The XBox team took some stick for not including HD-DVD (or Blu-ray ) in the specification of the XBox 360. It now looks like Sony is regretting not making the same decision.
The Sony PS3 is delayed by 6 months a period in which half the world (roughly) will have a birthday and the XBox 360 envy increases. OK, they manage to make the important ‘holiday season’ but they manage to give Microsoft a whole year to establish the XBox 360 as the device to own with little competition from the PS2. More than that, all of those XBox 360’s continue to get embedded into the Windows Media Center and Windows Live eco-systems. Eco-systems that some people are finding even more compelling than the ‘games’.
It’s going to be very difficult for Sony to drag all of the XBox 360 fans back.
Helps me make my mind up anyway, all I need now is the XBox 360 prices to come down a shade.
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Graham Chastney 
Resounding shock… I actually get round to posting a comment!
I agree that Sony have kinda shot themselves in the foot over this one – the M$ way forward seems to be to have Blu-Ray / HD-DVD as bolt-on accessories to the 360. On paper you could say it’s a bit of a cynical method of getting people to spend more money, but think that is more likely so they could steal a march on Sony whilst the dust settles in this next gen media format wars.
Whether the delay will knacker Sony that much, I’m not sure. PS2 was released after the Xbox and due to the massive user base that is out there, the playing catch up strategy didn’t seem to impact them that much. Stakes have been raised a bit this time though – got a funny feeling that the 360 will actually bring new people to M$. The integration with Media centre really is very good… maybe this is Mr Gates’ vision of the single box under the telly coming to fruition.
Am genuinely impressed with my 360 (and that comes from a committed technophobe)… ok, so it’s too noisy to use as a standalone DVD player, the games are very thin on the ground and the various bits and pieces for it are still very expensive… but this convergence of technology and functionality is quite a big jump forward in my opinion (well it gets rid of boxes under the telly and there’s less wires, so it’s jump forward in my non-techy mind)… only downside is that the PS3 looks a hell of a lot better… 🙂
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