Digital Home Thoughts: Microsoft Prepping Update to Xbox 360 with Internal HD-DVD Drives

"DigiTimes has recently published an article claiming that a Taiwanese manufacturer has been selected to produce an internal HD DVD drive for an upcoming XBOX 360 revision. The report does not indicate which manufacture is responsible for the drive. The major Taiwanese optical storage manufacturers include Lite-on, Quanta and ASUS -- any of which would be likely to build an HD DVD drive for Microsoft. However, with ASUS manufacturing the majority of the components for the Playstation 3, it would seem more probable that Quanta or Lite-on is the manufacturer for such a drive, if it exists."

An interesting development, if not unexpected. I wonder what will happen to the price - I can't imagine it going up, nor can I imagine Microsoft wanting to sell a third SKU of the Xbox 360. My hunch is that the Premium will get the HD-DVD drive, while the Core system will not, and prices will remain about the same. Myself, I'm still looking forward to being able to get the external HD-DVD player and buying a copy of The Last Samurai in HD-HDVD... :D