VP Peter Moore of Microsoft Says No HD-DVD Games for 360

When the announcement was made about an external HD-DVD device being available for the Xbox 360, many of us assumed and were looking forward to HD-DVD games to be coming down the pike. But Microsoft’s vice president of worldwide marketing, Peter Moore, threw a monkey wrench into the hopes of 360 owners. HD-DVD movies? Yes. HD-DVD games for the 360? No. Moore remarked to GameSpot that, "Right now it’s focused purely on movie playback. Think of the drive as something that lets you play high-definition movies on the Xbox 360. If you want to watch HD-DVD movies and if you own an Xbox 360, there will be no reason for you to go out and buy another player." Well, actually there are other reasons. A non-360 HD-DVD player will offer a full set of features and functionality, for one. Number two, if the 360 doesn™t offer any HD-DVD games, what™s the point? To further explain the situation, Moore added, "HD-DVD from the gameplay point of view is primarily about media storage as is of course Blu-ray. Our developers are very comfortable with the 360’s storage options–I think they’re utilizing Xbox Live very creatively, and the hard drive, we have a very strong attach rate for the hard drive." Moore indicated that new versions of the Xbox 360 will not incorporate an internal HD-DVD. He said, "If you actually built a HD-DVD new Xbox 360 that fragments [the 360 users] even further. So the idea of having an external peripheral is far better to keep the user base consistent rather than build yet another Xbox 360 that has HD-DVD built in–that means millions of people won’t have that." The statement that future 360s will not have internal HD-DVDs, is up for speculation at this point. Consider this: Microsoft denied, only a few weeks ago, that it had no plans to have a HD-DVD for the Xbox 360 this year. With the surprise announcement at the Consumer Electronics Show of an external HD-DVD drive for the 360, it™s difficult to separate fact from fiction.