I've been a bit behind on the 360 hardware news, but the last time I heard, the 360 comes with a standard dvd drive only able to use dvd-9 discs. At the time I last read up on the subject of drives, there was talk that in the future MS will use HD-DVD while sony opts for the Blu-ray. Has there been any progression in this story? If so, will future versions of the 360 use newer drives? Will there be a new external drive available for all the early adopters?

I only ask as I guess as the 360 progresses, there will be an obvious need to use bigger discs for textures, etc. And if this is the only version of the 360 we'll get, it could well be blown out the water by the ps3

it's been discussed many time, i doubt they will bring out the HD-DVD drive. and if they bring it out for game texture as you mentioned and so on, that will be stupid, cos what's gonna happen to the console that are on sale now? noway we can upgrade as we'll void warranty. i doubt M$ will do a recall.

and any console upgrade is a no no for game console industry... 64DD, Dreamcast zipdrive, 32x to mention few...

last time I heard, if they plan to bring out a HD-DVD, it woud soley be for HD-DVD playback, not for games. But what do I know that could change.

Exactly.

You can't give new game benefits to a new drive while the "older" ones will have a 12x DVD-ROM.

I doubt they will do this.. Especially if the only benefit would be video.

Alot of people seem to think that the fact Sony is incorporating the blu-ray drive into to PS3 will be the breaking point in the next-gen console wars. I tend to disagree. Sony has said that games will still be produced on DVD, as it is much cheaper and still meeting all the storage needs. Blue-ray and HD-DVD will both only be feasable for movie playback initially. I'd imagine to 360 to have an external HD-DVD drive option in the future. Personally, I think that both companies should be taking a good look at Holographic discs as a solution for HD media. Faster read/write time, more storage space and cheaper production costs...

I think they should switch back to 8 tracks. I'd switch 500 of them in and out just feel nostalgic. (Not that I was actually around when those were out.) Or even better yet, laser discs.

I agree. They could always just make it an external drive.

Funny sig pic btw.

they said the same thing about PS2's CD > DVD. And most launch titles were on CD (blue dye layer) then after most, if not all games were on DVD, because of the popularity, the media became cheaper. So IMO that WILL be their biggest selling point. only thing M$ will have advantage is their LIVE feature, but as i said somewhere before, even if Sony brings out some lame Online gaming system, them Sony "Zombies" will increase ever then before.