Microsoft's HD-DVD fire sale!

The HD-DVD fire sale is on! With the HD format to be terminated, Microsoft is slashing its discontinued S$299 (US$214.00) HD-DVD addon drive to an insane S$69.90 (US$50.26) in Singapore. To give you a comparative figure, that's roughly twice the street price of an internal PC DVD drive. Amazingly, this is also a no-strings-attached deal with a full one-year warranty, not forgetting its value-added PC compatibility via additional software driver.

Editors' note: Revised pricings for the rest of Asia are NT$1,680 for Taiwan, 68,000 won for Korea and HKS$399 for Hong Kong.

Now that this is off Microsoft's inventory, we also took the liberty to check on the possibility of a Blu-ray replacement and this was what the Redmond company had to say from an email response:

"It is premature to speculate but we do know from market data that HD movie playback is not a primary purchase driver for consumers buying video game consoles. It continues to be games that drive purchase and that has consistently been a strong point for the Xbox 360 platform. HD-DVD is one of the several ways we offer a high definition experience to consumers and we will continue to give consumers the choice to enjoy digital distribution of high definition movies and TV shows directly to their living room, along with playback of the DVD movies they already own."

Translated... we think that means a "maybe".

We're still awaiting information on any price revision for the rest of Asia. Check back for updates.

An arcade machine of a different scale

Hailed as the pinnacle of 1980s arcade gaming, e-retailer Hammacher Schlemmer's 150 Classic Game Tabletop Arcade is a must-have for arcade junkies and the closest you can get away without carting home the real McCoy. Like its genuine counterparts, the authentic-looking console has an eight-way joystick and oversized button controls to recreate that nostalgic play and feel.

Best of all, it offers 150 vintage games, including PacMan, out-of-the-box, rendered on a 19-inch LCD encased in a space-saving chassis. Audio fidelity-wise, the US$2,496 system is loaded with 2.1 speakers complete with dedicated subwoofer. Powered by a streamlined HP computer, it will also readily support PC-based games and playback music via a preloaded Jukebox software.

International shipping is available. However, this is estimated at close to US$400 each unit. Ouch!

Via Bornrich.org | Photo credit: Hammacher Schlemmer

A Blu-ray addon for Xbox 360?

Though Microsoft has been maintaining an Xbox 360 addon approach for the benefits of user choice, this may well be part of its foresight for a quick exit in the event that the format war goes either way. Take the S$299 external HD-DVD drive. The Redmond company could easily strike it off its inventory overnight without the burden of a costly console write-off. To further thicken the plot, it has never official denied the possibility of a Blu-ray equivalent, which is probably in the pipeline anyway with the current hostility against its partners' HD-DVD format.

Could it have been a drastically different picture if Microsoft had implemented full HD audio and video support for the addon drive? Think onboard Dolby TrueHD decoding for example. We reckon not only will the console have won the hearts of both gamers and home theater enthusiasts, this might even have given HD-DVD a much-needed boost similar to the advantage that PlayStation 3 has contributed for Blu-ray.

Have a different opinion? Air your sentiments via our talkback function.

PS3 to shed its fat ole persona?

Gadget magazine T3 had released the above image of a rumored streamlined PlayStation 3 said to be in the pipeline from Sony. While we seriously doubt its regional Hong Kong office will share more insights on this sweet sexy thing, this may well be more than a simple Photoshop job judging from the company's track record. Among its gaming devices on a forced dietary regime are the PlayStation 2 slim and PlayStation Portable lite.

We just hope Sony is not taking the easy route again by a la Xbox 360-style with an external power brick. It is also going to be a hassle if the USB ports are banished from the front. Likewise for the inbuilt multislot card reader which is clearly missing from the image. And according to T3, this model will probably ship with a 160GB hard drive. But wait, who cares about the capacity when you can upsized the storage by following our simple DIY guide here?

Via T3 | Photo credit: T3

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