CrunchGear

Not that Sony needed to respond to Microsoft’s press release over the demise of HD DVD, but they did anyway. Dave Karraker, senior director fo corporate communications for Sony Computer Entertainment America, had this to say:

“It’s unfortunate that Microsoft’s external HD-DVD drive will not enhance the experience at all for the gamer. Sony realizes that to truly take gaming into the next generation requires a larger data format for both games and movies. PS3 uses the Blu-ray format for gaming, giving developers 50 GB of high-definition storage on a single disc, while Microsoft’s 9 GB DVD gaming format is an obstacle for storing HD content. Furthermore, Microsoft’s announced HD games patch is really just a compatibility feature — upscaling lower-resolution content does not make it Full HD (1080p), something that PS3 can do out of the box.”

Sony Responds to HD-DVD Announcement [Kotaku]

[Update]: I’m not entirely sure how my RSS reader picked this one up as new (I was bitching earlier about how slow it was being, too), but it’s somewhat serendipitous that it did. It just goes to show how in-tune Sony was from the beginning. However, in no way was the HD DVD drive meant to enhance the experience for gamers. Storage is king and the PS3 obviously has the edge, but what will Microsoft do from here? I don’t believe they will concede and begin to add Blu-ray drives to the Xbox platform. They could, however, offer an add-on drive like they did with HD DVD, but that too is unlikely. Downloadable HD content is more than likely the direction the Redmond giant is headed towards. Maybe Microsoft had a tiny bit more insight than Sony on this supposed format war.