Developer's perspective: Blu-Ray drive in PS3 = bad idea [Text View]

MidnightWatcher

11-20-06, 01:49 PM

http://www.hardcoreware.net/reviews/review-348-1.htm

He makes a lot of interesting points regarding the gaming side, but here is what I thought was a very valid point regarding the inclusion of a Blu-Ray drive in the PS3:

"HD Content: The PS3 comes with one built in (blu-ray). The XBOX 360 offers HD-DVD as an add-on for $200. You probably don’t care about HD-DVD right now. But you will soon (The quality between DVD and HD is comparable to VHS vs DVD, if you have the right TV) so I suggest paying attention to the war that’s begun. There are two formats: HD-DVD and BLU-RAY. Basically if you rent a BLU-RAY DVD from Bockbuster, it won’t play in your XBOX 360 HD-DVD, and vice versa with the PS3. The implications of this format war would require another article on its own. But as far as the consoles are concerned, the XBOX 360 wins because the DVD player is a separate unit. Playing movies is very taxing on the DVD reader, and let’s face it. In 3 years when your PS3 DVD drive goes out due to playing lots of movies (PS2 was notoriously bad about this) you will have to go buy another PS3. With the 360, you’ll just chuck your HD-DVD player, and go buy another one at the store. In 3 years standalone units wlil probably only cost about $99-150. Another point for the XBOX 360, is that I don’t know who will win the format-war, so I would rather wait with purchase of a HD player. The PS3 doesn’t give you this option."

Mark0

11-20-06, 02:07 PM

It really doesn't surprise me this game developer agrees with most AVS folks.
Similar to HD DVD vs. Blu-ray, one format has been out longer, has more titles and is generally a better value.
Sony's strategy is to throw around larger capacity numbers and computational power and hope the consumers associate bigger numbers with better performance. It's fooled many folks in the past and continues to fool many of us here.

txfilmguy

11-20-06, 02:15 PM

Doom4420

11-20-06, 02:25 PM

It's games require 25 gb? Wow, are you a developer? Xbox 360 Gears of War fits fine on a 9gb dvd disk, and it is definately next gen with mindblowing graphics.

Mark0

11-20-06, 02:32 PM

txfilmguy

11-20-06, 02:32 PM

DPowers

11-20-06, 02:36 PM

My PS2 was purchased shortly after launch, and the drive still works fine, thanks. The jury is still out on the durability of the Blu-ray drives. However, if a Blu-ray player I owned stopped working and was out of warranty, I'd rather replace a $500-$600 machine than a $900-$1500 machine. It still bodes well for PS3.

I've also said before that Microsoft's whole pitch on "At least we give you an option" is absurd. The PS3 cannot function without the Blu-ray drive. Its' games require the 25-50GB discs. The X-Box 360 has limited its game content to 9 GB, so all they need is a DVD drive built in. The PS3 owners have just as much choice as the 360 owners. Don't care to watch Blu-ray discs? Then don't. The only difference is you don't have to buy an add-on if you do.

Although I am buying a PS3 I don't see why people constantly argue that the 360 giving you the choice is a bad thing. I mean, from an average gamers standpoint who cares if it plays BD as long as the games are great. But the average gamer does care that they have to pay $600+ because of a drive they may not want. And in the end if BD becomes the defacto standard, MS can make a BD drive for the 360. That is the definition of "choice."

So far every launch game would have fit on a DV9 if the developer wanted to. Are you telling me the inferior PS3 version of COD3 wouldn't have fit on a DV9...how about RFOM? I think so. Are you telling me that every game developed for the PC needs to be on a BD? I don't think any will.

yoyoniner

11-20-06, 02:50 PM

Squaresoft

Toriyama and Versus producer Shinji Hashimoto defended the decision to release FFXIII on the PS3. According to Hashimoto, the development staff determined that one DVD would not be enough for the type of visual expression they were attempting to make. Toriyama noted that, regarding visual expression, the PS3's shader abilities are a big factor.

http://uk.ps3.ign.com/articles/710/710761p1.html

Ubisoft

OPM: How's your experience with the storage media of the PS3, the HDD and the BluRay disc? And do you have any comparable experience with HD-DVD technology?

M.M.: Our focus is 100% BluRay, so I cannot compare with HD-DVD. I can only say that the new BluRay disc format is truly awesome. The capacity is immense, and the Data Transfer Rate is way beyond what we are used to. And that's really important, because Data Streaming (OPMED: where the console constantly loads new data from disc) is truly the only way to push next-gen games to the limit. The Playstation 3 HDD is something that we have so far given less attention to, because it hasn't been certain all that long yet that it will be standard on every console. Decreasing load-times by copying a part of the game to the HDD is one possibility, though it doesn't matter all that much for a streaming game like ours. But there are tons of other applications, such as the possibility to as it were record your whole game, to be able to watch a replay of it later on. We intend to use the HD optimally, but how, I can't tell yet currently.

Starbreeze

"The 360 is a fantastic machine. I really really like it. The only thing, you know, that is going to cause trouble is the amount of storage space available on a DVD... thats really a problem."

http://forum.teamxbox.com/showthread.php?t=446554

Team Ninja

"The infamous Team Ninja front man has a thing or two to say about Microsoft's decision to assign standard DVD format to the Xbox 360. Limiting his development team to a measly 9GB does not sit well with Itagaki, especially when Team Ninja is looking to include any number of (MS-coveted) HD cut scenes. It's ironic that Microsoft has been the most outspoken about the "HD era", but is the least prepared for it… However, don't be surprised to see an Xbox 360.1 springing up in a year or two, complete with HD-DVD drive."

Last year, interview with Famitisu magainze, Itagaki explained his frustration with MS going with standard DVD format instead of going with HD-DVD. Since Japaneese developers love working on games in CG, now Itagaki san will face even more great challenge with xbox 360, or he can just switch over.

http://www.joystiq.com/2005/07/05/itagaki-sounds-off-on-xbox-360-limitations/

Enchant Arms

"The developer of "Enchant Arms," an upcoming role-playing game in Japan, told Gamespot.com last year it was hoping to be able to fit the game on two discs, but admitted "that's even looking grim." Any old school gamer can tell you that switching discs while playing is not a fun experience."

http://money.cnn.com/2006/01/05/commentary/game_over/column_gaming/index.htm

Vivendi Universal

"The technical requirement for game development today demands more advanced optical-disc technologies," said Michael Heilmann, chief technology officer for Vivendi Universal.
"Blu-ray offers the capacity[.]"
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4153813.stm

EA

"EA, a leading games developer and publisher, added that the delivery of high-definition games of the future was vital and Blu-ray had the capacity, functionality and interactivity needed for the kinds of projects it was planning."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4153813.stm

F1 06 developpers

Quote:
Q: Will the graphics improve from F1 05?

A: We try hard every year to improve where neccessary, but as I said before, the PS2 is running on it’s limits with the 22 cars. Graphically it is similar to F105, although we believe that the driving experience is much more rewarding with the new kerbing and the new phyiscs. The PS3, though, is something else! That machine is a Beast! We are adding an enormous amount of graphic detail to absolutely everything. To give you some idea about detail levels, one car in the PS3 game takes up the same amount of memory as all 22 cars in the PS2 version!! That’s a 22 fold increase! You can damage the sidepods on the PS3 cars and see in side the car and it has radiators and exhaust pipes and everything. It’s awesome. Gameplay-wise the PS3 also allows us to use much more accuarate collision models. In a PS2, the car has an invisible ”box” that detects collisions all the way around the car, but in the PS3, there is no single box – you can get the wheels interlocked with the other cars.

http://www.f1gamers.com/f1/apanel/view_articles.php?id=130&page=4

Ninja Theory

Well i want to ask something if i may.Do you guys use/plan to use the extra space the blu-ray provides,for the benefit of the game,or its just to early for that yet?

Quote:Originally Posted by Arfi-Gorgona-O
Guys,someone to answer my question too?At least tell me if you cant so i wont ask again,even a no comment is good enough for me

Quote:Originally Posted by Ninja Mikey
[NT-DEV] Chief Technology Ninja

Sorry Arfi - let's see if we can't get you a decent answer....

"Yes!"

There you go

Seriously though the game is gonna need a whole lot of data for all the levels and characters that we are planning. At Sony's presentation on Monday last week they had a slide showing that the storage medium for a console is usually 100 times the size of the consoles main RAM - the point being that a DVD wouldn't be able to hold enough data for a AAA quality game. So yes, we'll definitely be needing the space that's available on the BD!

http://www.ninjatheory.com/forums/showthread.php?t=111&page=3

Epic

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=125925

Unreal Tournament was 6GB compressed. Next Generation games are going to be 20GB plus, and how we're going to fit them on DVD9's I don't know, they'll probably be a few of them. On the PS3, we're going to be using the majority of the space on those Blu-ray disks. So, online isn't really the best option in some instances. Downloading 30Gb isn't really feasible.

briankmonkey

11-20-06, 02:55 PM

RobertR1

11-20-06, 03:15 PM

The goal is to eventually do electronics transfer of games. Part of this goal is to develop better processes to reduce size (think VC-1 in a way). With procedural synthesis and megatexturing techniques, you'll likely see game sizes go down, than up, in the next few years.

Ofcourse, you can always bloat the crap out of a game to fill up size like you can with a Hi Def DVD using older techniques. :)

Dev tools, dev skillset, time to release and budget are more critical to making a game than "disc space."

space2001

11-20-06, 03:18 PM

krinkle

11-20-06, 03:25 PM

Neo1965

11-20-06, 03:34 PM

The comment about going back to basics for games is a valid one, but HD cut scenes done properly are really quite amazing in the immersive movie experience of RPG games, and perhaps in FPS games as long as the story itself is compelling.

Many times, when you get to the next milestone in the game itself, the eye candy cut scenes are part of the reward for having finished the last 'stage' of the game. And going back to every FF game since FFVII, I cannot imagine that they would not be immensely better if they were done in HD.

