XBOX 360 HD-DVD player add-on
 

I do not have the link but there is going to be a Hd-DVD player add-on for the Xbox 360 and it is only $200.00.

There may have been a post about this somewhere else but I wanted to bring up an interesting point that was brought up on HDforIndies.



I guess to date there has been 6 million XBOX360 systems sold.

Both systems meaning the XBOX360 with the HD-DVD drive and the PS3 with it's bilt in Blu-ray drive will cost around the same so for new buyers it is kind of a toss up which one they would rather have.

What I find interesting however is the total amount of XBOX360 systems sold to date. When christmas comes this year there are already 6 million people out there that now only have to spend $200 to be able to watch HD movies. The PS3 people will have to fork over a cold $600 to watch HD movies. That means HD-DVD could very well have 6 million new users when SONY just gets started with the PS3. For 6 million people it is going to be hard to justify buying yet another $600 system when they already have a XBOX 360.

I still think these systems are over priced for people to go out and buy one on a whim. It isn't like the old days when people had extra money and only needed to go out and buy a system for less than $200.00. Today the world costs more but people do not make more compared to how much things cost. $600 is a lot for the average Joe to go out and buy just because his kid got a good report card in school. I do not think the PS3 will sell like hotcakes as much as SONY would like to think.

With that said 6 million people already own a XBOX 360 and $200 for a Hd-DVD add-on isn't a bad price for a christmas present.

further thoughts on this
 

Tons o'thoughts on this over at:

http://www.hdforindies.com/2006/09/m...dvd-price.html

...including 26 comments as I write this post here.

Basically, yeah, it is an influence, but what are the attach rates, what difference will it make, what are the expected sales rates of both systems, how constrained will they both be during the holiday rush, what are the relative merits of the two formats, etc. etc. etc.

-mike

The low end version of the PS3 will be priced at around 410 to 425 dollars in Japan and it was confirmed by Sony that it will have HDMI output just like the 600 dollar model. This makes the PS3 a much better value.

Also the games are multi-region.

XBOX360 has the head start, but let's not underestimate the PS3. Sure, it will only cost $200 more to add the HD-DVD add-on for the XBOX, but current users already spent $400+ on the console so there wasn't any cost advantage overall.

I was in Circuit City today and I saw dozens of blu-ray movie titles. They were placed near the entrance so the marketing is heating up. And Blu-ray recorders and media are in retail stores, too.

I'm not favoring Blu-ray but this has been my observation in stores.

Add-ons have never been popular for game systems, at least not for Sega and Microsoft may suffer the same fate. The games on the PS3 can be extremely massive. You have about 9 gigs of storage for XBOX 360 games and 50 gigs of storage for PS3 games. That is a very big difference.

Correct, add-ons of this type have generally been a miserable failure. PS3 is poised to squash the 360, we'll see if they deliver.



ash =o)

I've noticed this over the past couple weeks at all my local Best Buy, CC, Ultimate Electronics, etc... These stores are really pushing Blu-Ray. Most have pushed HD-DVD off to the side in favor of Blu-Ray and I don't know if Sony is applying more pressure or if there's greater incentive (profit margins) for the retail chains with Blu-Ray or what. But for some reason, it seems to be getting the royal treatment compared to HD-DVD lately. I've noticed a lot of others commenting online that they're seeing the same thing in other areas. Hmmmm.... I've also noticed that my local BestBuy is selling Blu-Ray movies about $8 cheaper on average than HD-DVD titles. And I overheard both a regular BB employee as well as one of their Magnolia operatives telling different customers that Blu-Ray is better and even though the players are twice as expensive [as HD-DVD], that with the cheaper disc prices, if you buy 30 movies or more, the price difference is essentially negated. Of course, anyone with a rudimentary set of math skills would realize that it would take about 63 movies with an $8 average difference to make up for the difference in player cost, but hey that's retail marketing at work...

Sony marketing dollars at work?
 

