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360 Add-on drive announced before you’ve even bought your 360.

This winter X-box users have been forced to choose between the full Xbox 360 (the system you want) or the XBox 360 Core System (the system you can afford). The advantage of the full system over the 'core' system was that the full system came with all the accessories you wanted whereas the 'core' system didn't. However, if you absolutely must buy more accessories Bill Gates has just announced the thing for you.

Before you've even been able to locate a store willing to sell you an XBox 360 an add-on external HD-DVD drive has been announced, probably making it the earliest external drive announcement in console history. The drive will allow you to play HD-DVD movies on your XBox 360, but as of this writing it's not entirely clear to us whether the drive will be able to run software stored on the higher capacity HD-DVD disks or if it is purely for watching movies. However, even if it is for storing software, developers are historically reluctant to depend on hardware that doesn't ship with the console.

So what does this all mean? As far as I can tell it means that if you plan on backing the HD-DVD format rather than Blu-Ray when it comes to next-generation DVD content, and you're running out of space on the little shelf below your TV, perhaps instead of getting a new DVD player you can plug this HD-DVD drive into your XBox and save a little space down there. Though, it isn't entirely certain yet if this drive will be out before or after HD-DVD movies actually start hitting the market. And even then, since HD-DVD will be facing quite stiff competition from Blu-Ray, it isn't certain if HD-DVD will even be around that long.

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