Rumor: Next Xbox Might Be Delayed Due to Blu-Ray Licensing

It’s not yet known if the next Xbox will have a Blu-ray drive. An e-mail circulated in-house at Microsoft makes mention of watching Blu-rays, but not specifically with their next-gen system. A rumor from MondoXbox however not only thinks they have the disc drive, but are having difficulty nailing down the license. This is the reason why we haven’t heard much about the upcoming Xbox and they go as far to say that it will cause delays for it.

So why’s it so hard to acquire said license? Apparently Sony has timed-exclusive rights to Blu-ray as it relates to video game consoles. At the moment this news makes its way out of Europe, but it’s unknown if this will affect the Durango (codename for next Xbox) worldwide.

Sources told Kotaku that Microsoft is not where it wants to be at this point in the pre-launch development schedule. This could be unrelated as reports of Microsoft’s internal projects have failed and have been dropped. The news of the Durango getting the upcoming game by Respawn Entertainment (composed of former Infinity Ward staff) as an exclusive seems to line up with all this. They are said to be pushing hard to acquire exclusivity with many developers and publishers.

News of a delay isn’t a new phenomenon after all. SemiAccurate mentioned in September 2012 that production on the console’s chips were yielding low rates. Which led Microsoft to outsource the manufacturing to multiple plants in hopes to fix the problem. Even gaming research analyst Michael Pachter said a 2014 launch would make more sense so that hardcore “Xbots” wouldn’t have to compete with moms buying presents during the holiday season.

Whatever is going on, I’m sure that all this news can’t be a good thing for Microsoft. We’ll hear more about the next Xbox May 21st, when they finally reveal the thing but I personally do not expect to hear anything about a release date there. So expect to have to wait for answers regarding this for another little bit.

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