so.... did Xbox 360 need Blu-ray at all?

**AaronSOLDIER** · 07-08-2012

I doubt it, PS3 would've probably gotten more sales and an easy early lead thanks to the brand, and possibly more 3rd party exclusives because they would've dominated the HD market.

**radgamer420** · 07-09-2012

Originally Posted by AaronSOLDIER

I doubt it, PS3 would've probably gotten more sales and an easy early lead thanks to the brand, and possibly more 3rd party exclusives because they would've dominated the HD market.

I agree. If PS3 had launched at the same time with the same price tag then the PS3 would have left 360 in the dust IMO. But the combination of a higher price tag for the PS3 as well as launching a year later gave MS the lead. MS has done well staying ahead and Sony has done well keeping the gap minimal. A lesser brand than Sony propably wouldn't have been able to close the gap at all.

**keefy** · 07-09-2012

It didnt need one but if it had th HD DVD thing instead then games would be much larger, more content better audio more variety in the textures etc.

**F34R** · 07-09-2012

/sigh.. alas.. while sitting on the beach/

What if....

**Abdou23** · 07-09-2012

Short answer: Yes

**F34R** · 07-09-2012

Correct answer: No

**radgamer420** · 07-09-2012

Originally Posted by F34R

/sigh.. alas.. while sitting on the beach/ What if....

Sitting on the beach....reminds me of when I still lived in southern California. lol http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0L8RTifZ9o

**T0PGUN** · 07-09-2012

Obviously not.

/thread

**Rapture** · 07-09-2012

At this point it's easy to look back and say that the Xbox 360 did not need Blu-Ray to survive and thrive as a console, and to appease its consumer base. It would be blind to state that it would not have benefited from it, though.

**F34R** · 07-09-2012

I agree. It didn't need it, but you can say things all day about any console that the console could benefit from something it didn't have all this time, and a console would have benefited from something.

**Cuguy** · 07-09-2012

Need? No

Benefit from? yeah

Did it hurt them NOT having it? Obviously not.

**AaronSOLDIER** · 07-09-2012

Both consoles could have had more RAM though, should have had 1GB IMO

**Cuguy** · 07-09-2012

Originally Posted by AaronSOLDIER

Both consoles could have had more RAM though, should have had 1GB IMO

definitely.

next round should have plenty of RAM, especially considering how cheap it is.

**Lethal_NFS** · 07-09-2012

Originally Posted by Cuguy

definitely.

next round should have plenty of RAM, especially considering how cheap it is.

What is really crazy, is that Microsoft originally was only going to go with 256mb of RAM until Cliff B told them they needed at least 512mb to do Gears of War.

**Lefein** · 07-09-2012

I liken this question to whether or not AP Programs are necessary in high schools since it's perfectly okay to graduate highschool with Special Ed. This entire generation would have been different if MS had at least put an HD-DVD drive in their system. As it stands, the technical specs of both systems held back games later in the gen than had been expected due to their insistence on launching with DX9 era GPUs. Having insufficient storage media had a direct causality to the DLC-ridden 6 hour long AAA games we have been railroaded with all gen long as well.

**Soldier 95B** · 07-09-2012

70 million Xbox 360's later, I would say NO, it did not NEED it. It would have been nice if they HAD it though, and it didn't affect the price of the console.

**F34R** · 07-09-2012

Originally Posted by Soldier 95B

70 million Xbox 360's later, I would say NO, it did not NEED it. It would have been nice if they HAD it though, and it didn't affect the price of the console.

....or launch date.

**mynd** · 07-09-2012

A couple of points:

The quesiton of DLC, might be a new one to Playstation users, and in turn they blame the limtiations of DVD, but I'll point a few things out.

1/ DLC was already around last gen, XBOX Live had multiple DLC packages you could purchase, I bought a couple for Battlefront for example. The inclusion of a net connected service on these consoles is the reason we have DLC NOT DVD.

2/ Ever looked at you installed games sizes? How many max out at 7.9 gb or the older 7.3 (or whatever), bugger all of them and the ones that have have been closer to the end of the generation.

3/ You cant really ask this quesiton without out asking the quesiton on the other side , which is, what has BR provided? Longer games is not one of these answers. What it has provided is mandatory installs.

So in short, had MS gone with a BR/HDDVD they would have had a reliance on a hard drive, bumped the costs up, delayed the release.
Would some games have been different? Sure. Would all games have been different?, not even close.

If you have a factor that has an effect on only a portion of games, then you can most definatley say it was not needed.
If it affected 100% of games, then sure, but it didnt, and the inclusion of it most definatley would have.

Every single game has to deal with transfer rates, memory restrictions, graphics restrictions, bottle necks, but storage is not one of those.

**Soldier 95B** · 07-09-2012

3/ You cant really ask this quesiton without out asking the quesiton on the other side , which is, what has BR provided? Longer games is not one of these answers. What it has provided is mandatory installs.

While I haven't seen any advantages with Blu-Ray related to graphics or game length (none at all actually), what I have seen is the ability to provide multiple audio languages on the disk, as well as TruHD/7.1 sound. Those are huge files, and they are something that the DVD's would not be able to carry (not to mention, the Xbox doesn't support 7.1/TruHD).

**MacP** · 07-09-2012

No because it had the gaming industry by the balls, they chucked money at devs and publishers and they all came running in like vultures.

**LiquidGame** · 07-10-2012

Originally Posted by Yungstar 2006

there were a couple of times over the years where some headlines appeared like "Lost Planet 2 has to be cut to fit 360" or "some Rage areas not available due to dvd in 360" etc..

well... as we start to look forward to Nextbox, did the lack of Blu-ray have any effect at all on what xbox 360 was able to achieve in gaming?

i'm of the opinion that it had no effect at all on what 360 was able to bring me gaming wise.

Based on the fact Microsoft grew its gaming marketshare at least 3X the original Xbox I would say, no It didn't really make or break the Xbox 360s sucess this generation. I am willing to bet that if the current Xbox360 had a BD its sales wouldn't be much further than they already are to date. The next MS console will need something better than DVD though.

**TDbank24** · 07-10-2012

I don't think Blu-ray was necessarily needed for this generation but next generation i think it's a must. Or Microsoft should just come out with their own format called Green-ray.

Games are evolving. With that you need more space. I can think of a couple games off the top of my head that may have benefited from being a Blu-ray only release. GTA IV and FFXIII come to mind.

Not to mention it's just nice to have games on one disc.

**mynd** · 07-10-2012

I think the transfer speeds are enough now for it to be fully realised in the next generation, but I still dont think that many games will use it (outside of the obligatory sound track/FMV/Multi region language thing).
Its actually quite difficult and expensive to create that amount of content. And even those games that went multi-disc (FORZA, Mass Effect) missed out by maybe 1-3 gb.

**Soldier 95B** · 07-10-2012

Well, clearly Microsoft saw a demand for making the DVDs larger with their update that increased the storage on each DVD.

**mynd** · 07-10-2012

Originally Posted by Soldier 95B

Well, clearly Microsoft saw a demand for making the DVDs larger with their update that increased the storage on each DVD.

Yeah, sorry I should have said I mean the full 25gb.
A 12-15gb usable disc would be ideal next gen. Nobody is going to complain about the extra 10gb though.