There have been rumors about a Blu-ray drive (both of the internal and external variety) coming to the Xbox 360 a number of times, but that notion was once again shot down by Microsoft’s UK director of Xbox and Entertainment Stephen McGill last week. Asked about the prospect of Blu-ray on 360 in an interview with CVG, McGill said, “We have no ideas to adopt Blu-Ray drive for the Xbox 360. In fact, the future of home entertainment started last autumn when Xbox 360 became the first and only console to offer instant-on 1080p streaming HD films.”

Speaking about the same subject, Microsoft’s Aaron Greenberg highlighted the lack of Blu-ray in the Xbox 360 as one of the reasons why the 360 is currently positioned ahead of the PS3. “Sony bet on the physical disc, and there are costs associated with that,” he told Edge. “The fact that we’re able to offer a console starting at £199 is a benefit of not being burdened with that cost.” He also noted that “being £100 cheaper [than PS3] is part of the reason we’re nearly twice their installed base,” a comment he has since clarified on Twitter as being based on NPD data that has the 360’s U.S. install base at 20 million units to the PS3’s 12 million. The same can’t be said about worldwide numbers, especially in Japan (where PS3 leads) and Europe (where the 360’s lead is much smaller than it is in the U.S.).

Greenberg then reiterated what McGill talked about, saying, “For us, our bet was on digital distribution, that was the future — the ability to [play] 1080p films with no disc, no down-load required; we have the largest film and TV library, the largest HD library of any console.”

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Tags: Aaron Greenberg, Blu-ray, Europe, Japan, last autumn, ps3 sony, Ray, Stephen McGill, U.S., UK, Xbox