I think people who were hoping for Blu-Ray wanted an external player for movies like the HD-DVD add-on. Not a mandatory internal disc drive that was going to drive the system price up that obviously couldn't be used for games. That's kind of a moot issue now though since standalone players can be had for as low as $200 (I think, I might be off on that).
I never would have expected MS to release a Blu-Ray drive anyway. They're the company at the forefront of trying to kill physical media and gain a chokehold on digital distribution. It doesn't make sense for their long term business model to support the successor to DVD.
I never would have expected MS to release a Blu-Ray drive anyway. They're the company at the forefront of trying to kill physical media and gain a chokehold on digital distribution. It doesn't make sense for their long term business model to support the successor to DVD.