Digital Home Thoughts: HDMI Could Be Coming To Xbox 360?

"Just when we were getting used to the reality of no digital video outputs for our Xbox 360s, a hardware manager for Microsoft has re-stoked the rumor fires. Despite the claims of some that such a cable may not technically be possible, the FiringSquad quoted Microsoft's Rob Walker as stating that the company is "still discussing" what to do if movie companies begin to restrict high definition playback to digital outputs only, that they are "looking into" making an HDMI cable for the Xbox 360, and of course another no comment on the price of the HD DVD add-on. The remarks came during a panel discussion at the Gamefest conference where Microsoft also announced tools to allow users to make their own games. At this point we don't know what seems more (or less) plausible, that Microsoft is willing to sell a device even if by their own admission they don't know if copy protection could soon render it useless -- a potential weakness for the cheaper Playstation 3 variant as well -- or they have an agreement in place to guarantee analog outputs will continue to work for some time and this is all just subterfuge."

I’d be really interested in seeing how they implement this. I don’t think that the component cable connections are too shabby, but digital is always nice. I never understood why they left this off in the first place, what with the plan to do HD-DVD and the DRM issues that go along with that. I still plan on adding an HD-DVD drive to my media PC as soon as that becomes possible/practical. Looks like the Xbox 360 HD-DVD solution will be a legit contender, especially for people who already own 360s.