a premium remote bundled with it. I believe about £160-80 will be the price.

 

If the price is right, the Xbox 360 Core + HDAV cable + HD-DVD addon will make an cheap HD-DVD player! About €460/£310!!!!
Just hope the HD-DVD playback is good.

 

If it is I'll buy one. And I already have an A1!

 

Me too, hope theres no shortages before Christmas!

 

I find it hard to believe the price being claimed for the HD-DVD add-on given that Toshiba make these for MS. Why would they undercut their own DVD player by pumping out one at less than a 1/4 of the price of their own [half, if you factor in buying an XBox 360]. Seems inconceivable to me? although the evidence mounts.

Although I really would have liked a PS3 [and will probably still will get one rather than definitely] and perhaps had hoped for a BluRay "victory" at this price, if true, and the European delay, I think this could be a serious blow to Sony. I think they are beginning to realise it. I have almost certainly changed my view in the last few weeks. I doubt I am alone. At £120 for a HD DVD, it almost doesn't matter if they ultimately loose the "format war." If they would only make the 360 stream DVD as an extender!

 

Seems a really good price however the challenge is getting 1080p from the 360. Which TV's currently support 1080p via VGA?

The new Sharp XD1E can do 1080p however Sharp normally limit the VGA port. Not sure if the Sony X can do 1080p over VGA either.

 

Probably because MS would subsidise it.

The xbox 360 is a loss leader, it is a common marketing concept.

 

I understand the concept, of course, subsidizing / compensating Toshiba is one thing, but it has to hurt all the other supporters / manufacturers of HD DVD players. MS cannot be subsidizing their sales, which will obviously be damaged by this approach.

 

I hardly think it will hurt other manufacturers of HD DVD stand alone players, its after all just the bare essentials HD player, hell it don't even have a HDMI connection! i think i'll have to get one to compare it against the A1

 

Can the 360 be made multi region, for regular DVD's, with the stanard DVD drive?

Will this add on upscale regular DVD's?

 

The add-on only plays HDDVD's i beleave.The player (360 unit) can indeed play NTSC/PAL disc's but you need the hack for it.

 

Nope

Over component, no. Over VGA, yes - all the way up to 1920x1080 (1080p)

EDIT: To clarify - the forthcoming dashboard update will allow all 360s to upscale DVDs to 1080p over VGA

 

Brilliant Price, not quite as cheap as the Japanese player but no one thought it would be. I was hopeing it would be £130-139 so £119 is great. Well done MS. Major annoucements often leak out the night before a conferance so I see no reason for this not to be true. The US price is exactly as expected too.

Looks like the £199 + 2 movies price was nonsence as expected.

£119 for the 360 add on or £599 for the EX1. Difficult decision. You can buy alot of movies for £380. In fact you can buy a PS3 + the 360 add on and have access to both Blu-ray and HD-DVD for the same price as the EX1. But I really want the EX1. Going to have to think hard on this.

 

I'm thinking it may be best to stock up on discs until December and see what price cuts/deals there are on regular players, especially imported ones.

 

Quite possibly true, however, HD DVD standalone players sales world-wide is less than 250,000. It would need only 5% of 360 owners to buy this add-on to overtake that. I know that the purist out there would not consider an XBOX + add-on for the home cinema setup, but for the vast majority, price is king and buying a console and an add-on is still a lot cheaper than a standalone player. The price of standalone players will only drop with volume, and this approach by MS could significantly cut that volume, at least in the short-term. From my point of view I have always spent a reasonable of money on my SD players, but I was not going to spend £500 - 700 on first generation HD player [of either format]. At the proposed MS price point for the add-on, then a whole new dynamic comes into play.

Personally, I think not having a HDMI connection is short-term advantage, at least for me. My Denon AMP has no means of switching it, and the standalone switches are just a "rip-off" My HDMI TV sounds awful when taking sound via the HDMI. I get better quality feeding L+ R for most programs. I know it is off subject, but is incredible that 99% of HD ready TV's only have one HDMI input!

 

I think its best to stock up on money and buy discs as late as possible because they only get cheaper overtime. Maybe I'll order all my movies early November from the US with the free 3 week delivery. £12.99 for most HD-DVD titles(non combo) the blu-ray discs are a little more expensive though strangely. www.dvdworldusa.com

I do agree about leaving it late to buy a player though. I want a HD movie player to enjoy over the Christmas period but I'm happy to wait till then to decide. However I think if we want an XE1 then we need to be preordering straight away. Damn I'm indecisive.

 

Because the addon is for a different market ie for gamers who may be interested in the occasional hd movie and at that sort of price I should think it is very appealing to them. On the other hand Toshiba's standalone hd players are for a mature segment of the market which includes HT enthusiasts with a little more income etc.

 

i have a couple of questions which i hope someone may be able to answer.

MS have clained that we can watch 1080p HD-DVD movies over component and VGA but apparently that's not the case and alot of TV's do not support this. Is this True?

I am also really concerned about the HD sound promised for this drive as well. HDMI won't be available (not that i have it on my amp) so i aaume that MS have to release a 5.1 analogue lead so that it can output the sound?

I am guessing this will be a optional lead and it may well be downconverted to DD via optical?

What's the situation likely to be with this

 

because toshiba make no money on the lower end player anyway so they want 'bums on seats' so by letting the 360 do all the processign there is no need for the virtually complete Pentium 4, 1gb memory pc that was in the toshiba player toshiba are still gettin income from selling the the hd-dvd drives to MS dont forget even if only 5% of xbox 360 owner buy this drive there would be an instant aditional 250,000 hd-dvd userbase

EDIT : ani4ani beat me to it lol

lee_cooper the situation is...

Component - 1080p for games, 1080i for hd-dvd, 480p for dvd's
VGA - 1080p for games, 1080p for movies, 480p for dvd's

 

1080p using VGA only, component is limited to 1080i

 

I don't know why but I can't see it being that cheap, I really think that is just a pie in the sky rumour. If that is the price then I will get one first day I can. Its a no-brainer for my situation, 360 & HD-DVD over the XE1. Then depending on how things are looking pick up a dedicated player in a yr or so time.

At that price point I can see them selling a fair number esp. with the PS3 being delayed till march. I really hope I am wrong and it does turn out to be available at that price.