Jeff -

I wonder if, and I have no hard data, Sony is paying for placement, or offering spiffs, or other sales enticements to the staff at the big box retailers? Certainly the possibility of higher profit (margin and gross) would be of interest to the big box retailers. Anybody have any hard data on any of this?

-mike

Yeah I talked to the guy at Best Buy where I recently bought a DLP HDTV. When HD-DVD came out first they had those but as soon as the first Blu-ray players came out the HD-DVD display just totally went away. You really had to try hard and ask a lot of people in order to find the HD-DVD player which they had crammed in the section that looked like a dark alley.

He said SONY must really be pushing this new format but he himself told me he didn't see what the big deal was. He was actually recommending people wait until next year to see how things go. He did say that he was kind of upset about this whole format war and sees no reason for it at all. It just makes his job harder and puts places like Best Buy in the front of confusing the consumers and trying to clear everything up as to why there are two formats.

The contest between Blu-Ray and HD-DVD is far from over.

As of right now, Toshiba has completely sold out of its current range of players. HD-DVD software is outselling Blu-ray software by a factor of 11:1. HD-DVD titles are regularly in the Top 50 DVD chart on Amazon.com - Blu-ray titles aren't.

The supremely lacklustre MPEG2 Blu-ray titles coupled with the disappointing Samsung launch player have actually pushed many of the purists away from BD altogether and taken them to the HD-DVD camp. The purists' fave movie - The Fifth Element - looks so poor that the Superbit DVD release isn't a million miles away quality-wise. Generally speaking, right now, HD-DVD has better picture quality and better extras. The technologically inferior format is miles ahead of its competition.

Sony/Madison's sales agent tried to get me to take a month's free trial of the Blu-Print BD authoring tool... and I refused as it *still* doesn't mux anything other than MPEG2, so assuming Sony is using their own authoring tool, all the Sony releases for the time being will continue to be encoded into MPEG2.

So, onto PS3.

The lack of blue laser diodes has caused the November worldwide launch to be split - PlayStation's biggest market, Europe, won't get the machine now until March 2007. Production targets for the launch in November have been cut to 25% of the initial total. The likes of Panasonic and Pioneer are having to delay the launch of their own players because PS3 is getting all the blue laser diodes.

And of course, there is no guarantee at all that PS3 owners will be fervent Blu-ray movie buyers as it is, after all, primarily a games console.

The one advantage you can say with the 360 HD-DVD add-on is that it's being bought purely for movie playback, so there will be an attach rate in terms of movie software being purchased. Its pricepoint also makes it a cheap way for 360 owners on the fence about the whole HD 'thing' to sample the software and see how it looks.

Now, I am not saying for one moment that HD-DVD does not have its problems - the lack of hardware production partners along with key studios that have not committed is clearly an issue. I am merely trying to introduce some facts and balance the opinion expressed in this thread.

Personally from where I'm sitting I think that Sony is adopting a very risky strategy. They're betting the farm on a games machine being used as a movie player. The standalone players are twice the price of the standalone HD-DVD players, and they're being delayed and released in smaller numbers because of PS3. And as a game machine, here in the UK, the 'cheap' PS3 is almost twice the price of the cheap 360.

Blu-ray should in theory be the winner of this format war, but it seems to me that Sony is doing everything in its power to make things as difficult for itself as possible. Its one key advantage is support from Sony movies studios (duh!), Fox and Disney. But these people are looking to make money. If HD-DVD continues its current momentum, and PS3 isn't getting supreme attachment rates as a movie player, it will make no sense for the studios to reconsider their allegiances.

The games are indeed multi-region but the Blu-ray movies are not. Conversely, an Xbox 360 owner can buy an HD-DVD add-on from any region in the world and it will work on his machine - and crucially, so will any HD-DVD from any region in the world too. In terms of game software, just about any game that isn't from Microsoft, Capcom or EA is region-free too, and I daresay that Microsoft would pressure them to go region-free if it gave 360 a level playing field with PS3.

