Xbox 360 HD DVD Player

The Xbox 360 HD DVD Player was an add-on for Microsoft's Xbox 360 console. It was released on November 7th, 2006, before being discontinued on February 23, 2008.

Why It Flopped

 * 1) When it launched, it sold for a ridiculous $200, meaning that the combined price of an Xbox 360 and the add-on was more than the PlayStation 3, removing any advantage the set-up had over that system. They eventually reduced it to $49.99 in 2008.
 * 2) By late 2007, HD-DVD was getting torn to pieces in the format war by Blu-Ray, so there was no point to get this add-on in the first place.
 * 3) No games were released in the format. While this is understandable, given how poorly games for previous add-ons like the Sega CD and Atari Jaguar CD sold, it means the add-on has no purpose other than playing movies in a short-lived format that was technically inferior to its rival.
 * 4) While it was possible to use the add-on with PCs, actually doing so required Windows Vista, which wasn't launched until about two months after the add-on, and was a bug-ridden mess when it did launch.
 * 5) * In fact, you can use it on Windows XP as a standard CD/DVD drive (due to the Toshiba optical drive used in the unit), but a third-party UDF 2.5 driver is required in order to read data from discs, plus a software player capable of playing HD DVD titles for video playback.
 * 6) It needed its own AC adapter and electrical outlet, adding to the bulk of the set-up.

Redeeming Qualities

 * 1) Despite the add-on's expensive price, for anyone who already owned an Xbox 360, it was still a much cheaper option than either a PS3 (which ran at $499-$599), or a dedicated HD-DVD or Blu-Ray player (which cost $300 or more), and had good playback quality.
 * 2) Didn't suffer the same overly restrictive digital rights management as the PS3's Blu-Ray playback, which generally either refused to work or only played back in standard definition unless you had it connected to a TV or monitor that supported HDCP (both of which were still quite rare in 2006).
 * 3) There's not really that much wrong with the add-on itself other than the price and needing its own electrical outlet; Microsoft just backed the wrong horse.
 * 4) The add-on could have been better if it was in the console itself, or if it's bundled with the console itself. Unfortunately, this was a case where the Xbox 360's being released a year before the PS3 actually worked against it, as neither the HD-DVD nor Blu-Ray standard was finalized in time for it to be incorporated into the 360.

Videos
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Trivia

 * WIF #1&5 were both problems that the Sega CD also had, which is interesting considering the fact that it's also an add on optical drive.