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General discussion

Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 HD-DVD drive

May 22, 2007 3:12PM PDT

Has anybody tried using the xbox 360 hd-dvd drive on the ps3? I had heard that other xbox 360 periferals do indeed work with the ps3 so I am wondering if you guys, with your infinite resources, had tried it yet?

Jeff Lynn

Discussion is locked

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It probably wouldn't
May 23, 2007 12:32AM PDT

Sony is one of the single biggest backers of Blu-Ray, which is the major competitor to HD-DVD. Sony insisted on including a blu-ray drive in the PS3, which is probably the single biggest reason for its high cost and delayed launch.

Given that support for the drive would have to be coded into the PS3s firmware specifically, and Sony's movie division is kind of betting the farm on blu-ray (you'd think they would have learned their lesson with Betamax), I just don't really see that happening.

Some other peripherals may work, but likely only those that don't need to be able to communicate with the console firmware.

I suppose if you were to run Linux on the PS3, you might have a better chance of getting some of those peripherals to work, including the HD-DVD drive. However, it would be kind of pointless for most of them, since you can't launch PS3 games from Linux, and Linux isn't able to access the graphics hardware on the PS3, so it'd be rather unlikely you could play back an HD-DVD movie at even 720p resolutions.

I've never gotten the desire to play movies on my game console... That's what I have a DVD player for, or my computer. I want to save the laser on my game console for reading game discs, not movies.

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Disagree
May 23, 2007 8:33AM PDT

I don't see it needing to address the firmware. It is a peripheral like any other. I would think it would show up as an external drive.

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Sure it would
May 23, 2007 9:13AM PDT

The firmware controls access to things like the graphics hardware. Sure, you might be able to read the contents of a movie disc with it, but to actually play a movie with it... I wouldn't put money on it.