While the DVD Forum may introduce HD-DVD region coding at some point, it cannot be retroactively installed on the current HD-DVD players, which will all remain region free.

Another HD-DVD curiosity: some titles which are BD exclusive in the USA - including some Sony titles - will be released on HD-DVD in Europe (as distribution rights differ in various regions). Based just on the UK launch titles for HD-DVD, there are six titles which 'should' be Blu-ray exclusive, with thanks to the AVSForum for the cut 'n' paste:

3 movies from New Line: Domino, Nightmare On Elm Street, Take the Lead
2 movies from Lions Gate: Saw, Saw II,
2 movies from Sony: Donnie Brasco, Basic Instinct 2
1 movie from Buena Vista/Disney: Valiant

Well said Richard. Also note the high-capacity Blu-Ray disks have not materialized and have been saddled with mpeg2, whereas the HD-DVD titles are VC1 encoded onto currently higher capacity disks, and you have one possible explanation for the reported better picture quality of HD-DVD.

As you noted, the problem for HD-DVD remains perceptive and the lack of player manufacuring partners.

adding that reputation of sony sunk with the battery recall case.
seems Sony made too many mistakes a looks like a greedy company now.
HD-DVD is not linked to a name like blu-ray is linked to sony.
people likes to choose, and i do not think sony will have any success in "branding" movies like Apple made it for music with ipod.
If by any chance they were able to flood the market with cheap blu-ray reader, they would have a chance, but it seems this will not happen.
my opinion is that blu-ray is dead already and hd-dvd will be a limited success.
people do not need discs to read movies (even in HD). they download from internet, copy from cable TV, or satellite channel, burn on DVD, store on hard disk or even on HDV tape.
They do not care about this silly war of format.

Sony is following the same strategy as PS2. When the PS2 launched it was one of THE cheapest DVD players and for the first year, that is what MOST people used the PS2 for. I think they averaged 1.6 games sold for every unit sold...

I dont think either side will win, right now, people dont care about HD movies, the difference at normal viewing distances between 480P and 1080i is not even detectible by most, add a $150 upconverting DVD player and you really are talking video-philes as the only people who will notice much difference.

Blueray has the PS3, data burning, etc. behind it. The sales numbers are 99% meaningless right now. Almost everyone who is planning on blueray is waiting for PS3, period endstop. There are only a handful of supergeek, wealth technofiles who bought the first gen players.


ash =o)

I’m sorry that I had to bring this thread back from the dead but here is an article.

XBox HD-DVD comes at a heavy price
http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=35551

I hope Microsoft release a new XBOX360 in a few Months because their current one had too many problems and it lacks an HDMI input. Its amazing that the fate of HD-DVD and Blu-Ray lies with the XBOX360 and the Sony PlayStation 3. Both companies know that fully well.

If I can magically make my college loan disappear then I wouldn’t mind owning both of them.

"A big plus for Xbox 360 users once the issues were fixed was the inclusion of 1080p support, something that Sony have been purporting as the PS3's major advantage over the Xbox."

Note that the Xbox 360 has no HDMI output. So the only way that you can view 1080p from the console is if your TV has a 1080p compatible YUV analog input.

And don't forget that both formats include some security code that lets the studios produce titles that can downgrade the analog outputs to SD only. So far there is a truce - the studios aren't enabling the downgrade while the new formats try to gain a foothold. However, in the future the Xbox 360 sidecar might not play all Hollywood titles at HD resolution. The PS3 includes the latest spec of HDMI, supporting 1080p outputs with no threat of a title-by-title downgrade.

Of course the Inquirer totally missed that Microsoft also was introducing the HD movie download system to the xbox-360, and that just possibly a lot of the code was also to support that. It does look at at the moment Microsofts investment in VC-1 and the codecs will be a major advantage against Apple's offering of Lower than DVD quality video.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/...6MclffOw%3D%3D

Sharyn

Jon Fairhurst,
That’s why I think Microsoft is going to release a new 360 in a few months because saying that the 360 outputs 1080p is misleading especially considering that a lot of people expected to have 1080p output to their Sony Bravia XBR TVs and found out that the TV couldn’t handle it.

