Microsoft: No current plans for HD DVD enabled Xbox 360

Microsoft: No current plans for HD DVD enabled Xbox 360

Sony and Toshiba are the two tech giants, which are fighting over the standardization of next generation storage format. Sony is promoting its Blu-Ray technology, while Toshiba stands by its HD DVD technology. If we look at the other players in the market, Blu-Ray format seems to have a little advantage with support from most movie studios. However, Toshiba has Microsoft on their side along with Intel with HP planning to drop in anytime in the near future.

However, one of the biggest advantages Sony has with their Blu-Ray drives is that they have confirmed that the next generation gaming console from them, the Sony Playstation 3 would come equipped with a Blu-Ray capable drive. Microsoft have on their part already launched their Xbox 360 gaming console in the market with a regular DVD drive and had earlier hinted that an updated model of this console could be developed in the future with a HD DVD drive.

However, the company seems to be backtracking from their earlier stand as a statement from Microsoft said that it currently has no plans to release an Xbox 360 equipped with a next-generation DVD player. This came as a response to a report from a Japanese news service yesterday, which claimed that the company planned to launch an HD-DVD compatible Xbox 360 in 2006.

A Microsoft spokesperson responded to a reported from the media group IGN: “Microsoft, in both America and Japan, has not announced anything regarding the possibility of a next generation DVD drive being placed in the Xbox 360. There are currently no plans to release an Xbox 360 equipped with a next generation DVD player.”

Microsoft’s Japanese Xbox chief Yoshihiro Maruyama had already sometime back declared that if they indeed launch a HD DVD capable Xbox 360, it would only be supporting movie and other digital content on these new generation disks and not games.