I think the going back to basics and old DVD5 and DVD9 limitations (or even CDrom) has some element of truth in making the game play more of a focus for some lazier developers, but to say that this is the only way to extend game playing is wrong. Technology is about pushing out existing barriers, and barriers include rendering performance, it includes storage and it includes bandwidth.

Otherwise, watching the numa numa song on youtube.com could be the highlight of our video experience here. Note watching the Numa Numa song on youtube.com is arguably more entertaining than many of the soulless prettyPQ titles we are stuck with, but that does not mean that there are no HD titles that are more entertaining than what is available on youtube.

DPowers

11-20-06, 03:48 PM

jason10mm

11-20-06, 04:13 PM

What is the problem with switching discs? Final Fantasy VII, the milestone for console RPGs, was on three discs! For a linear RPG (or level based FPS for that matter) there should be NO problem spreading it out over several discs since you will rarely have to go back to an older area on a previous disc. I could see it being a pain in a game like Oblivion where you can do anything in any order or in MP where levels might switch around, but that is about it.

Personally, I think devs don't want to do it because someone could "share" a disc with a friend and M$ discourages it so it can't be used against them (just as Sony probably encourages devs to make games that couldn't fit on a DVD-9 for exactly the same reason).

b.ramos

11-20-06, 04:33 PM

mrkrispy

11-20-06, 04:38 PM

going back to the OP quote, doesn't the 360 HD drive still use the XBox processor to play movies? Isn't that the far far far more taxing process? I don't see how a DVD transport should wear out significantly faster because it is playing movies....otherwise wouldn't standalone DVD players wear out just as fast?

PeterS

11-20-06, 04:38 PM

builty

11-20-06, 04:38 PM

The OP has been PWNED. Thank you yoyoniner for a wonderful and very informative post.

Absolutely, great post. Nice to see actual facts destroy the FUD.

Microsoft themselves are strongly rumoured to be looking hard at a 360 with a built-in HD-DVD drive next year, but they can only use it for movies and not games, or else they would break backwards compatibility.

MidnightWatcher

11-20-06, 04:42 PM

The OP has been PWNED. Thank you yoyoniner for a wonderful and very informative post.
:confused:

Maybe you haven't really read the original post or maybe it's a knee-jerk reaction to something without fully understanding the point being made. The quote was regarding the use of an internal drive on a game console verses an add-on drive for high-definition movie playback.

briankmonkey

11-20-06, 04:42 PM

Sony wants BD games to use up the 25g or 50g space by not compressing the data and thus making even harder to copy the titles. Nothing on the PS3 looks better than the 360's best period. This isn't a for now thing it's permanent. These 2 machines have the same power and games will always look the same between them cause theres nothing either system can do that the other can't. Blu-ray is simply in the PS3 cause Sony needs it to succeed so by putting it in the PS3 they can claim large BD adoption. Let's wait after the holidays and see how many BD movies actually sold when compared to HD-DVD movies which again is the real reason that Sony put BD in the system anyway to compete by selling more hardware with BD in it already. So far my local CC and BB stores haven't seen an increase in BD movie sales over HD-DVD which continues to sell at a faster pace.

My xbox360 can't deliver lossless 7.1 audio. PS3 already does this capability as well as having even launch software that pumps out the sweet 7.1 audio as well. :D

I do agree that Sony is using the PS3 to push blu-ray. Win win for me, fantastic games and movies at an excellent price :D

It's quite obvious that developers wanted a higher storage medium based on developers comments. Multiplatform games like the Darkness having more content, etc. DOA4 being reduced in content..

As for the rest of your comments on being permanent and nothing looking better I'll just disagree based on owning a 360 and having hands on experience with PS3. Currently I've seen nothing that matches Motorstorm :) Of course I don't think that is permanent, lol, either. I think titles on both system will have games that exceed it.. It is still very early for the 360 as well ;)

That said both consoles have more than enough power for fantastic visuals and gameplay and are worth the price of admission.

Ezra

11-20-06, 04:45 PM

pete4

11-20-06, 04:46 PM

I don't understand what the problem is: each company went different way and gave consumers different choices: if you like build in HD drive and a lot of storage for the future then get Sony, if you don't care then get Xbox360 or even Wii, so what's wrong with having different choices and why every company has to do exactly the same way as the competition? And if PS3 is too expensive, why I can't buy it anywhere? Most older games are low resolution and full 1080p is about 4 times as big as standard resolution, so if you just upgrade the graphics, even some older games no longer will fit on DVD and you want this system to be future proof for at least next 4-5 years? I think it is great that there are choices and only time will tell which company's strategy was better at the end. I bet it was Sony.

briankmonkey

11-20-06, 04:55 PM

darinp2

11-20-06, 04:58 PM

My xbox360 can't deliver lossless 7.1 audio.The XBOX360 can't even deliver 2.0 lossless audio, let alone 5.1 or 7.1 lossless audio.

That said, the XBOX360 and PS3 are both nice machines and there are advantages and disadvantages to having the next gen drive in there vs external.

--Darin

ottscay

11-20-06, 05:08 PM

:confused:

Maybe you haven't really read the original post or maybe it's a knee-jerk reaction to something without fully understanding the point being made. The quote was regarding the use of an internal drive on a game console verses an add-on drive for high-definition movie playback.

No offense Midnight, but I don't think you understand; putting a high-capacity disk drive in the PS3 was the right choice, even if BD movies died tomorrow. What amazes me is how many peope here who have never done graphics work or game design are claiming the space isn't necessary, even when a game-design member says otherwise, and over a dozen other porfessionals with the same opinion corroborate him.

When I was trained for 3d work (before getting into my current career), I was working on film and video post, but I've have lots of game design friends. Game designers want to treat their graphics as much as possible as like hi-res film-post assets. There are still tons of shortcuts taken to fit games onto 9gb disks, and it will be easy to fill a 25 gb disk, and probably in two-three years some games will fill 50gb disks.

Right now some of the rushed, initial release PS3 games already look as good or better than the best 360 games, after well over a year of development for the 360. You are smoking crack if you think that the PS3 is not going to blow past the complexity of what current 360 games can make...and the 360 doesn't have near the headroom to keep improving. Now, I know better than to think that MS isn't working to solve this, and perhaps there'll be a new souped up 360, or one with an HD-DVD player, but the PS3 design will ensure that it stays on top of the current consoles in terms of gaming prowes for years, and that's before you start to use it to play movies.

All other claims about "choice" are fine, but they are predicated on a mistaken assumption about game size and complexity. People claiming that you don't need the extra space are like Bill Gates asking who could ever need more than 16 mb of ram...

briankmonkey

11-20-06, 05:28 PM

No offense Midnight, but I don't think you understand; putting a high-capacity disk drive in the PS3 was the right choice, even if BD movies died tomorrow. What amazes me is how many peope here who have never done graphics work or game design are claiming the space isn't necessary, even when a game-design member says otherwise, and over a dozen other porfessionals with the same opinion corroborate him.

When I was trained for 3d work (before getting into my current career), I was working on film and video post, but I've have lots of game design friends. Game designers want to treat their graphics as much as possible as like hi-res film-post assets. There are still tons of shortcuts taken to fit games onto 9gb disks, and it will be easy to fill a 25 gb disk, and probably in two-three years some games will fill 50gb disks.

Right now some of the rushed, initial release PS3 games already look as good or better than the best 360 games, after well over a year of development for the 360. You are smoking crack if you think that the PS3 is not going to blow past the complexity of what current 360 games can make...and the 360 doesn't have near the headroom to keep improving. Now, I know better than to think that MS isn't working to solve this, and perhaps there'll be a new souped up 360, or one with an HD-DVD player, but the PS3 design will ensure that it stays on top of the current consoles in terms of gaming prowes for years, and that's before you start to use it to play movies.

All other claims about "choice" are fine, but they are predicated on a mistaken assumption about game size and complexity. People claiming that you don't need the extra space are like Bill Gates asking who could ever need more than 16 mb of ram...

well said.. Then again I remember the same old short-sited arguments that DVD's weren't need that Cd's were enough (compression is getting better arguments, etc.. sorry compression isn't enough to compensate, history has shown that to be true), This coming from the anti-PS2 fanboy's back in the day that thought the DC (I still have mine) was the end all be all.

b.ramos

11-20-06, 06:03 PM

It'll deliver 7.1 lossless down the line but not at the moment though and the point is to go after J6P who really brings in the money in sales not us fanatics who have to have everything. Dolby True HD audio requires a receiver with the decoder built in and an HDMI 1.3 spec connection or a surround processor or receiver with analog inputs and the decoder built in to the source device in this case the PS3 which has the decoder but no analog outputs and no 1.3 spec receivers on the market in the here and now. So again J6P doesn't care about lossless he wants high def above all else. If high res audio was so wanted by the average person MP3 and i pods wouldn't be the successes they are and SACD and DVD-A would have had a greater sales rate. People don't care about sitting in the sweet spot for audio they do have to however when they watch HD but really aren't going to care when you can buy the HD for 200.00 bucks if you have a 360 or 500.00 bucks if you want a stand alone player. Lets not forget all the issues the PS3 is having with HD support already simple stuff that should have been in the systems OS but is not. 7.1 hah!! J6P cares not of these things, they look at price and performance and so far BD has failed to deliver when compared to HD-DVD. The PS3 sells for it's games more than anything else and the majority of those games suck. Sony promises and yet Sony cool aid drinkers continue to be under there spell. Lets see " all PS 3 games are true hd 1080p" False!!!! "PS3 supports all HD resolutions regardless of whether your playing BD games or BD movies" False. Blu-ray delivers on full HD resolution" False. All BD players down convert 1080p to 1080i/60 then upconvert to 1080p/60 , yes just like the XA2 will also do for HD-DVD even with it's 1.3 spec HDMI connection. The difference here is that Bd supporters find plenty of excuses to bash HD-DVD and yet always seem to have an excuse for BD's failures and Sony continuos campagne of deception to keep people from going the other way. "PS3 will be out in Spring 2006" false, "We don't believe in having two different sku's for the same product in this industry" False. "Were going to have 2 million for the launch" false. "BD delivers better performance here and now than anything available on the market today in both video and audio false, false , false!!!!! I use to be a Sony fanboy but I 'm tired of all the BS that comes from Sony and Sony cool aid drinkers. If Sony was all that and then some so be it but they are not and BD isn't either. "PSP i going to change portable gaming forever" false and "UMD is the way to watch movies on the go and will deliver great sales and profit for our content providing partners" FALSE!!!!!

chap

11-20-06, 06:08 PM

darinp2

11-20-06, 06:09 PM

Dolby True HD audio requires a receiver with the decoder built in and an HDMI 1.3 spec connection or a surround processor or receiver with analog inputs and the decoder built in to the source device in this case the PS3 which has the decoder but no analog outputs and no 1.3 spec receivers on the market in the here and now.You used "false" quite a bit in your post, but the above is false. Just like the HD-A1 can decode TrueHD to PCM and deliver lossless sound to receivers over HDMI even if those receivers aren't HDMI 1.3, the PS3 can do that same. A receiver to do this can be had for about $300 from Panasonic. Gettting lossless sound does not require analog inputs or HDMI 1.3.

