[Justin Buser]

The guys over at IGN don't think that the external HD-DVD drive on the Xbox 360 will prove to be a hit. Have a read of what they say and see if you agree.

The HD-DVD Drive Goes the Way of Sega's 32X

Though it was just announced, the stand-alone HD-DVD drive from Microsoft will not prove successful. Why? First, let's go over exactly what the external drive is used for. As far as we understand it right now, the drive will be for movie playback. No official word yet on whether the HD-DVD drive will somehow be involved with games. With that in mind, take a look at what Microsoft big boss Bill Gates had to say out HD-DVD in an interview with engadget.com:

"In terms of movies, I often say that this is the last format battle there will ever be [hd-dvd and blu-ray], because everything is going to go online -- you're going to download it. In fact, one of my favorite features on Xbox Live is where you can go and get the HD demos of the games or get HD videos like the making of the Xbox, the making of Titanic, they've got this Mission Impossible 3 thing."

Though he doesn't say it outright, he indicates that the future of the Xbox 360's movie capabilities are with Xbox Live and downloadable HD content, not with an HD-DVD drive. Second, this announcement is merely a bullet point on somebody's spec sheet created to square up with Sony on paper and say, "See? We're next gen, we're supporting HD-DVD." Third, given how Microsoft was so quick to drop first party support for the Xbox, how dedicated do you think it'll be to support the relatively extraneous external drive? Of course, the external drive doesn't really require any sort of product releases to function. You can buy and use it to watch movies regardless of whether Microsoft is still paying attention to it. But as for any plans of Microsoft further integrating the HD-DVD drive into the 360 or with gaming, this statement makes that seem highly unlikely. In other words, the external HD-DVD drive will remain a totally extraneous Xbox 360 accessory, even further removed from gaming than Sega's 32X.

Source: IGN