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Photo via this woman’s Flickr account. Thanks, person!

While Sony and its PS3 may benefit from Warner’s decision to support Blu-ray, Microsoft doesn’t think its HD DVD-playing Xbox 360 will take any significant hit. A Microsoft marketing manager said he doesn’t “think… this has a significant impact on Xbox 360 versus PlayStation 3.” The manager then reminded us that while DVD playback may have been an initial boon for the PS2 so many years ago, in the long-term, DVD playback wasn’t crucial to the console’s success. Back then, the PS2 was king, while the 360 seems to be this generation’s go-to system (aside from the entirely different Wii).

This shouldn’t be surprising, given Bill Gates’ attitude toward high-def discs. (He thinks we’ll all eventually download our high-def content and that discs are strictly a temporary storage medium and delivery mechanism.)

And for the gamer, none of that matters. Give me a solid library, which the 360 has, and I’m all set; Blu-ray/HD DVD/whatever is completely irrelevant.

Microsoft: HD-DVD Not Critical to 360’s Success [Next-Gen]