--Darin

briankmonkey

11-20-06, 06:10 PM

Back in the day on the PS1, I never had a problem with having multiple disks to play a game. I don't have a problem with it now. If a dev wanted to do 25 gigs just put it on 3 DVD's and everything is fine.

Well so far, Team Ninja and Starbreeze have deciced to not include content rather than using more than one DVD. Clearly some dev's don't like going with multiple discs. It also may not be ideal for every type of game to do so as pointed out earlier.

b.ramos

11-20-06, 06:16 PM

lorelevitt

11-20-06, 06:18 PM

Not a game developer, but I have been an HD advisor for a team of programmers. They had been working on a game for X-Box 360 under the impression that they would have 30GB to work with. When they got the word it would have to fit on a DVD they had to go back to the drawing board.

This thread just proves the old adage that programming code expands to fill a vaccuum. The more space you give them-- the more they will fill up-- useless or non-ingenous coding. Its amazing how Ninendo fits all those great WII games in such a small space???

b.ramos

11-20-06, 06:21 PM

]This thread just proves the old adage that programming code expands to fill a vaccuum. The more space you give them-- the more they will fill up-- useless or non-ingenous coding. Its amazing how Ninendo fits all those great WII games in such a small space???

HERE HERE!!!!!

darinp2

11-20-06, 06:22 PM

WRONG!!!! The only way to get lossless audio is via an HDMI 1.3 Spec connection on both ends with the decoder either in the player or the receiver. Dolby True HD and DTS Master Audio need the 1.3 spec HDMI connection to transmit the audio as lossless, other wise you need analog ouputs. No hd-dvd player or Blu-ray player has this ability vis HDMI except for the PS3 now and the XA2 in about a month or two. Oh and the panny receiver you mentioned does not have 1.3 HDMI either so no lossless audio my friend. analog or 1.3 HDMI are the only way HD-DVD or Bluray can deliver full lossless audio period.You need to do some more reading so that you can be informed correctly. As an example, the Samsung BDP-1000 can deliver lossless audio from "Black Hawk Down" to a Panasonic SA-XR57S receiver over HDMI and that receiver does not include HDMI 1.3 support. If you think that isn't true, then you are wrong and in that case, please do the research necessary to understand the transmission of lossless audio in PCM form (whether it started in that form or as a TrueHD track, for instance).

In case you don't believe or understand that one, the TrueHD track from "Batman Begins" on HD DVD can be played losslessly over the HDMI connection from the HD-A1 to that same receiver also. You can say, "WRONG!!!!" all you want, but that is how things work. HDMI 1.3 does provide some extra support, but it isn't needed to do that.

--Darin

chap

11-20-06, 06:27 PM

Well so far, Team Ninja and Starbreeze have deciced to not include content rather than using more than one DVD. Clearly some dev's don't like going with multiple discs. It also may not be ideal for every type of game to do so as pointed out earlier.

I don't think missing bouncing boobie cut scenes was going to affect my game :-)

b.ramos

11-20-06, 06:29 PM

b.ramos

11-20-06, 06:32 PM

If what your saying is true than I'm getting True Hd from my xbox 360 and I know I'm not.
HDMI 1.3 or analog my friend, the only way to get them with no down conversion at full bit rate aka lossless.

b.ramos

11-20-06, 06:33 PM

gotta go do your research have fun

bdizzle

11-20-06, 06:39 PM

I think it's great if developers actually use the extra space. I can see some of the lengthier games such a FF needing BD. I also have never cared about switching disks...a personal preference.

As I play through games such as GOW and GRAW I am compelled to believe MS made the right choice with DV9 as I truely don't see games getting much better. I also have seen alot of game updates. I see nothing wrong with popping a disk and downloading additional content and having the content on the HD instead of the disk. Who cares where the content is located as long as it does it's job?

That actually makes more sense to me. Use the capacity of the DV9 (it's cheaper) and download the rest. That way you don't waste the extra space on a BD and their is no need to "bloat" the content. Developers can design exactly what they want in the size they determine. The last couple of games that I bought for the 360 had some kind of download. No problem.

you really need to look at the ps2 launch to see that there is a need for a hd media for games. The same argument was used when the ps2 came out about never needing more than 700mb of storage. initially all ps2 games were on cd's, but as time went on, devs found and used the extra storage. so even tho games like graw and gow (which was overhyped imo) can be ok with 8.4gb, that definately won't be the case 3-5 years down the line. either way, ms kinda shot themselves in the foot. if they don't release games on hd, they severly limit themselves and 3rd party devs, but if they do, they alienate 6 million early adopters (like me)

HPforMe

11-20-06, 06:58 PM

Don't understand at all the criticism concerning the inclusion of the blu ray drive. If people use it primarily for movie watching then what evidence is there to believe that the drive would not be as durable as that in a stand-alone players? Basing his conclusion on the PS2 sd dive is no argument. No one can infer the durability by reference to the PS2 in terms of drive durability.

Furthermore, Sony can be criticized for a lot but upping the technology on its system should not be one of the criticisms.

Htdude14

11-20-06, 07:07 PM

WRONG!!!!! Just because the audio is being sent over and HDMI connection when you choose True HD does not make it the full lossless audio. You need to do more reading my friend not me. Every magazine web site tech manual informed sales rep and even the player makers will tell you that you can not get full lossless audio over HDMI or optical or coaxial at all. The audio goes though a down conversion tp be passed along but not at the lossless bit rates that lossless has. You need analog outs or 1.3 HDMI. Do some reading your self then get back to me son.

Incorrect, the player decodes the lossless sound and sends it to the rec. in PCM over HDMI 1.1 or better and 6 channel analogue. HDMI 1.3 will allow the un-decoded signal to be sent to the rec. for the rec. to de-code. These rec. do not exist yet.

DodgeV83

11-20-06, 07:21 PM

Incorrect, the player decodes the lossless sound and sends it to the rec. in PCM over HDMI 1.1 or better and 6 channel analogue. HDMI 1.3 will allow the un-decoded signal to be sent to the rec. for the rec. to de-code. These rec. do not exist yet.

He probably doesn't understand that PCM is lossless too? I dunno, based on his posts it sounds like he is almost being wrong on purpose just to piss people off :confused:

wreckshop

11-20-06, 07:23 PM

Forceflow

11-20-06, 07:27 PM

Incorrect, the player decodes the lossless sound and sends it to the rec. in PCM over HDMI 1.1 or better and 6 channel analogue. HDMI 1.3 will allow the un-decoded signal to be sent to the rec. for the rec. to de-code. These rec. do not exist yet.

Yes, this is correct. HDMI 1.1 will send lossless PCM (after unpacking by player). 1.3 is only for compressed lossless data to be unpacked by AVR.

As far as Yoyos well touted post, please...

Gamers just want it to look great and be easy. The PS3 clearly delivers that, but saying that the 360 can't is just wrong. The 360 will continue to deliver HD games and will in all liklihood look the exact same as the PS3 on cross-over titles. The success of the Wii should prove to everyone on this forum that their knowledge of gaming is based solely on a HT perspective which is fine, but not accurate. People don't necessarily care about graphics or resolutions, but how fun the game is. Graphics enhances fun for some, but not all. The OP's point about using up your PS3's drive for gaming/movie watching is a very valid point that HAS NOT BEEN ADDRESSED.

Why not? I guess because its a valid point no matter how its spun. PS2 drive failure rates were notably high, but the lower cost when this occured and new slim-PS2 encouraged consumers to drop the old one and just buy a new one (with built in wireless/wired networking). I guess they could do the same for PS3, but the price is so much higher and feature-set already maxed that I think consumers won't be happy if it breaks prematurely. Secondly the cost of drive replacement has skyrocketed. Both combine to be very troubling to anyone who plays RPGs. I know I'll log about 80 hours on FFXIII and probably some more on FFX/X:2 because I never got a PS2...

briankmonkey

11-20-06, 07:29 PM

so for the vast majority of the 360 userbase that chooses not to purchase the hd dvd add on (like myself), why wouldn't the the internal dvd drive not be subject to premature failure for mixed game and movie use? ie: I use my 360 as my sole dvd player. am I to belive that (according to the OP) in 2 years I will have to replace my 360? (I've already owned it for over a year)

if anything I'd think the constant seeking (during gameplay) and high 12x speed would cause more wear on the 360s dvd drive than the much slower rotational speed of a bd drive.

agreed.. Playing movies the 360 is fine, it's during games that it's loud like a jet engine.. Playing games like ES:IV I'm certain puts way more stress on it than any movie.

he SED what!?

