Most of the rumors leading up to the final reveal of the system were saying it would have an HD-DVD drive.Generally rumors in gaming don’t just come out of thin air.Heck, I remember thinking "that would be dumb" when some folks starting speculating it would use DVD9:http://www.joystiq.com/2005/02/08/xbox-360-to-use-a-plain-ol-dvd-drive/Notice the use of the word "speculating" in the first sentence.