Archive notice: This article was originally published on March 7, 2008. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
Software giant Microsoft has begun negotiations with rival electronics group Sony about integrating Blu-ray drives into the Xbox 360. This emerges from a current Financial Times report citing senior management sources. According to Sony’s US Electronics President Stan Glasgow, Sony is also negotiating with Apple over future use of Blu-ray technology. Until now, the computer manufacturer has refrained from equipping its devices with Blu-ray and instead pushed its business in downloads of digital content. “We can neither confirm nor deny these rumours,” Xbox Country Manager Gernot Kicker-LaPedalina says in response to an enquiry from news service pressetext.de.
Sony is thus catapulting itself into a dominant market position and has an excellent negotiating position, particularly in its discussions with Microsoft. Sony could certainly live with the fact that a Blu-ray-equipped Xbox 360 would be an even more serious competitor to the PlayStation 3, given the expected substantial additional revenue in its consumer electronics division. Microsoft, meanwhile, is maintaining its chosen course of driving forward streaming and downloads. “That is the future of the digital lifestyle,” Kicker-LaPedalina emphasises. HD content can also be provided through other channels.
At the end of February, Microsoft announced that it would stop manufacturing HD-DVD drives for the Xbox 360, which had emerged as an inevitable consequence of the format war. Remaining stocks are being sold to consumers at lower prices. Following Toshiba’s withdrawal from the HD-DVD business, Microsoft did not rule out switching the Xbox 360 to Blu-ray. Sony Electronics President Glasgow does not expect Blu-ray to be replaced by HD content available over the Internet. Limited bandwidth means that online content is available only to a few. Accordingly, there will in any case continue to be a need for Blu-ray drives in future.