11-20-06, 07:42 PM

b.ramos

11-20-06, 07:47 PM

briankmonkey

11-20-06, 07:48 PM

Team Ninja is supposedly already in developement of DOA 5. If disk size is such a big issue for them it will be interesting to see if they announce this game for the 360 or PS3. If they make this a 360 exclusive game it would seem to undermine the idea that dvd9 is not suitable for hd gaming.

It's very clear that he wanted the advantages of a next gen storage medium, however he did not say that it made it unsuitable for hd gaming.

After having to reduce content in DOA4 for the xbox360, they said they'd merely keep an eye on space. Which is doing what any dev does, work within their limitations.

FYI, they do have Ninja Gaiden:Sigma coming to the PS3 and I'm sure DOA could hit the Sony platform again.

DodgeV83

11-20-06, 07:59 PM

Guys I am a game developer and I can tell you that having 25 gigs is very nice to play with, also allowes for higher resolution textures, and more levels.

Also helps with less of a load time, doesn't have to waste time uncompressing files to ram to play the level. Which help make the gamplay better and have better graphics. You can use these resources for other things. instead of uncompressing files.

Gears of war is a great game but there is comppression in textures, also because of the 9 gig some textures don't fully load and are blurry.
Don't get me wrong I love the game but I see things that could have been done better.

Now I'm no developer, but I'm pretty sure that if a texture in GoW is blurry, its more a factor of the 360 not having enough ram (though it has more RAM than the PS3 based on the articles I've read) then because they ran out of disc space. GoW only used up 6.4GB out of the available 9GB, so I really doubt that was a factor.

Unreal Tournament was 6GB compressed.

Unreal Tournament comes packaged with all the developer tools and a huge amount of levels. The game itself is about 3 gigs. Bad example.

Not a game developer, but I have been an HD advisor for a team of programmers. They had been working on a game for X-Box 360 under the impression that they would have 30GB to work with. When they got the word it would have to fit on a DVD they had to go back to the drawing board.

The average AVS member knows that Xbox360 games use 9GB DVDs...That is a MAJOR oversight!

Guys I am a game developer and I can tell you that having 25 gigs is very nice to play with, also allowes for higher resolution textures, and more levels.

Also helps with less of a load time, doesn't have to waste time uncompressing files to ram to play the level.

As was stated earlier, the Xbox360 DVD drive is faster than the PS3 Blu-Ray drive. I really think everyone here (developers and non-developers alike) need to read this article

http://dpad.gotfrag.com/portal/story/35372/?spage=1

"The 360’s DVD drive pulls information off of a 12X DVD disc twice as fast as the PS3’s 2X Blu-Ray does off of a Blu-Ray disc. The 360’s 12 DVD drive has a speed of 16.5 megabytes per second compared to the PS3’s 2X Blu-ray drive which has a speed of 8.7 megabytes per second."

DodgeV83

11-20-06, 08:12 PM

I'm back real quick but from what I have been told, read and informed pcm is compressed audio and the only way to get uncompressed audio is to have it uncompressed and be sent by analog outs or 1.3 hdmi cause the the 1.3 spec can handle the data not HDMI 1.0,1.1,1.2 or1.2a.

I don't see how it would be any different than converting a FLAC file to a WAV. Uncompressed is uncompressed.

Back to the included Blu-Ray topic. I have a problem with it being included because of the added cost! Sony decided to include Blu-Ray into a game machine for greed reasons (at the cost of the consumer) and nothing more. I've been playing PC games in HD for years and almost all of my game discs are still CDs. Yes I understand its different for PCs because they can be compressed and installed, but the comparison is still valid. Anyone who truly believes that Sony included an expensive Blu-Ray drive into their game machine simply because the games required it and not as a trojan horse...is kidding themselves.

Shuley

11-20-06, 08:14 PM

briankmonkey

11-20-06, 08:18 PM

It makes me laugh that people would rather have a game on dvd with 18 discs long in SD defintion,than have it on 1 blu-ray disc in high def. Some people are still living in the past. Who wants to stop gameplay to switch out discs?

we should use 5.25 floppy discs ;) Or if compression gets good enough then we can actually hold 100 PS4 and xbox 720 games on one floppy :D

krinkle

11-20-06, 08:18 PM

The 360’s DVD drive pulls information off of a 12X DVD disc twice as fast as the PS3’s 2X Blu-Ray does off of a Blu-Ray disc. The 360’s 12 DVD drive has a speed of 16.5 megabytes per second compared to the PS3’s 2X Blu-ray drive which has a speed of 8.7 megabytes per second." [/B]

Hmmm, maybe I am thinking about this the wrong way but I just watched a blu-ray movie and it was running as high as 28 megabytes per second of video and 5 megabytes per second of audio at the same time.

Why would your figure of 8.7 megabytes per second even be relevant when it is clear that the PS3 easily sends 33 megabytes per second of information to my XBR SXRD over HDMI???

And also to dispel another myth "that gamers won't buy movies" ---I am a gamer and now own 7 blu-ray movies that I have purchased just in a few days.

I also own a xbox 360 that I got last year the day they were released, and own tons of games for it. So no bias here.

ottscay

11-20-06, 08:24 PM

Withdrawn. Dodge is correct, and I just saw the mbps and didn't calculate through.

DodgeV83

11-20-06, 08:29 PM

Hmmm, maybe I am thinking about this the wrong way but I just watched a blu-ray movie and it was running as high as 28 megabytes per second of video and 5 megabytes per second of audio at the same time.

Why would your figure of 8.7 megabytes per second even be relevant when it is clear that the PS3 easily sends 33 megabytes per second of information to my XBR SXRD over HDMI???

And also to dispel another myth "that gamers won't buy movies" ---I am a gamer and now own 7 blu-ray movies that I have purchased just in a few days.

I also own a xbox 360 that I got last year the day they were released, and own tons of games for it. So no bias here.

I'm pretty sure thats 33megabits and not 33megabytes. I'd like to think I'm not biased either, I just don't see any games for the PS3 that warrant a purchase for me right now. I am sure I will get one in the future when the price goes down and more games are released (I had Xbox + PS2 last gen), but I would be more inclined to purchase the system earlier if the price were cheaper, especially since I feel it has been made artificially high so Sony could promote Blu-Ray.

DodgeV83

11-20-06, 08:33 PM

Huh. Sucks that Fox encoded KoH at 24mb/s...guess we'll have to watch it at 1/3 speed. Or else your source is full of it.

Edit: Ah nuts, I see Krinkle beat me to it...

...wow guys, maybe I AM giving the AVS crowd alittle too much credit :confused:

If it were really 24megabytes per second for a lets assume 2 hour movie...

7200 seconds x 24megabytes per second = 172,800megabytes :eek: Did Sony release those 200GB discs already?

So lets do the 172,800 / 8 and we get 21,600megabytes, or 21.6GB.

Didn't think I was gonna have to give a math lesson today

builty

11-20-06, 08:34 PM

See here:
http://www.blu-ray.com/faq/

"How fast can you read/write data on a Blu-ray disc?

According to the Blu-ray Disc specification, 1x speed is defined as 36Mbps. However, as BD-ROM movies will require a 54Mbps data transfer rate the minimum speed we're expecting to see is 2x (72Mbps). "

Mbps is megabits per second, the quoted figure of around 8 megabytes per second is correct. Lets not confuse megabits and megabytes!
Movies are usually quoted in megabits, not megabytes.

DVD:
http://www.osta.org/technology/dvdqa/dvdqa4.htm
16 megabytes per sec is true.

Still, sounds like 50 gig versus 8 gig is a much greater advantage than 8 Mb/sec versus 16 Mb/sec. Waiting a little longer for BD to load is going to be faster than doing a disk change...

darinp2

11-20-06, 08:39 PM

I'm back real quick but from what I have been told, read and informed pcm is compressed audio and the only way to get uncompressed audio is to have it uncompressed and be sent by analog outs or 1.3 hdmi cause the the 1.3 spec can handle the data not HDMI 1.0,1.1,1.2 or1.2a.As I believe somebody basically mentioned already, the PCM is the uncompressed audio and can be sent over earlier HDMI. The HDMI 1.3 is necessary for sending lossless as compressed audio with TrueHD or DTS HD Master Audio.

If you look back and look at the arguments between the formats, the argument against putting the PCM on the discs is that it is a waste of space in order to get audio without loss. Technically, a semantic argument can be made that PCM doesn't have any loss, but isn't "lossless" because it isn't compressed. Basically, you can get the full audio without loss over HDMI that is prior to 1.3, just like you can get that audio over the 6 analog connections on the HD-A1. To send TrueHD or DTS HD Master Audio without conversion to PCM requires HDMI 1.3 (unless somebody creates some proprietary communication method). Sending it without loss after conversion to PCM does not require HDMI 1.3.
I'm pretty sure thats 33megabits and not 33megabytes.Looks like it. The minimum spin rate for Blu-ray movies is 1.5x, which gives a data rate of 54Mbps (that is bits) or about 6.8MBps (that is bytes) off the discs.

--Darin

CPR Jose Ortiz

11-20-06, 08:46 PM

No one learns their lessons anymore. Sony never seems to tell the truth on anything they say or promise to the consumer. I have seen nothing but frozen PS3s all over Western MA. and a bunch of lies being told to people who shell out $500-$600 for a machine that freezes and over heats.

Walmart PS 3 Boston Rd. Springfield MA - FROZEN
Target PS 3 Holyoke MA Mall - FROZEN/ Doesn't work!
Best Buy PS 3 Holyoke Mall -Frozen/ Unable to see picture! They get it to work after a few hours.
Circuit City PS3 - Holyoke Ma - Doesn't work! Over heats.
Circuit City PS3 - Springfield MA - Unable to be displayed/ Not allowed to be on.

