They called us foolish for supporting HD-DVD over Blu-ray, but who is laughing now? Other than them? Us! That’s who. While they struggle over whether or not to purchase their copy of the latest big film on Blu-ray for a $US10 premium over normal DVD, the Xbox 360 HD-DVD drive owners are laughing all the way to the bank, paying pennies for hit movies, as long as they’ve been out for longer than three years.
I picked up my Xbox 360 HD-DVD player a month before Microsoft discontinued the product, effectively surrendering to Blu-ray. I still believe that Blu-ray won on the merits of case colour rather than technical prowess. The translucent maroon HD-DVD cases never really did it for me.
Still, you can’t beat the prices. Those of you lucky enough to pick up an Xbox 360 HD-DVD player after they were discontinued got the hardware at a steal (I paid $US125). Even now, when other HD-DVD players leftover on Amazon are running upwards of $US200, you can score an Xbox 360 drive for around $US60.
Then the savings begin!
Check out the deals going on right now at Amazon’s HD-DVD page. Transformers for under $US3. The entire first season of Battlestar Galactica for under $US10. Sure, that’s a series collection you’ll never complete, but you can’t beat the value.
It gets even better when you look at Amazon sellers instead of Amazon proper. Folks are selling off new HD-DVD movies for a penny, charging only shipping cost. And just think: Eventually you can own every HD-DVD movie ever released, without breaking the bank. It’s a buyers’ market!
So I thank my Xbox Live friend for reminding me how much I love my HD-DVD player. I just ordered ten movies from Amazon for $US25 to celebrate this love; a love that will never die.
Until the hardware fails.
Braaains
Thursday, March 17, 2011 at 9:15 AMThat’s not keeping the dream alive – it’s molesting the corpse.
Mitch
Thursday, March 17, 2011 at 2:53 PMHAHAHA, I salute you.
Kris Butler
Thursday, March 17, 2011 at 9:41 AMthis… i bought over 100 hd-dvd’s during its dying phase… still haven’t watched most of em… lol
Mordecai Chalk
Thursday, March 17, 2011 at 10:10 AMI love my xbox hd-dvd drive.
During the closeouts, I bought a crazy number of movies, it was cheaper than renting them on DVD in most cases.
I even picked a spare drive for less than $50, just in case my original one breaks.
Cpt. Cuddles
Thursday, March 17, 2011 at 10:16 AMHa, DVD movies don’t work on my 360 for some reason. Straight to the PS3 for me
Mr Waffle
Thursday, March 17, 2011 at 11:48 AMI bought a Toshiba HD-DVD drive during the fire sale. Best DVD upscaler chip on the market, too. I’ve watched hundreds of DVDs and dozens of HD-DVDs on it and it’s still going strong. Meanwhile, I’m on my 3rd BR player (first PS3 BR drive died after maybe a dozen discs, second player lasted about a year…).
brent3000
Thursday, March 17, 2011 at 12:28 PMMy one is still good :D and sooo many cheap movies to boot :D
Vapor
Thursday, March 17, 2011 at 3:04 PMI was working at a JB Hi-Fi at the time it was announced that Blu Ray had won and HD was no more. An email went around the company letting us know there would be massive price drops on all HD related items. Picked myself up a 360 HD drive and a massive stack of movies for ~$80. Was fantastic.
Kermit
Thursday, March 17, 2011 at 4:05 PMHD DVDs are region encoded, right? You can’t play discs bought from Amazon in the US on an Australian Xbox 360 and HD-DVD drive add-on can you?
Kris Butler
Thursday, March 17, 2011 at 4:46 PMwrong… bluray’s are region coded (most of em)… hd’s are region free ;)
Mark Serrels
Thursday, March 17, 2011 at 4:48 PMI find that most of my Blu-rays aren’t region coded. Some are, but most aren’t. I have a US PS3.
WiseHacker
Friday, March 18, 2011 at 12:29 PMDepends where you get them.
I think in Australia they are regionless – can’t remember how it came about though.
But in the US and UK, I’m sure the are region locked.
TheMan
Thursday, March 17, 2011 at 7:06 PMI was about to purchase a HD DVD drive for my 360 because they dropped from $250-$200 down to $100. I walked into the store and then changed my mind. A few days later they dropped to $50.
I picked up 5 drives. Kept 2 and sold the other 3 on Ebay. I covered the cost of my 2 drives and a start on my HD DVD collection.
I love HD DVD. It’s a now retro, collector thing of beauty.
Adrian Styles
Thursday, August 18, 2011 at 9:34 AMMe too with Hd dvd players and an awesome collection but the future is not bright, one day Our players will fail and no one will ever make a HD DVD player, Laserdisc players were still made in japan until a couple of years ago and VHS you can still buy brand new with a dvd combo. HD-DVD owners in years to come it’s over.
Darth_Matt
Friday, September 23, 2011 at 6:16 PMExactly my problem! My HP laptop that came with a HD-DVD drive has become non-operational (read as dead)! Now I have nothing to watch my collection of movies on and have no idea where I could possibly get another player now. :(