Toshiba Exec Predicts Xbox HD-DVD Internal In 2006

While Microsoft currently has plans to release an external HD-DVD player for the Xbox 360 in the near future, a new report from iTWire notes that Mark Whittard, Toshiba's general manger of the company's Information Systems Division in Australia, predicts that Microsoft also will release a version of the console with an internal HD-DVD drive before the end of 2006. “One looming potential war extending from this is the Xbox versus PlayStation,” commented Whittard in the report. “The Xbox is coming out with an HD DVD player towards the end of this year. With Microsoft’s marketing engine behind HD DVD, who knows what will happen.” Although the HD-DVD and Blu-ray technologies are similar, the Blu-ray technology, which will be used by the PlayStation 3, has the benefit of additional capacity, being able to record 50GB of data, compared to just 30GB for the HD-DVD. Whittard added: “I would imagine that there are plans in place to put an HD DVD drive internally in future revisions of the product. They’re not speaking about it publicly at the moment but I would expect them to do that and fairly soon.” [UPDATE - 06/30/06, 5.54pm PST - Microsoft has responded to this with a post on its official Xbox PR-related website Gamerscoreblog.com by stating that that the company currently does not have any plans to release an Xbox 360 with a built-in HD DVD drive. “What we showcased at E3 was an external HD DVD drive, and we're sticking with that.”]