Yes you read that correctly, apparently Microsoft hit their price mark and will be releasing the HDDVD addon for the 360 in Japan November 17th for ¥19,800, That’s about $170 US, definitly in the impulse buy price range. If Microsoft brings pricing like this to the US, this just made HDDVD a huge candidate to win the next gen DVD war.
Whats yet to be seen as far as i’m aware is will the HDDVD drive be useable on my Vista machine? If so I might be picking up more than one, considering HDDVD drives and Bluray drives for computers are also VERY expensive, a 170-200$ price would rocket these things out the door. Atleast for those that want HDDVD or Bluray.
Microsoft once again restated they are not planing on putting any other drive in the 360 internally until a format winner has been determined, they don’t want to lock their base machines into a loosing format. And that seems to be where the big PS3/360 combat is, Sony is forcing the bluray on consumers at a higher price for the whole device, while Microsoft is allowing users the choice to get HD if they really want/need it because they understand the majority of people don’t want to be stuck in another format war, and those that do would probably like the ability to choose rather than be forced into one or the other format.
Source: Engadget
