As if. Isn’t this the lingo of valley girls; insinuating their prior knowledge of an event which has happened? Unfortunately for the surg3on, he was under the impression HD DVD would reign supreme over Blu-ray. The assumption: same quality, Blu-ray more expensive to manufacture; Microsoft’s huge Xbox sales would boost HD DVD, and Universal, New Line Cinema, and Warner’s support would help.

Microsoft seems to have been on the same page as the surg3on; but both the surg3on and Microsoft doubted Sony’s strong hold on the entertainment industry. Between their music, and alliance with movie companies, Sony has bargaining power. Surely they did not want to eat more red digits considering Playstation 3 was not a sure shot, therefore they pushed forward and won the war.

Now it is Microsoft’s turn. Will Microsoft drop a new Xbox console, with a built-in Blu-ray player, or will they continue to stick with external devices, adding functionality to their console? Either way, Microsoft made a smart play and did not include the HD DVD player as included internally in the Xbox 360. They’d be eating red digits if they made such a move. Sony was brave and made a gamble and included the Blu-ray player as their internal player; or were they sure-footed and knew they were going to win all along?

Microsoft will stop making external HD DVD drives for its Xbox 360 game console, but won’t say whether it will offer a Blu-ray Disc drive instead.

The company will continue to provide warranty and product support for existing HD DVD players, it said.

The Xbox 360 has a standard DVD drive built in: support for high-definition content came only with an add-on. Sony’s Playstation 3 console, however, has a Blu-ray Disc drive built in, which helped grow support for the rival high-definition format.

Microsoft’s announcement comes barely a week after HD DVD’s main backer, Toshiba, said it will stop making the drives in the face of declining support for its high-definition format from retailers and studios. HD DVD’s other supporters included Microsoft, Intel, HP and Universal Studios. Blu-ray also had the support of Panasonic and Samsung.

Warner Bros., which initially supported HD DVD, said early this year it would switch to Blu-ray Disc, a decision widely seen as a mortal blow to the format. Retailer Wal-Mart also recently said it would no longer sell HD DVDs.

A Microsoft spokesperson said Monday morning that the company is taking the long-term view that support for specific high-definition drives is less important as people increasingly look to download movies and content from the Internet.

[Via: Macworld]