If you can wade through an 18-paragraph HD-DVD ad, the first details of the external HD-DVD drive for the Xbox 360 have been revealed on Xbox.com. Essentially, all that's been confirmed so far is that the add-on will connect via the USB port, "enabling it to harness the power of the Xbox 360 console for the HD video outputs and digital surround sound." The Xbox 360's HD output is currently component-video only, which isn't very kosher by many of the movie studios supporting HD-DVD, though some have softened their stance. Does Microsoft know something we don't? Of course, a few sentences later, it states, "It's also just one of several new accessories being announced at E3." An HDMI cable is an accessory...

Another interesting tidbit of info came in a comparison between Blu-ray and HD-DVD. The page states, "When comparing the two formats, there is no difference in the video support, with both offering 720p, 1080i, and 1080p HD resolutions." The current crop of HD-DVD players top out at 1080i. Similarly, the 360's games cannot produce 1080p either. Will the first 1080p-producing HD-DVD player be tethered to a video game console, or is this just a slip of the keyboard?

Microsoft will hopefully fill in the HD-DVD blanks as well as reveal the "several new accessories"--we had only the aforementioned adapter and a Webcam on our scorecard--at its press conference on Tuesday afternoon. We'll be there!

Source: Kotaku.com (I miss the old design already)

Article discussion: Microsoft's mysterious 360 HD-DVD manifesto