Blu Ray Movie quality. Awful transfers with mosquitos and artifacts that make the standard versions look better.

This is just in my area.
So having Blu Ray drives in PS3 looks like it is a bad idea.
Sony continues to get off to a bad start. How many starts does this company actually need for you to understand that they don't have the consumer's interest at heart.

You would be a fool to think so.

DodgeV83

11-20-06, 08:49 PM

See here:
[url]Still, sounds like 50 gig versus 8 gig is a much greater advantage than 8 Mb/sec versus 16 Mb/sec. Waiting a little longer for BD to load is going to be faster than doing a disk change...

I wouldn't argue that 50Gb vs 8Gb isn't an advantage, I just think it comes at too great a cost. Most will use 25Gb instead of 50Gb, because of the current cost of the dual-layer discs.

Lets assume for a second that 9GB is sufficient for the next few years, which I believe is true. If Sony released a $599 PS3 with Blu-Ray and a $399 PS3 without Blu-Ray, which do you think would sell more?

It seems to me that the biggest complainers about 9GB, are the people who want to pack 5 hours of pre-rendered HD cutscenes into the gameplay. I prefer the GoW/Halo style of cutscenes personally. After playing through GoW who needs pre-rendered CG? ;)

Oh well, eventually I'll own all the systems anyway (cept maybe the Wii), I just wish Sony could've helped me out by not pushing their latest media standard down my throat.

yoyoniner

11-20-06, 09:00 PM

WRONG!!!!! Just because the audio is being sent over and HDMI connection when you choose True HD does not make it the full lossless audio. You need to do more reading my friend not me. Every magazine web site tech manual informed sales rep and even the player makers will tell you that you can not get full lossless audio over HDMI or optical or coaxial at all. The audio goes though a down conversion tp be passed along but not at the lossless bit rates that lossless has. You need analog outs or 1.3 HDMI. Do some reading your self then get back to me son.

You, my friend, were the one that is wrong. You do not need HDMI 1.3 or analog outs to pass the sound of a TrueHD encoded disc. The sound can also be decoded by the player and passed as PCM up to 7.1 channels by ANY VERSION of HDMI. This is the full lossless audio signal. You know it's one thing to be wrong, but to be wrong and also a dick about it is quite another. I seriously think you owe Darin an apology.

yoyoniner

11-20-06, 09:03 PM

The average AVS member knows that Xbox360 games use 9GB DVDs...That is a MAJOR oversight!

Actually the 360 disc holds a maximum of 7 GB. You are 2 GB short of the actual Xbox 360 disc specification.

As was stated earlier, the Xbox360 DVD drive is faster than the PS3 Blu-Ray drive. I really think everyone here (developers and non-developers alike) need to read this article

http://dpad.gotfrag.com/portal/story/35372/?spage=1

"The 360’s DVD drive pulls information off of a 12X DVD disc twice as fast as the PS3’s 2X Blu-Ray does off of a Blu-Ray disc. The 360’s 12 DVD drive has a speed of 16.5 megabytes per second compared to the PS3’s 2X Blu-ray drive which has a speed of 8.7 megabytes per second."

Not really relevant when one console has a standard hard drive and the other doesn't. I'd like to see how load times are actually affected in the real world. I doubt developers for the PS3 are lazy enough to do all of their loading straight off optical-->RAM which is the only case your scenario is relevant... we already know a couple games are allowing an optional install on the hard drive of up to 5 GB, and there is no reason a developer can't stream data from optical-->HDD for later caching during menus and even gameplay. Halo 2 and many Xbox 1 games did this wonderfully.

Maltby

11-20-06, 09:20 PM

Thanks Peter for pointing this article out...

http://dpad.gotfrag.com/portal/story/35372/?spage=1

Did you read the whole article yoyo?

DodgeV83

11-20-06, 09:41 PM

Actually the 360 disc holds a maximum of 7 GB. You are 2 GB short of the actual Xbox 360 disc specification.

Wow your right! Thanks for pointing that out!

I stand corrected.

Not really relevant when one console has a standard hard drive and the other doesn't. I'd like to see how load times are actually affected in the real world. I doubt developers for the PS3 are lazy enough to do all of their loading straight off optical-->RAM which is the only case your scenario is relevant... we already know a couple games are allowing an optional install on the hard drive of up to 5 GB, and there is no reason a developer can't stream data from optical-->HDD for later caching during menus and even gameplay. Halo 2 and many Xbox 1 games did this wonderfully.

The biggest impact is for streaming games as you said. I brought it up because space2001 claimed the PS3's Blu-Ray drive would provide faster load-times.

SteroMAdMAn

11-20-06, 11:11 PM

camaj

11-21-06, 12:44 AM

]Its amazing how Ninendo fits all those great WII games in such a small space???

Given that the 360 and PS2 manage the same feat, it's not that impressive

I think most of you are linking 7gb or even 25gb size games with fun, great, good games, when its simply not true.

I don't think you've read the thread. I don't recall "most" people suggesting that, if any. That said, there are a lot of people, mainly Playstation/MS fanboys, it has to be said, that love their graphic rich/gameplay poor titles

wreckshop

11-21-06, 01:02 AM

If Sony released a $599 PS3 with Blu-Ray and a $399 PS3 without Blu-Ray, which do you think would sell more?

if the $399 version was identical to the current $499 sku (ie: no wifi, 20gb hd, no card readers) then I'd say the $599 version will easily outsell it. price is a factor, but I think when people buy things that cost more than $300, value for the price you pay is even more important. a $599 PS3 equipped with BD clearly has far more value than a $399 PS3 with DVD.

txfilmguy

11-21-06, 01:22 AM

I want to take partial responsibility for steering this thread the wrong way. My comment about "choice" (XBox 360: HD DVD add-on or no add-on vs. PS3: Play Blu-ray movies on it or don't) and the PS3's bluilt-in BD drive was simply meant to point out that the Blu-ray drive isn't forcing anyone to watch BD movies on it, that the games themselves are on BD discs. Is that necessary? I didn't want to start a flame war, but game developers I am acquainted with tell me yes, and a number of detailed posts here seem to echo that sentiment. Allow me to restate my point: Microsoft has no more claim to allowing gamers to choose than PS3. The only difference is, if you own a PS3, you don't need to buy an additional piece of hardware to watch HD movies. If you own an X-Box 360, you do. Plain and simple.

txfilmguy

11-21-06, 01:25 AM

if the $399 version was identical to the current $499 sku (ie: no wifi, 20gb hd, no card readers) then I'd say the $599 version will easily outsell it. price is a factor, but I think when people buy things that cost more than $300, value for the price you pay is even more important. a $599 PS3 equipped with BD clearly has far more value than a $399 PS3 with DVD.
A PS3 with only a DVD drive would be worthless because it wouldn't be compatible to any of the PS3 games.

Sean_O

11-21-06, 02:32 AM

A PS3 with only a DVD drive would be worthless because it wouldn't be compatible to any of the PS3 games.

I think it was a question of 'what if' the PS3 had been designed without BRD and with a DVD drive instead.

How would that benefit consumers?

Here are some possibilities:

PS3 would have launched a long time ago, (Blu Ray has been responsible for many delays, even by Sony's own admission)
PS3 would have been available in larger quantities, (The supply problem with Blu Ray drives is by and large the key thing holding back mass production of PS3 units)
PS3 would have been about $200 less at retail, putting it on even footing with X360 in that regard, (Blu Ray drives are MUCH more expensive than a standard DVD drive, and are primarily at fault for the high cost of PS3)

How would that have benefitted game developers?

Here is one suggestion:

Many more PS3 systems in circulation, and much better prospects of mass market adoption, which = more potential sales for any given software title.

Also, it has been said that the transfer speed of BRD does not matter because they will just load the whole game onto the HDD... Well, the standard HDD on PS3 is either 20GB, or 60GB, and if you have games filling up entire BRDs, you either:

Won't have enough room to install the entire game on the 20GB HDD, or:

You will be able to install two games at most on the 60GB HDD (assuming one of them is not on a BR-50 disc, in which case, you could fit one game on your 60 GB HDD).

Personally, I have seen enough evidence that developers can store massive games on a single DVD-9 (Oblivion... probably the largest gaming World ever created is one) and have seen enough cases where developers work around size restrictions through data compression, or simply using multiple discs.

That, and Sony's massive investment in Blue Ray technology tells me for sure that putting BRD in the PS3 had zero to do with making a stronger gaming platform , and instead was all about using the masses of gamers Sony had secured with 2 previous generations of Playstation hardware as leverage to push BRD into as many homes as possible.

Sony went to cash-in on its gamers. If they really cared about the gamers, they would have lunched the PS3 without BRD, and had it out sooner, in higher quantities, and for less money.

I know that all Blue Ray enthusiasts are tickled that Sony has put BRD in the PS3, but I guarantee you that there are many gamers who do not care one bit about Blu Ray, and who do not share in the enthusiasm.

This will become apparent in short order by anyone who follows the sales trends of the PS3. I will go so far as to say that rather than the Playstation 3 being the savior of Blu Ray, That Blu Ray will be what ultimately brought down the Playstation as the dominant gaming platform.

Big ouch to Sony's bottom line.

d3code

11-21-06, 02:48 AM

the only thing that article shows is that the non inteligence of that developer. it is so hard boohay. even with an easy to program xbox360 i see games with framerate problems, slowdown etc. fook that. look at games COD 3 on xbox360 not even running in real 720p. or tony hawk and those games run even worse on ps3!

it all comes down to the inteligence of the programmers. has nothing to do with xbox360 or ps3 for that matter.

a game like restitance is well programmed on ps3, gears of wars too on xbox360. but most of those cross developed games are seriously bad programmed.

jsl_80

11-21-06, 04:29 AM

"The 360’s DVD drive pulls information off of a 12X DVD disc twice as fast as the PS3’s 2X Blu-Ray does off of a Blu-Ray disc. The 360’s 12 DVD drive has a speed of 16.5 megabytes per second compared to the PS3’s 2X Blu-ray drive which has a speed of 8.7 megabytes per second."
Have you ever heard of CAV and CLV?