For Sony, the biggest thing they have to worry about is having a web service as good as XBOX Live and it will take a miracle if they can accomplish that.

One thing that can give either the XBOX 360 or the PS3 a big advantage is Divx/Xvid playback. Politics aside, this would be a very smart move. Just imaging fitting most of your DIVX/Xvid movies on one HD-DVD/Blu-Ray disc.

As for the Wii, The controller is very innovative and the fact that you can play all of the Nintendo and Sega games from every console will also drive sales but Nintendo is making the same similar mistakes they did years ago. The first mistake they did was to not use Sony’s technology to make a new game system. The original PlayStation was to be called the Nintendo PlayStation or SNES CD but Nintendo backed out because they feared that a CD unit was going to fail just like Sega CD and the Panasonic 3DO. They ended up releasing the N64 with better graphics but because the cartridges couldn’t hold as much content as a CD, It could never keep up with the PlayStation and although the Sega Saturn had much better 2D technology than the PlayStation its 3D technology weren’t as good so it fell behind the PlayStation as well. Sega got back on track with the Dreamcast and it sold extremely well but once Sony released the Play Station 2 with DVD playback, the Dreamcast started fading away. Afterwards Microsoft released the XBOX and Nintendo released the Game Cube. Even though Nintendo had a system with better graphics than the PS2, its 1.5 gig CDs weren’t a math for the DVD capacity of both the XBOX and the PS2. This was Nintendo’s second mistake. If the Game Cube used DVDs, it would have not only outsold the XBOX but its sales would have been close to the PS2. I consider Sony very lucky to have outsold the XBOX by a landslide because XBOX had the HD capabilities and LIVE but all over the place people were trashing the XBOX saying that it’s too early for HD. All that bad publicity took away a lot of the potential sales of the XBOX and the PS2 was also backwards compatible so it was easier migrating to the PS2 than to the XBOX.

The same Sony fans that told people that HD isn’t everything are now saying that 1080p is a must and XBOX fans who said HD is everything is now saying that we don’t need 1080p games. The mistakes Nintendo is doing right now is not having DVD playback and the graphics is only 480p. In a few months Nintendo plans on releasing a Premium Wii for Japan only with DVD playback but they should be releasing it now in the US if they want to have somewhat of a chance to compete against the PS3 and the XBOX360. A lot of the Nintendo fans are saying that the Wii doesn’t need DVD playback or better graphics but they forget to realize that its 2006.

Lest see what the future holds for all 3 systems.

My 15 year-old son isn't even thinking about the 360 yet. He's still finding cheap games that he hasn't played yet at the used vendors for his old Xbox. So he's still getting value and entertainment from it. Nobody want's to be a beta tester and he's weighing in on which one to get. So he asked for more old Xbox games for Xmas, and want's a new system for his birthday later next year. Hopefully by then we'll know what's the better deal.

Wow, he learned smart economics from a video game system.

My hat's off to him! So many never learn such lessons -- especially when it comes to game consoles. This is completely evidenced by the vast number of pre-orders for the PS3 and the almost certain massive shortages to follow (which will be somewhat artificial to keep the mystical illusion of high demand).

I hate buying game consoles within the first 6 months of release... All it scores you is bragging rights with young teens who have no other life. The first round of games usually suck... I bought an XBOX 360 last June and I've been pleased with it. I don't have much time to play, only have 3 games for it. But I think Microsoft has a nice product with the 360 and XBOX Live is a very well-implemented service.

I would guess that Microsoft will release an updated XBOX360 sometime next year. If the HD-DVD add-on proves successful, I bet we see a new model with the HD-DVD drive built in and ability to do an HDMI out. According to most sources I've read, digital or HDMI output is not possible from the current XBOX 360 as there's more issues than simply a lack of the proper cable.

