TechSuave

Few weeks back I wrote a post on March Sales of Nintendo Wii, Xbox 360 and PS3 where I pointed out that Xbox 360 had got more sales despite the fact that Toshiba had made HD-DVD extinct. The reason Xbox 360 did well was because people bought it for the superior gaming experience it provided as compared to PS3 equipped with a Blu-Ray.

I was wondering if Xbox 360 could some day have the Blu-Ray upgrade then it would easily crush PS3 sales for a long time and not surprisingly thats exactly what has happened now. The XBOX 360 upgraded from a HD-DVD drive to a Blu-Ray Drive will be manufactured soon and shipped in 3rd Quarter of 2008. Microsoft is said to have given the order to Pegatron Technology, an OEM subsidiary of Asustek Computer, to equip the Xbox 360 with the Blu-Ray Drive. Lite-on were supposed to do the honours but the order was not given to them.

Earlier this year, Microsoft wanted to make their Xbox Live online service bigger and better, so while they kept the Blu-ray upgrade idea aside, Toshiba hit them with the withdrawal of HD-DVD which seemed to be a turning point for Xbox 360 but doesn’t seem to have stopped them.

Only time will tell how the PS3 sales will be affected because most of the Blu-Ray consumers were people who bought the PS3. And now with Xbox 360 coming up with the Blu-ray Drive, I guess its safe to say better late than never. Microsoft actually upgraded Xbox to Xbox 360 to support HD-DVD and now going to do the Blu-ray upgrade, so it kind of shows how good and customizable the console is for an upgrade. I wonder if thats the same case for the PS3 incase they ever wanted an upgrade.