The Xbox 360 DVD reads with 12x CAV meaning 12x speed is only reached at the very outer edge of the disc and the speed at the inner part of the disc is something like 5x speed. 2x BD speed is CLV meaning constant 2x speed. ...and 5x DVD speed is < 2x BD speed.

rrenna

11-21-06, 09:33 AM

Have you ever heard of CAV and CLV?

The Xbox 360 DVD reads with 12x CAV meaning 12x speed is only reached at the very outer edge of the disc and the speed at the inner part of the disc is something like 5x speed. 2x BD speed is CLV meaning constant 2x speed. ...and 5x DVD speed is < 2x BD speed.

Yes and that's why 360 devs put information that needs to be accessed quickly on the outside of the disk. You guys seem to underestimate the advantage of 2x faster streaming of information, this isn't about loading times, games arn't linear so you can't just buffer for a few extra seconds, this is the difference between it taking 0.1 second and 0.2 seconds to load a texture/sound clip/animation every single time.

PeterS

11-21-06, 10:06 AM

The Proof will be in the GAME!

Now that you can purchase the XBox 360 Premium at Microcenter NEW for $199, let's see Sony create a GAME title which truly shows off what the PS3 can do over the XBox 360! (cut-scenes not included).

If you read the article I linked to before, the XBox has a slight lead in processing and how the processors are used - it has a huge lead in graphics co-processing over the PS3. It is also significantly less expensive than the PS3 due to the inclusion of the DVD over the Next Generation format (it also has a sizable speed advantage as well).

Read the article, and be enlightened!

http://dpad.gotfrag.com/portal/story/35372/?spage=1

pete4

11-21-06, 10:11 AM

Thanks Peter for pointing this article out...

http://dpad.gotfrag.com/portal/story/35372/?spage=1

Did you read the whole article yoyo?

Good article except for the fact that the author tries to debunk all that Sony "propaganda" how good Cell processor is and puts his own spin or forgets other important facts. He says that Cell processor doesn't have branch prediction and out of order instructions but forgets to add that Cell is based on RISC processor and maybe Cell doesn't need branch predictions since the penalty for missing branch is nowhere near the CISC processor like P4 with it's deep pipes. And why would Cell need out of order execution? That only makes sense if processor has multiple ALU and FPU and you want to keep them all busy as much as possible. It is totally different architecture and requires different approach. And also what DVD drive can read x12 speed from inner edge of disc??? And isn't DVD reading speed for dual layer slower than for single layer? I know my DVD player is slower reading dual layer disc than single layer, so maybe that DVD is twice as fast as BD only under certain circumstances. I wish the author didn't put his own spin on it despite trying to pretend to be impartial. BTW isn't Teraflop always an indication of theoretical maximum performance, regardless of who lists the number and not some real life performance unless it says so and it was never intended to be some real life benchmark?

TauRus

11-21-06, 11:31 AM

I think most of you are linking 7gb or even 25gb size games with fun, great, good games, when its simply not true.

Graphics and size alone are not recipes for great games. Sorry. To gamers its about playability. To people here its about on paper statistics I guess.

I'll take a Wii over either any day of the week. Although Live is just as important(to me). Because playing against friends online extends the life of a game for me by months. Heck, I still play GR2! I've owned it for ~2 years.
I agree with your points, and I think most folks here would too. The thing is this is a technology-driven forum. If I follow the same logic as you suggested I can easily trash both high definition formats simply based on the fact that higher resolution formats did not result in Hollywood producing better movies. Indeed, having gone through the lists of released Blu-Ray and HD-DVD titles I could only pick a couple in each format that would make me want to purchase it over the SD DVD version I already watched or own.

briankmonkey

11-21-06, 11:38 AM

Given that the 360 and PS2 manage the same feat, it's not that impressive

I don't think you've read the thread. I don't recall "most" people suggesting that, if any. That said, there are a lot of people, mainly Playstation/MS fanboys, it has to be said, that love their graphic rich/gameplay poor titles

Weird, I don't recall anybody saying they want great graphics and poor gameplay.

I personally want both, which is one of the reasons why I'm a bit dissappointed with the Nintendo. I'm still buying Zelda:TP as it looks great but it's dissappointing to know that it could have had graphics as good as Kameo if they had better hardware..

Having better graphics and sound does not make the gameplay poor :cool:

yoyoniner

11-21-06, 11:44 AM

ottscay

11-21-06, 11:47 AM

Frankly, the insinuation that everyone (the majority it appears) who thinks that larger storage/ better graphics/ more game play complexity = better games is insulting and blatantly wrong.

The PS3 is the first console I've considered buying since my N64 (no, really). In large part because of it's other media-center capabilities and the wireless internet surfing. I don't for a second think that simply because a game uses 45 gb of data and has pretty graphics it'll automatically be more fun than, say, the original Legend of Zelda. But all things being equal, given an excellent game I would prefer for it to have the best graphics possible, and there is little doubt that in a year the PS3 will be the platform upon which that will be true.

It's entirely possible that the Wii will have a larger number of really fun games, but that remains to be seen (it also remains to be seen whether the new Zelda game can recapture the magic of some of its predecesors). But the Wii doesn't have much else I'm interested in. I won't buy games that suck just because they have great eye-candy, but if they don't suck, I want them to be as jam-packed with eye-candy-goodness that they blow me away.

FWIW, I have a number of friends who all plan to buy one by the summer, and they all want it for its BD-playback, internet, and streaming audio capabilities. One of them doesn't even care that it's a gaming system. But none of them (or myself) are going to try and fight the hardcore gamers for one this Xmas.

WickyWoo

11-21-06, 12:03 PM

Hmmm, maybe I am thinking about this the wrong way but I just watched a blu-ray movie and it was running as high as 28 megabytes per second of video and 5 megabytes per second of audio at the same time.

That's megaBITS, (8bits=1byte)

Lets assume for a second that 9GB is sufficient for the next few years, which I believe is true. If Sony released a $599 PS3 with Blu-Ray and a $399 PS3 without Blu-Ray, which do you think would sell more?

Judging by 360 sales, the 60GB one. With HD version of 360 outsells core at least 3-1

Now that you can purchase the XBox 360 Premium at Microcenter NEW for $199

That's the core, not the premium. It's a $100 rebate

Good article except for the fact that the author tries to debunk all that Sony "propaganda" how good Cell processor is and puts his own spin or forgets other important facts. He says that Cell processor doesn't have branch prediction and out of order instructions but forgets to add that Cell is based on RISC processor and maybe Cell doesn't need branch predictions since the penalty for missing branch is nowhere near the CISC processor like P4 with it's deep pipes

Watch the first few parts of John Carmack's QuakeCon speech on Google video. He talks quite a bit about the penalty, and considering he's pretty much THE authority on 3D engines out there, I listen to him

HeadRusch

11-21-06, 12:14 PM

It's quite obvious that developers wanted a higher storage medium based on developers comments. Multiplatform games like the Darkness having more content, etc. DOA4 being reduced in content..

I love the last line..DOA4. DOA4 is a fighting game that takes place in a limited range of space...yet "They had to remove content to fit it on a DVD9". ROFL. What that means is they had to remove hours of ridiculous CGI. And they can *keep it*.

Meanwhile Saints Row...is a whole sprawling world...no content removed there :)
Or COD or any of the other shooters...Battlefield 2.

Do you think if Battlefield 2 had a 25gb disc its maps would suddenly turn into 200 mile open warfare? Absolutely not.....

The only thing the Japanese developers want to do is load up their games with crappy CGI-Fest cutscenes. That may be super important for Japanese gamers, addicted to visual RPG's like Final Fantasy...but I dont know anyone who plays a cutscene. I play a game....and there's plenty of space on a DVD for that for years to come.

This isn't directed at you BKM, this is basically just a comment on what these Japanese dev's are saying. Of course they want more storage space....but its really more a question of what they intend to do with it. Storing uncompressed textures is one thing, but loading a disc up with nothing but CGI in HD that DOES take up a ton of space...pfeh.....who needs it.

txfilmguy

11-21-06, 12:22 PM

I think most of you are linking 7gb or even 25gb size games with fun, great, good games, when its simply not true.

Graphics and size alone are not recipes for great games. Sorry. To gamers its about playability. To people here its about on paper statistics I guess.

I'll take a Wii over either any day of the week. Although Live is just as important(to me). Because playing against friends online extends the life of a game for me by months. Heck, I still play GR2! I've owned it for ~2 years.
The "Fun" factor is subjective and irrelevant here. Some people like sports games, some RPG's, some first-person-shooters, some puzzle games. Those games all have different requirements. The point is that more space available on the disc means more options for the programmers. Imagine the Myst games crammed into an Atari 2600 cartridge. Back in the early eighties, gamers thought the 2600 cartridges had all the ROM they needed.

boarder

11-21-06, 12:25 PM

Good article except for the fact that the author tries to debunk all that Sony "propaganda" how good Cell processor is and puts his own spin or forgets other important facts. He says that Cell processor doesn't have branch prediction and out of order instructions but forgets to add that Cell is based on RISC processor and maybe Cell doesn't need branch predictions since the penalty for missing branch is nowhere near the CISC processor like P4 with it's deep pipes. And why would Cell need out of order execution? That only makes sense if processor has multiple ALU and FPU and you want to keep them all busy as much as possible. It is totally different architecture and requires different approach. And also what DVD drive can read x12 speed from inner edge of disc??? And isn't DVD reading speed for dual layer slower than for single layer? I know my DVD player is slower reading dual layer disc than single layer, so maybe that DVD is twice as fast as BD only under certain circumstances. I wish the author didn't put his own spin on it despite trying to pretend to be impartial. BTW isn't Teraflop always an indication of theoretical maximum performance, regardless of who lists the number and not some real life performance unless it says so and it was never intended to be some real life benchmark?