As for PS3, I'm sure it will be a nice system too. The new nVidia chip in there is two generations ahead of the ATI chip in the 360 and many of the screenshots really show this. I think a lot of hype is given to the Cell processor that's unwarranted. I've worked with some of the new PowerPC incarnations including the commercial IBM/Sony Cell products (a few embedded applications) and they're nice, but nothing near as special as what Sony and their zealous fanboys claim. ...But then again, this is Sony, they wouldn't be Sony without all the hype.

...Don't know if I'll buy a PS3. I probably will unless someone releases a decent and affordable BluRay player in the near future. But I don't really want another game system -- I'm happy with my X360 and PS2 as they provide more gaming than I have time to deal with.

Video games can somewhat teach children about politics as well, because choosing which game system to get is like choosing your elected officials.

> Paolo wrote: "The controller is very innovative and the fact that you can play all of the Nintendo and Sega games from every console will also drive sales"

I'm thinking that backward compatibility only buys you so much.

This weekend I needed to compose a short fantasy cue, so I asked my 15-year-old to play some of his older games so I could hear the music for inspiration. He played Zelda and a couple of other games for a few minutes and just hated it. He's a Halo 2 fan these days and there's just no going back.

Anyway, it's not so much that the technology got old (though it did), as my youngest son is growing up. He could care less about his older games.

BTW, the Zelda music didn't inspire a thing. I ended up going with the harp, celesta and woodwind sounds that I was leaning towards in the first place. :)

I'll agree with that. I think some older games will always be classics just due to their simplicity and that their concept can transcend the evolution of technology. Games like Pac-Man, Centipede, Tetris, etc... But I've dug out my old consoles here and there and have tried to get back into playing games like Zelda, Metroid, Moon Patrol, etc... Yuck. They were cool at the time, but newer games have gone way beyond these in terms of depth and complexity. And there's a lot more to it than just graphics.

The problem I see on the PS3 side is that it is so late that it is no longer the leading edge system that Sony wants to position it as, and Sony keeps trying to make people think that it is really a new computer.

I think that PS3 is not really going to be positioned in the mind of a number of buyers against an XBox 360 but rather a PC. Once they moved into the higher price point, IMO they started to attract a buyer where price was not the major issue, but rather performance, and if you look at the latest graphics cards, the consoles are behind. Many people wrote off the PC as the games platform but it keeps growing. Now if Apple decided to get serious about games, and people had the choice of developing for PS3 Xbox360 PC or Intel based Mac it would be interesting.

Sharyn

It’s safe to say that both the PS3 and the XBOX 360 can be considered an entertainment computer. The only unit that is strictly a game system is the Nintendo Wii and I don’t think the Wee stands a chance against the other two because all you can do is play games and nothing else.

One of the main reasons that Sony is calling it a computer is because you can install a certain version of Linux if you wanted to and several months ago Sony have said that the PS3 can be used as an NLE. Rather that means you’ll see a PS3 version of AVID or Vegas is anybodies guess but just think of the potential editing HDV on this system would have.

The one main thing that makes the PS3 better for games than the XBOX360 is that developers have plenty of room in a Blu Ray disc and it may not matter at the moment but in a couple of years you’ll notice a dramatic difference in the way the games look between the 2 systems.

Its not to late at all for Sony to get in this because as I mentioned in another post the XBOX360 is destined for a major redesign that will piss off a lot of users that bought the early model especially if it happens in less than a few months.

It’s very unlikely but if Sony’s online service does indeed get to be as good as LIVE then I can’t imagine any system keeping up with the PS3. Allowing the service to be free as Sony already mentioned is not good enough if it ends up being a lot worse than LIVE. Sony better not screw this up.

And the Wii being strictly a game system isn't a bad thing. A lot of people will find that attractive. I personally have issues with game systems or other computer type devices that try to fill multiple roles... The PS3 does run Linux as its core OS - (so does PS2) and there's talk of commercially available applications that boot from their own disc and/or can be installed on hard drive. But people aren't going to run out and buy a PS3 because it can perform some of the tasks that a PC can. The main attraction to it is that it's Sony's next-gen game console and a Blu-Ray movie player. Originally, the PS2 was being marketed as an entertainment hub and was to have various computer functions and applications - that never happened. Will it happen this time around? I would say it's more likely, but the market is very small and the PS3 will be a game system above all else.

