They still won't be able to do games on Blu-Ray, because of the existing hardware base. This doesn't seem like a good move -- raising the price of their console by adding a technology that not many people want which won't even benefit gamers. It sounds like it's the result of marketing people raising a stink about the number of bullet points on the back of the box vs. the PS3.

Did they confirm it?

i wonder what kind of market has video gamer and av enthusiast? If I was both, I'd most likely get a regular blu ray player and pick my video game system based on games.

Too little, too late, I should think. Anyone who would want that combination probably already sprung for the PS3 in addition to their 360. Who knows, maybe it'll make them drop prices on the other models.

Meh it's a selling point for me. I don't have a 360 or a PS3. By the end of the year I'll be able to finally afford one of them. Perfect timing imo.

That's assuming it has an optical drive at all. I'd not be surprised to see the next gen go digital download exclusively. The only reason I think it wouldn't is retailer pressure.

Even if it is a couple of years away, some countries are lagging behind (read Australia) and thats detrimental to their sale.
I have what is considered an excellent speed in Australia (512/128) and I can't imagine having to download games, full 10gb+ games over the internet. I downloaded TF2 over the weekend and that took me forever, and meant I couldn't use the internet at all during that time.

Digital distribution is not a viable solution for another 3 or 4 years. Unless there a serious advancement on the horizon.

I suspect optical drivers are here to stay for another generation at least.

If they end up selling a Blu-ray addon, like the HD-DVD addon, how is this at all a bad thing? I can see myself buying that pretty quickly.

I'm already eying the HD-DVD addon on eBay, having both on the same console would be amazingly convenient. The whole media hub experience.

Not true at all. I've been eying the PS3 for a couple of months now because I want a Blu-Ray player. I've never been much of a console gamer, but the lure of Rock Band and GTA4 is calling to me. The fact that the PS3 has a Blu-Ray player makes it a justifiable purchase to my wife. As much as I really want a 360, I can't find a way to justify a $400 gaming machine right now, but the bundled Blu-Ray changes the dynamic.

If there was a Blu-Ray 360 out right now, I would probably talk my wife into purchasing it.

I've had so many of their mainboards (including high end gaming ones) for customers that have failed in the last two years, some less than a year old with problems like disdended capacitors. It's definitely possible that many of their other product categories are better but I wouldn't go near one of their boards anymore.

I've built up a couple dozen A8N (and who knows how many A7N) machines and have now switched to the Crosshair boards and have had nothing but good experiences. I'm fairly certain every board manufacturer had capacitor issues when the big counterfeit capacitor conspiracy was afoot. I think we lost a couple of Asus dual CPU boards due to caps but I use Asus MBs exclusively and have had great success.

Obviously my experiences are my own and everyone's mileage may vary. My personal experience is that I've been personally using MSI boards since 2003 and couldn't be happier. Good support, regular updates, quality builds, good BIOS design etc. Asus is still hugely popular and will continue to be and hey, the restaurant POS guy I do work for has built with Asus mini-ATX boards for years and has had like 2 of 300 fail. I just remember when I ran my Geek Squad store, replacing a lot of Asus boards that were barely out of warranty. Who knows though. You can definitely do a lot WORSE than Asus and for a contract as big as Microsoft, I'm sure they'll be putting their best Blu-ray drives forward.

If everything would still function the same between the 2 different types of 360's i'd be hard pressed to buy another one over a PS3.