Xbox 360 HD player cut to $179

I just bought my HD Player, absolutely impressed with it, its not even noisy. Theres no better time to buy it than now too. I don't know about the US but in the UK microsoft are doing a great deal where you get 5 free HD DVD's. Check out XBOX.com for more, totally worth it!

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nice nice now i might go pick one up

Sweet, I plan on buying one of these I will probably get Apollo 13 with it, that's a good movie.

Never heard of most of those movies...

"Jebril: yes go buy a 499 ps3 with built in blu-ray player that is no longer in production, great move there jebril" That first part wasn't what I said BTW......But yes I did go buy that 499 PS3 just around a week ago, mostly because there's the possibility that MGS4 and FFXIII are never coming to the 360, even though I'd rather they do. And also because my little brother and me are really psyched for LittleBigPlanet. The game looks amazing...

okassar : "It's about time...but when HD-DVD gets famous is the time that woulld truely be saving money.Don't worry Sony fanboys,of Blu-ray does come out on top,Microsoft mentioned it would correspond to that and insert it as an option for the 360 :p" Sony also owns some shares of the blu - ray format and it also helped developed it so i see it being very hard for blu - ray to go to microsoft. u could probably check that out on wikipedia :P

"PixyMisao HD and Blueray make as much sense as DVD audio. " Hmmm.... not sure how to respond to that. Regular DVDs do look poor when played on HD tvs. HD content looks great when played on HDTVs. I'm pretty sure you're being sarcastic or trying to knock HD formats... but I think you're a little bit off. 1/3 of US households have HDTVs so I wouldn't call the format pointless. Neither would I call DVD-Audio pointless. I'm sure back in the early 50s people were saying mono was all you needed... you'd be laughed at to release a less than stereo album today. Hell, back in the 60s and 70s you'd be laughed at for still releasing a mono album.

M$ should invest in movie making business like $ony. Then they could hurt Blu-Ray, otherwise there is no chance for HD-DVD against it.... I'll still be happy with regular DVDs like most people....;)

HD and Blueray make as much sense as DVD audio.

Only 5 movies out of that list i like. And just how do we get them? The store I'm going to get it at, still has the king kong bundle.

Shame on microsoft. I love the 360 but hate all the old and crappy movies there giving away.

too little too late

i don't buy movies.... i save my $$$.

i meant to say to upscales STANDARD dvds to somewhat-1080p

as of right now.....screw hd-dvd, for the simple fact that i own a ps3 and its my HD movie player right now, besides most of the movies i want are coming out to both anyway, and since the ps3 can upscale movies in to "somewhat-1080p" i dont really NEED a hd-dvd player.

Target, Woolworths, and BJs have all gone Blu-ray . It would be hard to convince me to even consider a HD-DVD drive right now.

Its about time. I always felt that MS would be in a nice spot if they could have a premium 360 + HD-DVD at the same price as the $499 PS3+Blu-Ray. I'm still hoping that more studios jump in the HD download band wagon so that this whole format war boils down to little more than a codec war... which is nothing but a simple download to play the latest format. "It's shame that HD-DVD is not doing well when it has been proven that it has better pitcher quality than blu-ray, a real step down to future movies." Thats not the format's fault though. I've read that alot of Blu-Ray disc are encoded in the decade old MPEG-2 (MP2... as in we all know there was already an MP3 format) format, but all players support actually support MP4 formats. The fault is lazy studios who, for one reason or another, refuses to step it up to using the vastly superior codec which could actually get them better file quality at smaller file sizes. Its actually silly because you can fit a 720p film onto dual layer DVD without a noticeable loss in quality if you use some of the newer formats like H.264, WMV VC-1, etc.

DVDs are still going to be the norm for years and years.

Regular DVD is just fine. I buy a game system to play games.

It's shame that HD-DVD is not doing well when it has been proven that it has better pitcher quality than blu-ray, a real step down to future movies.

