Las Vegas (NV) - Microsoft announced that it will be offering an optional external HD DVD drive for its Xbox 360 gaming console later this year. According to representatives of the company, nine out of ten Xbox 360 owners plan on buying an HDTV flat panel TV in the near future - which, the firm believes, creates a compelling case for an HD DVD for the box.

Of course, Microsoft also has competitive reasons to offer such a drive to its customers: Sony is expected to ship its Playstation 3 by mid-year with a Blu-ray disc drive as a standard feature.

Microsoft said that it is on target to sell between 4.5 and 5.5 million Xbox 360 consles by the end of June of this year. To achieve this goal, the company has contracted Celestica as a manufacturer of Xbox 360 devices. Consumers who already purchased the console have downloaded more than 4 million items from the Xbox Live service so far, and have purchased an average of four games per person, Microsoft said.

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