A high definition drive for Microsoft's Xbox 360. Bloomberg Boot Camp, a report on today's technology. It was among the announcements Bill Gates made at this month's Consumer Electronics Show. To counter Sony's PlayStation3….which will have a built in high definition DVD player…using Sony's Blu-Ray technology…. Microsoft will sell an add on drive for the Xbox 360…that will use the rival HD DVD standard. When and for how much? Microsoft's Xbox chief Peter Moore….

"Well it will be this year, probably late this year. Certainly in time for holiday of course. We haven't made any announcements about cost yet, but I think that consumers can rest assured that it's clearly going to be less expensive than a stand alone player itself. I mean the basic idea is that we believe that this holiday HD DVD movies will be the choice that consumers want to make…and we want to make sure that we give the opportunity to Xbox 360 owners to actually have movie playback as a choice that they can make." With Sony planning to include a high definition DVD player using its Blu-Ray technology in the Playstation3 later on in the year, are you at a disadvantage in any way? "No, one of the things we, I think, certainly learned from the first generation of Xbox is that not every consumer utilized the hard drive. Putting things in the box that consumers aren't going to take advantage of and burdening the cost into that box which the consumer has to pay…we didn't think is a good idea in this generation. So therefore, we're giving consumers choice."

Microsoft Xbox Chief Peter Moore. Bloomberg Boot Camp, I'm Fred Fishkin.