--kweber24 -- Because you do not need HDMI...only thing HDMI give you is copy protection and we all love that.

lol. This is useless for gaming on 360/ At least ps3, developers knows each ps3 have a br drive in it.

since most ppl will use the free blue ray player in their ps3,only 20 dollars off wont help them buy this add on 4 their 360s

gr8 news :)

put a damn hdmi input you idiots and stop wasting my time...i think the hd-dvd is better but im not buying this until they update the thing, idk why they came out with this in the first place without it

its over just stop it, i had mines for a few months, sold it because it lacked Disney stuff. just use your 360 for games, if you want high def might as well go buy a stand alone

Seraphim_24 says: "If HD DVD has any hope at all this isn't enugh. M$ needs to put this player into the 360 itself. Anyone who has a PS3 has a Blu-Ray player, that's an instant install base for Blu Ray. The same is not true of the 360. " The problem with this is if they do add the HD drive in the system then they're going to have to raise the price another $200. They have said before they don't want to do that because they don't want to force people who don't need or want it (people who have not yet upgraded their TV) to spend that extra money. It pretty much evens out with the PS3 in price. And as for the price drop for the PS3, the $499 price tag is not permanent. It's a clearance sale. As they are not making (what is it? the 60gb?) anymore

the hd dvd versus blu ray probably wont be decided for another couple of years because considering that they look exactly the same and sound the same, it will just come down in the end which is cheapest and the most added extras

Jebril: yes go buy a 499 ps3 with built in blu-ray player that is no longer in production, great move there jebril

Too bad there's only one good movie in that whole bunch: Blazing Saddles... Microsoft is scurrying to make money on the tech while there's still a competition between themselves and the Blu-Ray tech... I think this could be a sign Blu-Ray is pulling ahead...

lol within 10 years holographic discs will become cheap and effecient enough to make HD-DVD/Blu-ray look like VHS... they've already got 200gig discs, and they estimate the technology could eventually surpass 1TB per disc Wouldn't you want an entire season of Lost in HD on one disc? A decade or so from now, nobody's going to care about this competition except for economics majors.

I think they did this becuase the days of HD-DVD and Blu-Rays are limited. Eventually, the HD downloads directly to the systems is what will end up the winner. This is why we see the 120GB Harddrive on the Xbox and Sony's 80GB Harddrive bundle. Mark my words, the winner of this war will be the internet!

Wow, thats 1 uninspiring List of free Hd-dvds. I still dont C the need to upgrade from Dvd's to Hd or Blueray

yeah for america only i bet

very interesting

i'm glad the 360 didn't have the HD-DVD drive built in. i didn't want it when i bought it & it would have been wasted. now, it's 2 years later & i want one. this is good news. i like the idea of an add on. i like the idea that "IF" blue ray wins, you will be able to get a blue ray add on for the 360. i like HD better & hope it wins. why? the best feature is that the studios can add additional HD content via ethernet if they want. i'm so tired of buying a dvd only to have a new directors cut come out later & then another... HD eliminates that. i have an elite 360 & would really wish MS would announce soon if they are gonna release a black elite HD drive. I'd hate to grab a white one & the black one comes out this fall. i would wait if they'd annouce it.

I dont know why gamespot did not say anything about the Blu-Ray add comming out for the 360. What ever.

As much as I'm glad for Mircosoft. I really don't think this add on will be that much successful. while it may sell fairly well, adds on have a bad history for wearing consumers thin after a short time of availiblity, it's a wonder Sega decided not to release a Dreamcast DVD add on . because of the history with SEGA CD(Which did do well for a CD add on unlike Atari's and NEC's) and the abominable 32X. I personally believe that when SEGA releases another game console it probably will be built in with HD-DVD rom format so they may benfit from it more. Nice idea Mircosoft, but you probably should have used the HD-DVD format when you launched the machine.

