Microsoft provided additional Xbox 360 HD DVD plans at the company’s Tokyo Game Show press conference. Here’s what we know thus far.

The new external HD DVD drive will be available in Japan starting on November 22nd. No date has been announced for the American release but one would expect that the drive would either come out on the same day or possibly earlier. We’ll get word at next week’s X06.

Of course – with HD DVD drives coming to the Xbox 360, what about 1080p support? Well Microsoft announced that the 360 would support 1080p via a software upgrade. Very cool.. so what about the price?

Well the new HD DVD drive will cost around 19,800 yen which is approximately 169 US dollars. If you bundle the drive with the Xbox 360, the total bundle will be around 37,900 yen or about $323 US dollars – the final price will probably be higher than that. If the external drive really does only cost $169 or around that, one would expect good sales of the drive for current Xbox 360 owners. It might even convince me to look into a new HDTV set one day.

No word on HDMI or HDCP support as of yet.

[Check it out on 1UP.com]

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