Even with early reports of nightmarishly long download times, the Xbox 360 HD movie download service is putting in a strong showing. The service is trumping competitor Amazon's Unbox effort as American consumers prefer to watch hi-def content directly off the 360's hard drive rather than fooling with streaming DVD quality films from a PC running Windows XP Media Center to the TV. Interesting to note that box office flops are even performing well on the Xbox service. Says Microsoft's Ross Honey (SWEET NAME ROSS!):

If you look at our sales charts, movies like The Perfect Storm, Unforgiven and Swordfish are all doing disproportionately better than you would expect, and the only explanation is that they're available in HD.

That and not forcing people to leave their sofa means higher crap tolerance. Brian Ashcraft

Ross Honey Has The Bestest Name [Games Industry]

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