And thus the reason for the HD-DVD add-on to the XBOX360. This evens the playing field quite a bit (even though there still is 20GB of space different between the two formats). But I'm not so sure the X360 HD-DVD add on is going to be a successful product or not...

XBOX LIVE is pretty inexpensive and is very well implemented, Sony has to really come up with something great to compete. But I think they'll do OK, or maybe I'm just hoping they don't screw it up. ;)

I was talking about another version of Linux that you already mentioned. Yellow Dog is under contract with Sony. http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS9633831272.html. Once an NLE does arrive, I hope it will be able to boot up from a standalone PS3 because people may not want to install this version of Linux.

The HD-DVD add-on does not make the XBOX360 even with the PS3 because it’s strictly for watching movies not games so as I said in 2 years the games will look so much better on the PS3 because of that.

XBox Live is brilliant, and it's only $50 a year.

On November 22, Microsoft will begin offering high-definition movie and TV downloads on XBox Live (for additional fees, of course).

I'm definitely getting the HD-DVD drive. At $200, it's the cheapest route to HD films for me. I'll just start Netflix-ing the HD movies.

What you mean by this? Do you know that today's games on DVD use most of its capcity to store audio (music and dialogue) and only a very small percentage is used to store the actual game data itself?

Most games nowadays don't used prerendered movies, which means they require much less space than, say, ps1 titles did. Geometry, textures, etc. all this stuff doesn't require much data space at all.

W/the possible exception of first party games and/or exclusives the difference between 360 games and PS3 games probably isn't going to be very big let alone dramatic. Developers are saying that in terms of real world, usable power the 360 and PS3 are pretty neck and neck. Yeah, the PS3 has Blu-ray, but the PS3 also has a memory bottle neck that hinders it from being able to take advantage of the higher res gfx that can be stored on a Blu-ray disc. Plus, there is no incentive for 3rd party developers to make separate PS3 and 360 builds of the game. So, for example, there isn't going to be a 5gig version for 360 and a 15gig version for the PS3. They'll be something like a 5gig core build that will get tweaked into 360 version and PS3 version.

After all the hype and BS PS2 pre-launch many people seem much more critical (dare I say cynical) of Sony this time around.


-A

Dave Ferdinand,

When Sega released the Dreamcast with a capacity of around 1 gig, a lot of people were saying that 1 gig of storage is overkill and Nintendo thought 1.5 gigs of storage was enough and because of, some of the Game Cube games were sold as 2 to 3 disc packages.

At the moment there are only a few 1080p games and in 2 years their will be a whole lot of 1080 60p games and there is no way Sega, EA, Namco, Konami, Sony etc is going to fit 1080 60p games on 9 gig DVDs. These companies that I mentioned will make massive games. Resistance: Fall of Man is only 720p and its capacity may be as high as 22 gigs. This is a launch title with a capacity that is more 2 DVD9 discs. You can only imagine how future games will look like.

1080p vs 1080i vs 720p
 

The stuff that takes up room on the discs is pre-rendered content. Even cutscenes are being done in the game engine more and more now.

Assuming the assets of a 720p game were perfectly optimal to take advantage of 720p worth of resolution, you could always just render those at 1080p or 1080i.

If you did increase the resolution of the maps, and increased the geometry density of the models to match the increase in resolution, that could make them bigger. Pre-recorded content would obviously grow in size as well.

But if you've got a well optimized game running at 720p, if you start rendering at 1080p or 1080i it would bog down the machine (assuming you were running close ot max fps to begin with). So you'd want even lower res stuff perhaps to render larger outputs size.

There's very little viable argument that 1080p would need to take up more room than 1080i.

