"Who Needs Blu-Ray?" Quips UK Xbox Chief As Downloads Dominate

It looks like Microsoft and Apple can agree on at least one thing: Blu-ray is under serious threat from digital downloads.  After Steve Jobs dismissed Blu-ray support for future Macs with the suggestion that the format "is looking more and more like one of the high end audio formats that appeared as the successor to the CD – like it will be beaten by Internet downloadable formats," Microsoft's Xbox UK chief Stephen McGill has suggested that Blu-ray "is going to be passed by as a format."

Talking to Xbox360Achievements, McGill dismissed suggestions that the absence of a Blu-ray drive was limiting the Xbox 360's potential shelf-life.  Instead, like Jobs, he suggested that streamed or downloaded content from online was increasingly the format DVD users were migrating to:

"I think people now recognise what a smart decision it was to keep the pricing low, and actually Blu-ray is going to be passed by as a format. People have moved through from DVDs to digital downloads and digital streaming, so we offer full HD 1080p Blu-ray quality streaming instantly, no download, no delay. So, who needs Blu-ray?" Stephen McGill, Microsoft

[via Neowin]