Sony won the format war with its Blu-ray technology, and it seems Microsoft may grudgingly jump on the Blu-ray bandwagon. In an interview, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer confirmed that the Xbox 360 will eventually be receiving external Blu-ray drives.

When asked if Xbox 360 would be getting Blu-ray he stated, “Well I don’t know if we need to put Blu-ray in there—you’ll be able to get Blu-ray drives as accessories.”

Microsoft responded to the great Blu question with: “Our immediate solution for Blu-ray-quality video on an Xbox 360 is coming this fall with Zune Video and 1080p instant-on HD streaming. As far as our future plans are concerned, we’re not ready to comment.”

The Xbox 360 has never had internal HD playback capability, and featured an accessory HD DVD external drive during the great format war. Since Sony’s victory, 360 users have been forced to buy a PS3 or Blu-ray player or have just gone without (or they played their small HD DVD collection on their new doorstop).