You mention 1080p 60fps - but that's not a broadcast standard, HDTVs aren't built to do that.

Anyway, all this makes me think just because you run at higher render rez doesn't mean the assets have to bloat equivalently.

-mike

So are you telling me that Sony is lying when they say that their TVs can handle up to 60 frames per second in 1080p?
http://www.sonystyle.com/is-bin/INTE...pixels&nonav=1
And if I’m not mistaken, I think Pioneer’s top Plasma TVs can do 1080 60p as well.

Oops.
 

OK, that's two.

But just two.

But it isn't a broadcast standard, it is another refresh rate/style supported by particular models.

Well most of the new Sony TVs will be 1080p and Sharp and others already have 1080 TVs so its safe to say that theirs plenty of different 1080p TVs to go around.

Why would it matter if its not a Broadcast standard since were talking videogames?

more on specs
 

only from the perspective that (at present) most HDTVs are built with the expectation of watching HDTV on them, and they are geared towards suiting the spec.

In any case, the main reason why I jumped into this was that 1080p/i games don't necessarily have to be that much bigger than 720p games...it is just a rendering issue primarily, possibly a texture and geometry issue...and nobody's doing 22GB of textures & geometry. The game code remains 99.9% the same either way.

like apple, sony, panasonc and other companies now(these days) pay for shelf space in certain stores.. in the past it wasnt like this, but now, with the way the world looks at this technology, shelf placement is essential for product success..

AFAIK pretty much any product that's prominently displayed has paid to be there. Even the prime spots for soda and chips at the local gas station aren't free.

-A

Doom 3 can look pretty amazing, probably very close to what the 360/PS3 will do and it occupies 2.2GB on the hard disk. Half-Life 2 on its own (without Counter Strike, etc.) occuppies about the same space. Both this games look beautiful @ 1280x1024 or 1600x1200.

Also, have you taken a look at Gears of War? It looks amazing and I doubt the PS3 games will look much better.

I'm not saying games won't grow and need more capacity but 9 Gigs seems more than enough IMO. GT4 takes 2.5GB on DVD, will GT5 take 10x more?

My day job is at Sharp Labs of America. That disclosed, the following is my position, not a company statement...

The current crop of TVs in the US handle all 18 formats from ATSC. That includes 720p/60 and 1080i/60 (fields/sec). There are a number of sets with 1080p displays, but not all have 1080p inputs. That's because some of the older HDMI implementations only handled 1080i. (Before buying an 1080p set, check the manufacturer's spec to make sure the HDMI input accepts 1080p.)

Regarding scan rates, HDTVs aren't necessarily multi-scan monitors. You need to set your PC to a resolution and rate compatible with the TV. Again, it varies by manufacturer and model, but expect broadcast-like formats to be accepted and not much else.

Regarding TVs with a 1080p compatible analog input (as output by the Xbox 360 HD DVD sidecar), my guess is that's fairly rare. The CE industry has been expecting 1080p to come from the new crop of HD disc players, and we've expected them to require copy protection, limiting us to 1394 and HDMI - and for disc players, HDMI is the interface of choice. With the push from Hollywood to "close the analog hole", I'm really surprised that Microsoft went with YUV outputs for HD. HDMI is definitely the way forward.

BTW, some people have bashed 1080p TVs because there is little 1080p content available. Flat panel technology is progressive - you can't buy a 1080i LCD TV display. The "p" comes for free.

Here's the deal: 1080i will always get converted to progressive by the flat panel TV's signal processor. The question is: do you want to then scale it down to 768 lines, or leave it at 1080 lines? Unless you have a small screen or sit far away, I'd choose 1080.

And if the 1080i source is film-based (24fps) and has a proper 3:2 pull-down cadence, the better sets will detect the 3:2 pull-down and perform the interlace to progressive conversion perfectly. Voila! 1080p from a 1080i transmission.

So... get a 1080p set with good 3:2 pulldown detection, connect a 1080i source, watch a 24 Hz film and enjoy 1080p.