2. HD-DVD and Blu-Ray
High-definition movies can be found in several formats today. The main contendors for the next-generation DVD format are Sony’s Blu-Ray and HD-DVD. If we’ve learned anything from history, then we know that market saturation is the way to win the war, and the way to saturate the market is to make the products widely available and affordable.
HD-DVD and Blu-Ray interest many technology enthusiasts more as a high capacity storage medium rather than a video technology. Another way to make one format ubiquitous over another is to gain wide acceptance on the Personal Computer, and the lack of HD-DVD burners is a serious mistake in Blu-Ray’s favor. Blu-Ray burners are available, but both the drives and media are still too expensive to be anything but a toy for the Geek That Has Everything.
As a video format: I’m happily watching high-definition movies compressed in Windows WMV-HD format. A two-hour 1080p movie with 5.1 digital sound easily fits on today’s dual-layer DVDs, so there is nothing forcing people to upgrade just to watch next-generation movies.
I’m also waiting for a standard 5.25″ HD-DVD drive to throw in my Media Center PC, but they still aren’t all that common. The Xbox 360’s HD-DVD drive can be modded to work on a PC, but by now the industry should have drives available for PC users.
So, boos and hisses to HD-DVD and Blu-Ray. Get yer asses in gear if you want to win the format war.
1. Xbox 360’s Red Ring of Death
There, I said it. I am most disappointed with how Microsoft handles the Xbox 360 hardware. In an effort to make one of the most powerful home consoles they inadvertantly manufacturered a product that overheats and breaks down (30% of units by some estimates).
Although Microsoft pays for the shipping of RMAing your hardware, it takes 4-6 weeks without any gaming. The problem has grown so bad that there are now services that offer a 1-day repair turnaround as an alternative to Microsoft’s slow repair process. If the hardware is salvagable then Microsoft’s usual solution to circumvent the problem is to underclock the chips inside. Games that once played very smoothly at 720p now appear to skip frames. I personally have gone through 3 different consoles in 2007 alone, while my first-generation Xbox 1 is still going strong.
I fear for the investment of my video games once the next Xbox comes onto the market. Unless the new console is 100% compatible with the Xbox 360 then all of my current games will become unplayable (because I don’t expect my 360 to last much longer after warranty).
I heard from a Microsoft employee (unofficially) that 360s with an updated chip fab started shipping in November. Microsoft is not actively publicizing the fact that these new consoles use a smaller chip fabrication process (therefore running cooler and more stably), because that would be admitting that they had made a blunder, and people would be returning their old consoles for the new ones. The only way to tell if a console uses the new chip fab is to look at the serial numbers. And no, the Xbox 360 Elite doesn’t necessarially use the new chip fab.
I, for one, am going to exchange my overheated, underclocked white box for an updated model at the first opportunity.
