Slashdot today is reporting news from the Adult Entertainment Expo that Porn giant Digital Playground has switched it’s stance from BluRay to HD-DVD. Apparantly, Sony won’t product BluRay disks for any of these companies because they don’t want any porn on BluRay. This is the EXACT same thing that happened in the BetaMax vs. VHS format wars, where Sony refused to put any Porn on BetaMax. As much as some people don’t want to admit it, the porn industry pushes the new format acceptance. If they globally choose HD-DVD, the format wars could be over really quick.

Move over Xbox 360. Move over PS2. The PS3 is the fastest console to sell 1 million units. In the period from launch until last week, Sony sold 1 million PS3’s. In the same time frame, the Xbox 360 sold 600k units last year. I’m honestly shocked at that huge number. Maybe that’s why there’s lots of PS3’s available now, because Sony ramped the every living hell out of production and get them to market.

I’m happy that there’s a glimmer of good news here for Sony, in the midst of all the negative press they’ve been getting. If these sales keep up, and they sell more than Microsoft’s touted 10.4 million in the first year, expect BluRay to win the format war over HD-DVD.

From the press release:

SCEA went to great lengths to help meet demand for PS3, including airlifting systems into North America on a weekly basis to ensure a steady stream of units were available to consumers throughout the holiday season,” said Jack Tretton, president and CEO, SCEA. “The fact that we were able to reach the one-million mark faster than our top-selling platform, the PS2, further validates the strength of the PlayStation brand and our belief that consumers are ready to experience true high-definition gaming.” … “Reaching the one million mark for PS3 is the first of many major milestones for us as we head into a new year. Even more impressive, is that we were able to accomplish this feat while successfully managing two other gaming platforms-PS2 and PSP,” said Tretton. “With three PlayStation platforms now available to gamers, 2007 will be about software and delivering innovative, new experiences and award-winning franchises to consumers, both through retail and through our online PLAYSTATION Network.

So Bill Gates keynote just ended at CES. All I can say is… what a fucking waste of time. No announcement of HDMI enabled 360 or larger hard drive. They announced more about Live Anywhere, which we all already knew about. They just said UNO and Halo 2 will be playable as cross platform. Cool and all, but where’s the good shit? No fucking where. That’s where it is.

With the recent news from Sony today that they’ve sold 1 million PS3 units (Xbox 360 sold 600k in that same time frame), Microsoft better capitalize NOW on whatever they can, meaning HDMI and a larger hard drive. The longer they wait, the more they’re going to piss off their user base.

Engadget got their hands on a nice pic of the new version of the Xbox 360, code-named “Zephyr” which should be coming “soon” according to their insider. Check the pic below for what proves to be the biggest feature: a dedicated HDMI port. I guess this puts to rest all the rumors that the AV port could actually ouput an HDMI signal. Also reported to be included is a 120GB hard drive, which should ease the pain of running out of space all the time, which I’ve even done a time or two, and I haven’t even downloaded any movies or TV shows yet.

My big question is what is Microsoft going to do for everyone that already has a 360 that has been bitching about no digital video output? Are they going to say “Oh well” and make everyone buy a new one? How much is this upgraded box going to cost anyway. I know I would LOVE to have HDMI output on my 360 for the HD-DVD movies at 1080p and full HDMI uncompressed audio, but I don’t see myself spending another $400 on it. Microsoft better be offering some sort of major discount to current 360 owners, or even better, a trade-up program. Send them your old 360, pay a small fee, get a new HDMI 360.

UPDATE (from jmel): Xbox-scene now has footage and more details on this nice little present to 360 gamers that have listened to the xbox team play down hdmi since the consoles launch a year ago.

Pic after the jump
Hit the jump for more…

So I decided to hook up my Xbox 360 with VGA cables to my new Samsung 1080p HDTV, since the only way to get 1080p from HD-DVD with the console is to use VGA. Yeah, absolutely retarded, I know. Can you say HDMI cable? Anyway, I am among the close to 100% of VGA users who are experiencing issues. You either get washed out colors, extremely soft picture, or both. I’m experiencing the ridiculously soft picture quality. You can tell right away with the text in the dashboard looking muddy. Another huge problem I have is that the picture doesn’t seem to truely be 1920×1080. When you first turn it on, the image doesn’t fill the screen at all. There’s a 1-2″ black border around the whole screen. I was able to zoom the picture with the TV menus, but it still is not the same picture as the component video cables. You can tell it’s not zoomed in as far.

I’ve read a couple places where Microsoft outputs in a non-standard way over VGA, which is why people are having issues with VGA. Seriously, why the bloody fuck can’t Microsoft just put out an HDMI cable? This would solve just about every issue people with 1080p sets are having right now. My guess, which I would wager a good deal of money on at this point, is that the hardware just isn’t there to output digital video. Unless they update the hardware, there’s no chance of getting HDMI output on the 360. And I know for damn sure I’m not buying another one. If they could do it, they would have released one already to combat the only thing the PS3 has going for them.

[Update] I know a lot of people have no problems with the VGA connection on a computer monitor. I was referring to TVs here.