Actually, the author was correct. The penalty for mis-predicted branches is huge (yes even on a so called RISC processor. Note: the p4 is NOT a true CISC processor. its a RISC style core with CISC instructions decoded into smaller RISC like instructions). Out-of-order processing is applied inside a single ALU or FPU, not just across an ALU/FPU. The in-order execution only makes things worse. Any dependant instructions (an instruction that depends on a previous instructions result) stall the execution of the processor until the previous instruction completes. In an out-of-order processor, it can continue executing instructions until it hits a barrier. Even then, you only lose a small amount of cycles compared to in-order, especially when multiple dependant instructions are executed back to back. The problem with out-of-order is the increased complexity (read: increased transistor count, hence increased cost). The only way to get around in-order issues is have great code scheduling. Its hard to get good/optimal code scheduling because branches are barriers to code scheduling. Which of course makes branching even more costly. Its a very hard problem.

The main reason you can guess they dumped out-of-order execution is cost/complexity. The XBox360 has 3 cores, and adding 3 cores worth of OOE units would be extremely expensive, especially considering when they were made. The PS3 has multiple cores as well (albeit 1 main, 7 SPEs) and its all on one die; adding OOE to the Cell would have been too costly (they were designed a long time ago as well).

Also ... AFAIK DVD read speeds do not depend on the layer. There may be some readers which do, but I don't believe the Xbox 360 has any difference in read spead per layer.

ottscay

11-21-06, 12:35 PM

Actually, the author was correct. The penalty for mis-predicted branches is huge (yes even on a so called RISC processor.

Is it? Can you supply real-world numbers? I can't either, but while the netburst architecture of Intel showed a remarkable speed up when they introduced sophisticated branch-prediction, this was indeed in tandem with their longer branch lengths (as mentione above). AMD cpus continued to be far more efficient, producing higher FLOPS with lower clock frequencies, while utilizing minimal branch prediction.

So substantiate your claim with facts please?

Syaka

11-21-06, 03:27 PM

Orbberius

11-21-06, 04:05 PM

I don't see why the storage space of a DVD is a problem. Why not just use more DVDs? I'm willing to bet the house that 5 DVDs is still much cheaper than a single BluRay disc.

Is it really that much of an inconvenience to have to change the CD after a dozen hours or so? Not a $200 inconvenience, in my opinion.

Neo1965

11-21-06, 04:18 PM

I played FFVII and "put up" with the multi-disk changes, but "put up" is not the same as acceptance. Besides the sheer size of the game 'assets', it is inevitable that when game developers have bigger sandboxes to play with, they will continue to extend the barrier of what gaming is about.

Just look at the PC and what we are doing today on these boxes compared to the Wordstar and Visicalc days.

WickyWoo

11-21-06, 04:26 PM

Actually the DVD drive in the 360 has a higher data transfer rate. And with modern CPU's it's faster to decompress in the fly to ram (and remember, the 360 has more ram available than the PS3) than to pull uncompressed textures from disk. Even PC titles that store textures on the hard drive load compressed textures onto ram.

I think they have the same, it's just that 360 has a pool of 512 and PS3 is split 256 main and 256 graphics.

Could be wrong there

Frankly, things have gotten a little crazy, Medieval Total War 2 says it requires 11GB on the package (thought the uninstaller only reports 7). It comes on _2_ DVD-ROMs.

However I think it's 100% correct that the Japanese developers are whining becaue they want to toss tons of HD CG video into their games The last 5 Final Fantasies have been all about the cutscenes (and later lying about how the new system can do them in Real Time). Meanwhile most non-Japanese games do their cutscenes in engine, and even people in Japan are starting to catch onto that.

Last I checked, just for the disc it was about 30-40 cents in bulk for a DVD, and about 75 cents for Blu-Ray

Orbberius

11-21-06, 04:30 PM

I played FFVII and "put up" with the multi-disk changes, but "put up" is not the same as acceptance. Besides the sheer size of the game 'assets', it is inevitable that when game developers have bigger sandboxes to play with, they will continue to extend the barrier of what gaming is about.
A few million people "put up" with it too, making it one of the best selling games of all time, so it can't have been a very powerful deterent. Developers can extend their sandbox with multiple DVDs.

Gai

11-21-06, 05:32 PM

As a developer, let me pass along possibly the single best article on the differences between the two systems:

http://dpad.gotfrag.com/portal/story/35372/?spage=1

Also, I should point out that the standard DVD drive in the 360 is simply much faster than the 2x BD drive in the PS3.

Read on...

Then why do majority of my 360 games take the same length OR longer to load than my PS3 ones? And these aren't the ones installed to the HDD either.

briankmonkey

11-21-06, 05:41 PM

Then why do majority of my 360 games take the same length OR longer to load than my PS3 ones? And these aren't the ones installed to the HDD either.

PGR3 load times on the 360:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nv4MpY71rdg

bry223

11-21-06, 05:46 PM

There wasnt 1 360 launch title that suprassed even 5gb's in size. CoD2 was only about 3gb's and Oblivion is only about 6gb's in size.

Most PC games havent even suprassed DVD-9, all my MMO's (EQ2, WoW) only take up about 6gb's of Disc space and these are huge sprawling worlds.

What you're seeing is a bunch of japanese developers that LOVE to fill half their games with CGI/FMV cutscenes, this is why they prefer higher disc capacities.

With the compression techniques out today you dont need a next gen medium to fit most games on 1 disc, this is evident by almost every 360 game out today being around 6gb's in size.

bry223

11-21-06, 05:49 PM

PGR3 load times on the 360:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nv4MpY71rdg

I own PGR3 and the load times are not that long, they're actually very fast. What you're seeing is someone with a scratched disc or hes having problems actually connecting toe veryone else (Its P2P netcode based) increasing his load times.

You should watch videos of the single player loading lightning quick.

briankmonkey

11-21-06, 05:54 PM

I own PGR3 and the load times are not that long, they're actually very fast. What you're seeing is someone with a scratched disc or hes having problems actually connecting toe veryone else (Its P2P netcode based) increasing his load times.

You should watch videos of the single player loading lightning quick.

actually they are. I own it as well and my disc is not scratched. Some levels take even longer, some take less time to load.

Of course, Oblivion ES:IV has much longer load times for the xbox360 version and that is WITH the HDD. I haven't played the PC version to compare it with.

Tekka

11-21-06, 05:57 PM

DodgeV83

11-21-06, 06:06 PM

360 has more ram than PS3? I read this a couple of times on this forum. The 360 doesnt have more ram than the PS3.

360:
512 MB GDDR3 700 mhz

PS3:
256 MB XDR 3.2 GHZ
256 MB GDDR3 700 mhz

The 360 does seem to have higher memory-bandwith, but dont know what it means. It has something to do with the GPU.

Taken from http://dpad.gotfrag.com/portal/story/35372/?spage=1 talking about the OS

Everything comes at a cost and here are the costs for the 360.
# 32MB of the 512mb of available GDDR3 RAM
# 3% CPU time on Core1 and Core2 (nothing is reserved on Core0)

The costs for the PS3’s operating system are as follows
# 32mb of the 256mb of available GDDR3 memory off the RSX chip
# 64mb of the 256mb of available XDR memory off the Cell CPU
# 1 SPE of 7 constantly reserved
# 1 SPE of 7 able to be "taken" by the OS at a moments notice (games have to give it up if requested)

It’s highly doubtful that Blu-Ray will lead to better graphics because the PS3, due to split memory pools containing 256MB worth of GDDR3 memory and 256MB worth of XDR memory can at best dedicate 256MB worth of ram ( minus the OS ) to textures at any given moment whereas the 360 uses unified memory for a total of 512MB. That alone is a major limiting factor to Blu-Ray’s space advantage.

SteroMAdMAn

11-21-06, 07:19 PM

I don't think you've read the thread. I don't recall "most" people suggesting that, if any. That said, there are a lot of people, mainly Playstation/MS fanboys, it has to be said, that love their graphic rich/gameplay poor titles

I read the thread just fine.

Some of the people here have been claiming game developers WANT or NEED large media in order to make GREAT games. Its simply not true.

They have been making GREAT games on smaller media for YEARS. Sure, I want nice looking eye candy just as much as the next guy. But if it just turns out to be another Dragon's Lair. Why bother?

briankmonkey

11-21-06, 07:40 PM

Clearly many developers do WANT and some feel they do NEED.

Squaresoft

Toriyama and Versus producer Shinji Hashimoto defended the decision to release FFXIII on the PS3. According to Hashimoto, the development staff determined that one DVD would not be enough for the type of visual expression they were attempting to make. Toriyama noted that, regarding visual expression, the PS3's shader abilities are a big factor.

http://uk.ps3.ign.com/articles/710/710761p1.html

Ubisoft

OPM: How's your experience with the storage media of the PS3, the HDD and the BluRay disc? And do you have any comparable experience with HD-DVD technology?

M.M.: Our focus is 100% BluRay, so I cannot compare with HD-DVD. I can only say that the new BluRay disc format is truly awesome. The capacity is immense, and the Data Transfer Rate is way beyond what we are used to. And that's really important, because Data Streaming (OPMED: where the console constantly loads new data from disc) is truly the only way to push next-gen games to the limit. The Playstation 3 HDD is something that we have so far given less attention to, because it hasn't been certain all that long yet that it will be standard on every console. Decreasing load-times by copying a part of the game to the HDD is one possibility, though it doesn't matter all that much for a streaming game like ours. But there are tons of other applications, such as the possibility to as it were record your whole game, to be able to watch a replay of it later on. We intend to use the HD optimally, but how, I can't tell yet currently.