If you want a Blu-Ray playrer, get a Ps3. If you want a gaming console get a Xbox 360. Simple as that. Most people don't even care about the HD-DVD player, so this news is pretty meaningless to most. I bought a XBox 360 to play games on it, not watch HD-DVD movies. The same will be said once I finally get a PS3. If you don't have an HDTV with 1080p, the Blu-Ray player is worthless for watching Blu-Ray movies.

you know i don't know what discounts you guys get in the states but this sells for £100 in many places in the uk .... that's about $170 once you take off VAT ( sales tax ) it's about the only thing that isn't $200 more expensive over here !!!! Will Heroes and a $20 price cut be enough to turn the game around on Blu Ray ??

LOL $179 added on to the $399 system for an HD-drive or go buy a built in blu-ray player for $499. this is one of the reasons i hate M$ The thing is that M$ doesn't make you buy the useless HD because they know it has nothing to do with gaming. We are gaming fans first and foremost, not M$ fans and not Sony fans, the only reason a lot of people are siding with M$ right now is because that's where most of the games are.

This is good news for those who favor the HD-DVD over Blu-ray. Because as we all know Blu-ray is beating HD-DVD as of now.

OBJECTION!!~!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! blue ray / hd-dvd will NEVER be the standard - HD downloads is the future. everyone knows this - so continue your petty arguments. You guys fail>!

--joeyfine -- It just depends if you want a games console...or a blu-ray player. And really if you don't have a HDTV...there is no reason to get a PS3.

LOL $179 added on to the $399 system for an HD-drive or go buy a built in blu-ray player for $499. this is one of the reasons i hate M$...

It's about time...but when HD-DVD gets famous is the time that woulld truely be saving money.Don't worry Sony fanboys,of Blu-ray does come out on top,Microsoft mentioned it would correspond to that and insert it as an option for the 360 :p

If microsoft manage to stick the hddvd inside the 360 next year, and sell it at the same price as an elite - this will seriously smash the ps3 to pieces. Especially when you start adding up those games too. It will all come down to that processor and the sixaxis then. I am pretty tired of people saying that the ps3 is a better CONSOLE because of blu-ray movies... whats up with that!! The ps2 was not a better console than the xbox because of dvd playback being built-in (at a later date). It was better because of the games. Nobody thinks of the ps2 as a dvd player anymore - its alive today because of the games. And the ps2 only helped push dvd along. Once dvd took off though, it is accepted because now people can mass produce them, pick them up dirt cheap and they are accepted into almost anything (colleges, schools etc). Pc's use dvds aswell, don't forget. The format war never has come down to simple movie playback - that was back in the VHS days. Today, for a format to succeed it needs to be versatile and cheap. Why is the memorystick less popular than the sd card? Sony products, whilst being good, cannot compete with the vast amount of units the competition produces. SD cards are now accepted into the PS3 (not the psp) because they are used by far more people. Its cheaper, and can be used in more things like PDA's, GPS, Cameras.... Hddvd, imo, seems to be more versatile because it is cheaper, and also quite big in size. People will be using dvds for many more years to come. If they want to store more things, I would think HDDVD is the way to go because when buying discs in small batches - they won't cost you a fair packet. And above all, blu-ray will probably be used in only sony-made things for the majority - so you can imagine the DRM in that. I reckon HDDVD will evantually be the king of storage media. People with those dvd (Standard def) recorders - Imagine having the choice of recording standard def recordings onto a hddvd disc. I think HDDVD will have more success producing more storage space ideas for standard def (and pc ) users than to the gimmicky hd market that is out right now. People sell HD stuff like its "the future" yet the prices are changing and things are changing dramatically every day. I don't think this war is just going to end because the ps3 has blu-ray. I reckon that whoever can make the disc the most versatile - wins.

If HD DVD has any hope at all this isn't enugh. M$ needs to put this player into the 360 itself. Anyone who has a PS3 has a Blu-Ray player, that's an instant install base for Blu Ray. The same is not true of the 360.

with target kind of dropping hddvd (and the blockbuster thing) its not looking good for MS