Speaking yesterday, when Microsoft announced that they are to work with Toshiba in producing HD-DVD players, Bill Gates confirmed that future versions of the Xbox 360 could include an HD-DVD drive.
"The initial shipments of Xbox 360 will be based on today's DVD format," said Gates. "We are looking at whether future versions of Xbox 360 will incorporate an additional capability of an HD DVD player or something else."
The future addition of an HD-DVD drive to the Xbox 360 would surely only give owners the ability to play HD-DVD movies and not allow developers to use the extra capacity for games, as these games would not work on early versions of the console.
Microsoft's agreement with Toshiba comes in the mist of the on, then off discussion over a unified next-gen disc format, between HD-DVD and Sony's Blu-Ray. The PlayStation 3 will ship with a Blu-Ray drive, but initial Xbox 360s will launch only with a standard DVD drive. Gates' comment is quite open to interpretation and he is possibly hinting at further multimedia capability being incorporated into the Xbox 360 at a later point. We will have to wait and see.
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