Microsoft Says Blu-Ray Is Killing The PlayStation 3

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Microsoft director Aaron Greenberg is the head of Microsoft’s Xbox Live and played a big role in designing the Xbox 360 console. He has some bold opinions about the Xbox 360′s big rival, the PlayStation 3. Greenberg says that the licensing costs of the Blu-Ray drive inside the PS3 has forced the cost of the console.

Greenberg cited the PS3′s current entry price of $300 while the Xbox 360 has one of $200. “The fact that we’re able to offer a console starting at $199 is a benefit of not being burdened with that cost. Being $100 cheaper is part of the reason why we’re nearly twice their installed base,” Greenberg told British gaming magazine Edge.

The Xbox 360 offered an add-on HD-DVD drive that enabled the console to play next-gen discs for the ill-fated format, but that was short-lived. The Xbox 360 has been criticized for a lack of next-gen disc support, from both pundits and developers. Developers don’t like the fact that they’re reaching the capacity limit on DVD9 (9GB) with some new big games (not a problem with Blu-Ray, which has a capacity of 50GB).

Greenberg says that the lack of a Blu-Ray drive is all apart of the plan for the Xbox 360 console. “For us, our bet was on digital distribution, that that was the future – the ability to do 1080p movies with no disc, no download required; we have the largest movie and TV library, the largest HD library of any console.”

There also could be some hurt feelings – Sony invented the Blu-Ray platform while Microsoft was a strong supporter of HD-DVD. Microsoft sources have been strongly denying the possibility of a Blu-Ray add-on or new Blu-Ray enabled Xbox 360 for months – and with Mr. Greenberg’s damnation of Blu-Ray, it’s almost a certainty we’ll never see a Blu-Ray drive in a Xbox 360.