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Gates comments on format wars, highlights Xbox Live instead

Posted Jan 8, 2008 at 1:04PM EST by QJ Staff

Listed in: Xbox 360 Tags: Bill Gates, gaming accessories, Microsoft, Sony, Toshiba

Microsoft co-founder and chairman Bill Gates was interviewed by USA Today in the course of the 2008 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The outgoing Microsoft chief was asked several important questions about the state and future of technology, and among the most interesting responses he gave was that on the next-generation format war.

Asked if the recent move by Warner Bros. to shift allegiance to Sony's Blu-ray meant the demise of Toshiba's HD-DVD, Gates gave a bit of a sly response when you consider that Microsoft is an HD-DVD ally.

"There has been a lot of back and forth," Gates said. "The announcement before that was Paramount putting exclusive support behind HD DVD. HD DVD did well over the holidays."

However, Gates took a big turn and swung the topic to what he hopes will be Microsoft's answer to the format war.

The other trend we're seeing is that direct download over broadband Â— I think the greatest example of that is XBox Live Â— (is) becoming an important choice. Over time, that will be the dominant way that people get their movies.

Is this a sign of a weakening bond between the Xbox 360 and HD-DVD as Microsoft ups the ante on downloadable movies via Xbox Live? We'll see.

Via USA Today

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exactly as Michael Bay predicted:

"What you don't understand is corporate politics. Microsoft wants both formats to fail so they can be heroes and make the world move to digital downloads. That is the dirty secret no one is talking about. That is why Microsoft is handing out $100m checks to studios just embrace the HD DVD and not the leading, and superior Blu-ray," he continued. "They want confusion in the market until they perfect the digital downloads. Time will tell and you will see the truth."

# wow... — Someone_PR 2008-01-08 16:31

Thats true.. and everybody calls him an idiot... now what?

# mmm really? — JelloBiafra 2008-01-08 18:17

People call bay an idiot because he is one. The whole theyre handing out 100m checks to put the war in lee-way is total bs, the guy musta snorted one too many lines when he wrote that. The truth is, MS tries desperately to control everything, which would be why they contributed to buying out paramount. Now sony does the exact same thing, while no-one is fessing up to it, but word has it that somewhere around 400mil was passed around to shut down the WB-hddvd deal. WB has come out and said they took zip, and I believe that. Now Fox on the other hand is dodging, WB was gonna go Hd exclusive if the hd group could bring over one more large studio, it was gonna be fox, but fox got "cold feet". I think fox played both groups knowing they werent gonna go anywhere and took a fat check to stay with BD. But the whole MS is drowning both formats to sell digital distribution is retarded, the potential of hd-dvd taking the lead(which it almost did) was huge and MS would have been at the forefront like sony is now. Really dont take michael-eight ball a night-bays word for *****, the guys a nimrod.

# ... — blkthunda 2008-01-08 18:55

Maybe the downloading thingy would be good if their damn xbox harddrive wasn't that expensive. 20 GB doesn't have enough room for all them contents.

# in fairness.. — jrb 2008-01-08 21:53

in fairness, michael bay is a *****wad. his loud mouthed, arrogant, and ill-thoughtout commentry on the entertainment business are not informed, and he has no real reason to comment other than he made some crappy "here today, gone tomorrow" action films.

microsoft, like every good business need to have plans, and need to have contingency plans if the first choice fails. So yes, microsoft is hoping that it's digital distribution mechanisms work out. But also it has vested interests in both HD-DVD and Bluray being successful. Did you know that bluray supports VC1 - a codec who's other name is windows media 9? Probably not.

Additionally, microsoft is trying to innovate in an area that other people are also trying to innovate - it's all about market share, and delivering what people want, and if they can do that, at a price that i want to pay, then i am happy, and perhaps michael bay would be too if he realised not everyone is a stuck-up millionaire like he is.

# awww — jrb 2008-01-08 21:59

awww, is someone a bit bitter?

maybe you're bitter at the 10's of billions ($28billion as of 2005) of dollars he's been giving away to worthwhile causes, and the promise to donate most of his remaining fortune in coming years. behind warren buffet he's the worlds most generous philanthropist.

Perhaps instead, you should go die, as your only contribution to the world is the above comment, which lets face it, is horrible.

# Justingraziano is a fanboy loser — yworob 2008-01-09 05:45

He never misses a chance to put down Microsoft. I think that the competition between Sony and Microsoft is a good thing because it makes each company try harder. If the PS3 was the only system around, Sony wouldn't even try to improve their product and it would cost more because their wouldn't be any competition. The same goes for Microsoft. Fanboys are losers.

# shucks! — joefro007 2008-01-09 07:06

well I have 4 star trek episodes with 3 1 hour shows and 5 other half and hour shows well I guess thats a reall shame since they take up no space oh that and you can get a 120 gb hard drive so can you please STOP! complaining.

# HDD Space? — i3obtl 2008-01-09 07:20

With the largest hard drive for the 360 being only 120 GB, there isn't exactly a lot of room to store our movies. Try modding your box and what happens? Banned from Live. MS really isn't leaving the people the choices they promised us. If they really cared about what gamers wanted, they would have left the 360 open to user upgradeable hard drives like Sony did, any SATA 2.5" drive works and can be installed in under 5 minutes.

The quickly removable hard on the 360 is a good idea, but should be just a housing, not the whole drive. Lets face it, users want more storage space regardless of what system you own.

Don't forget though that Gates was the same person who said that 64k of memory is all that anyone will ever need. lol, my calculator has more memory than that. Good call Bill, let the people decide from now on.

# You have renewed my interest in QJ Justingraziano — Master Chef 2008-01-09 13:43

Your comments are just beyond stupid, to the point of hilarity. I haven't laughed at comments on QJ this much in a looong time! Please keep it up

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