E3 2007: HD-DVD will be dead in months, says Sony exec

SCEA’s VP of marketing Peter Dille has predicted that HD-DVD will be obsolete in a matter of months”, and attacked the build of Microsoft’s Xbox 360 – following an admission by the Seattle firm that it had seen an ‘unacceptable’ number of faulty machines.

Dille also condemned his rival’s history in the console market and questioned the long-term potential of the Xbox 360.

Speaking to

Gamasutra

at the E3 expo, Dille said:

"I don’t want to be argumentative, but I take issue with Microsoft either having a long tail, or being profitable, because they’ve never done either. They’ve never made a dime in this business.

"With the Xbox 360 you’ve got an inconsistent design, some have a hard drive, some don’t, and none of them have Blu-Ray, and the HD-DVD will be out of business in a matter of months. Is this a ten year product?"

"And by the way it doesn’t even work. Do they want to be selling it for ten years and refurbishing them all for ten more years? I don’t think that’s a ten year product. You could disagree with me, or they could disagree with me, but I’d put that up against the PS3 any day."