When asked by MCV whether the rival consoles will outstrip Sony;s next-gen machine, he replied simply: 'We do not care.' But he conceded that Sony is still struggling with the production of PS3's Blu-Ray drive: 'Right now, it is an issue, because we can't manufacture enough blue laser diodes for our PlayStation 3s. But we will resolve that.'

The HD DVD drive is very, very quiet, and since the 360 drive doesn't run while playing HD DVDs, the whole thing is relatively silent (lord knows the 360 can make a noise when everything is running all at once). It has a small, laptop-style external supply, but that is not final. I assume that means the final one will be smaller, if anything. And I don't know if it will even definitely be external. I assume so, but it's tiny, and the drive connects to your 360 with a simple USB cable. Speaking of which, it also has two USB ports on the back, so that you can re-attach your wireless adapter to the drive and not have to sacrifice the space on the back of the 360.

The thing starts up, from disc insertion to movie playing, in less than 10 seconds. This will be interesting news to owners of existing HD DVD and Blu Ray players, some of which had startup times of up to a minute! Ouch. The fast built-in OS of the 360 seems to be the deciding factor here.

The interface for disc eject and play is very simple and easy to use - a small circle split in two that lets you play or eject a disc from either drive. That of course means you can have a game and a movie in at the same time, and simply pick between the two. That interface may not be final, but right now it’s a boon if you're playing one game frequently.