HD DVD Drive for $200?

According to Digitimes Microsoft will launch external HD-DVD drives for its Xbox 360 at a retail price of US$200 by Christmas of this year, and Taiwanese games developers and gaming services providers indicated this is a smart marketing strategy as compared with Sony's adoption of built-in BD drives for its PlayStation 3 (PS3).

External drives have more flexibility than built-in models, the companies pointed out, while adding that despite BD having a much larger storage capacity than HD-DVD, pre-installation of BD drives may decrease the market competitiveness of PS3 units.

Microsoft adopted HD-DVD instead of BD mainly because HD-DVD is compatible with existing DVD formats while also having much lower production costs, the Taiwanese companies noted.