Starbreeze

"The 360 is a fantastic machine. I really really like it. The only thing, you know, that is going to cause trouble is the amount of storage space available on a DVD... thats really a problem."

http://forum.teamxbox.com/showthread.php?t=446554

Team Ninja

"The infamous Team Ninja front man has a thing or two to say about Microsoft's decision to assign standard DVD format to the Xbox 360. Limiting his development team to a measly 9GB does not sit well with Itagaki, especially when Team Ninja is looking to include any number of (MS-coveted) HD cut scenes. It's ironic that Microsoft has been the most outspoken about the "HD era", but is the least prepared for it… However, don't be surprised to see an Xbox 360.1 springing up in a year or two, complete with HD-DVD drive."

Last year, interview with Famitisu magainze, Itagaki explained his frustration with MS going with standard DVD format instead of going with HD-DVD. Since Japaneese developers love working on games in CG, now Itagaki san will face even more great challenge with xbox 360, or he can just switch over.

http://www.joystiq.com/2005/07/05/itagaki-sounds-off-on-xbox-360-limitations/

Enchant Arms

"The developer of "Enchant Arms," an upcoming role-playing game in Japan, told Gamespot.com last year it was hoping to be able to fit the game on two discs, but admitted "that's even looking grim." Any old school gamer can tell you that switching discs while playing is not a fun experience."

http://money.cnn.com/2006/01/05/commentary/game_over/column_gaming/index.htm

Vivendi Universal

"The technical requirement for game development today demands more advanced optical-disc technologies," said Michael Heilmann, chief technology officer for Vivendi Universal.
"Blu-ray offers the capacity[.]"
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4153813.stm

EA

"EA, a leading games developer and publisher, added that the delivery of high-definition games of the future was vital and Blu-ray had the capacity, functionality and interactivity needed for the kinds of projects it was planning."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4153813.stm

F1 06 developpers

Quote:
Q: Will the graphics improve from F1 05?

A: We try hard every year to improve where neccessary, but as I said before, the PS2 is running on it’s limits with the 22 cars. Graphically it is similar to F105, although we believe that the driving experience is much more rewarding with the new kerbing and the new phyiscs. The PS3, though, is something else! That machine is a Beast! We are adding an enormous amount of graphic detail to absolutely everything. To give you some idea about detail levels, one car in the PS3 game takes up the same amount of memory as all 22 cars in the PS2 version!! That’s a 22 fold increase! You can damage the sidepods on the PS3 cars and see in side the car and it has radiators and exhaust pipes and everything. It’s awesome. Gameplay-wise the PS3 also allows us to use much more accuarate collision models. In a PS2, the car has an invisible ”box” that detects collisions all the way around the car, but in the PS3, there is no single box – you can get the wheels interlocked with the other cars.

http://www.f1gamers.com/f1/apanel/view_articles.php?id=130&page=4

Ninja Theory

Well i want to ask something if i may.Do you guys use/plan to use the extra space the blu-ray provides,for the benefit of the game,or its just to early for that yet?

Quote:Originally Posted by Arfi-Gorgona-O
Guys,someone to answer my question too?At least tell me if you cant so i wont ask again,even a no comment is good enough for me

Quote:Originally Posted by Ninja Mikey
[NT-DEV] Chief Technology Ninja

Sorry Arfi - let's see if we can't get you a decent answer....

"Yes!"

There you go

Seriously though the game is gonna need a whole lot of data for all the levels and characters that we are planning. At Sony's presentation on Monday last week they had a slide showing that the storage medium for a console is usually 100 times the size of the consoles main RAM - the point being that a DVD wouldn't be able to hold enough data for a AAA quality game. So yes, we'll definitely be needing the space that's available on the BD!

http://www.ninjatheory.com/forums/showthread.php?t=111&page=3

Epic

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=125925

Unreal Tournament was 6GB compressed. Next Generation games are going to be 20GB plus, and how we're going to fit them on DVD9's I don't know, they'll probably be a few of them. On the PS3, we're going to be using the majority of the space on those Blu-ray disks. So, online isn't really the best option in some instances. Downloading 30Gb isn't really feasible.

Raistlin_HT

11-21-06, 07:46 PM

due to split memory pools containing 256MB worth of GDDR3 memory and 256MB worth of XDR memory can at best dedicate 256MB worth of ram ( minus the OS ) to textures at any given moment

I do not believe that is true.

Devs have already talked about using XDR and GDR RAM for texturing at the same time to take advantage of bandwidth.

SteroMAdMAn

11-21-06, 08:03 PM

Clearly many developers do WANT and some feel they do NEED.

And as been posted by many before me. They WANT it for some crappy HD CGI cut scenes that have nothing to do with game play. Whoop dee doo!

Raistlin_HT

11-21-06, 08:04 PM

And as been posted by many before me. They WANT it for some crappy HD CGI cut scenes that have nothing to do with game play. Whoop dee doo!

Yes ... obviously that is the only thing it will ever be used for :rolleyes:

SteroMAdMAn

11-21-06, 08:21 PM

efranzen

11-21-06, 08:32 PM

Now that the PS3 has hit the streets, has anyone figured out exactly how much space the games are using?

Raistlin_HT

11-21-06, 08:52 PM

Oh yes, we will have 200 mile long battle fronts in BF Desert Storm, and you will actually be able to count every grain of sand!

I'm truly biting my fingers with anticipation...

As said before. The compression used today can make some pretty good looking games that are still enjoyable to play. Even when using a measly 6gb of space. How do developers ever get through their day?!

And why did devs want to go beyond CD then?

While compression is a very important development tool, it isn't always the best choice for all situations. It takes processing power to decompress it.

There are plenty of reasons beyond textures and FMV to want more space. Audio is certainly an area that can be improved in games. Many previous games have had excellently orchestrated soundtracks that were marred by less than stellar audio fidelity.

Another common coding technique is data redundancy. DVD seek-time is terrible. To help with load times, it is not uncommon to repeat certain portions of the game data so as to reduce loading.

etc.

I'm not saying that they won't make SOME good games with the extra space. But I doubt that everything on a 50gb BD disc will be as spectacular as developers say it would be if they had it. I wonder if they will even make games with truly next gen game play if all they are worrying about is filling space and if the sweat beads are rolling just right. Obviously some here are more interested in looking at games than actually playing them. But I guess I need to remember where I'm at! :o

I agree that dual-layered BD's will not be needed often. But to say that devs will not not find a good use for more than 7GB (that is the usable amount for a 360 game) this gen seems more than a little short-sighted.

Next gen games mean more than good looks IMO. Its about playing a game in a way I have never played it before. At least thats my idea of next gen games. These are just polished, old, recycled games with new or revamped story lines that we have been playing for years.

I'm not sure why you would think that the space will only be used for graphics. That is certainly not the only thing they can take advantage of the extra storage for.

Raistlin_HT

11-21-06, 08:57 PM

Now that the PS3 has hit the streets, has anyone figured out exactly how much space the games are using?

I'm not sure that that info is commonly released.

I believe Resistance : FoM is using over 16GB though.

SteroMAdMAn

11-21-06, 09:04 PM

I agree that dual-layered BD's will not be needed often. But to say that devs will not not find a good use for more than 7GB (that is the usable amount for a 360 game) this gen seems more than a little short-sighted.

I'm not sure why you would think that the space will only be used for graphics. That is certainly not the only thing they can take advantage of the extra storage for.

I can see a dual layer BD being used in a game such as GTA to make the city more life like and add all the little details that you would see in a real city show up. But that is more of just filler.

But for sports games, I mean unless they wanted to fully try and recreate every major venue a game is held. Which is just filler again and not really necessary for game play. But cool none the less.

I don't really see much more reasons for it. Other than using for extremely detailed backgrounds. Some FPS would be nice like Ghost Recon or what ever.

Raistlin_HT

11-21-06, 09:09 PM

I can see a dual layer BD being used in a game such as GTA to make the city more life like and add all the little details that you would see in a real city show up. But that is more of just filler.

But for sports games, I mean unless they wanted to fully try and recreate every major venue a game is held. Which is just filler again and not really necessary for game play. But cool none the less.

I don't really see much more reasons for it. Other than using for extremely detailed backgrounds. Some FPS would be nice like Ghost Recon or what ever.

You are not a software engineer I take it?

You seem to have completely missed some of the non-graphics points I alluded to. There are plenty of others (including several I'm sure I'm not privy to since I don't work on games) ... but I don't want to turn this into a tech discussion.

SteroMAdMAn

11-21-06, 09:38 PM

Well, since you seem to have all of the answers. Please enlighten me on why a game would need 50gb? What else besides larger maps, detailed background graphics and cut scene CGI movies.

DodgeV83

11-21-06, 09:40 PM

I do not believe that is true.

Devs have already talked about using XDR and GDR RAM for texturing at the same time to take advantage of bandwidth.

Taken from the same article:

There are however methods to gain use of more ram as from e-mail exchanges with developers I found out that it’s possible for the PS3’s GPU (RSX) to texture from the XDR, but there is a penalty for texturing from the XDR ram because in order to do so it would need to travel over the cell’s FlexiO , which some developers have actually done. There is also another way of going about doing this which is by copying from the XDR to the GDDR3 memory kind of like a fast cache and just proceed to stream in the content. Even with such methods available, the Xbox 360 just has more memory to work with, especially when you factor in the costs associated with running the operating systems for both consoles which I’ll get into later.

I can see a dual layer BD being used in a game such as GTA to make the city more life like and add all the little details that you would see in a real city show up. But that is more of just filler.

But for sports games, I mean unless they wanted to fully try and recreate every major venue a game is held. Which is just filler again and not really necessary for game play. But cool none the less.

I don't really see much more reasons for it. Other than using for extremely detailed backgrounds. Some FPS would be nice like Ghost Recon or what ever.

Just because it can fit on a disc doesn't mean the console can display it all.

Taken from the article again:

One thing that escapes most people is that anything that makes it into a game level is taking up space in memory. Now if the PS3 had a gigabyte maybe even 2 gigs worth of ram, for example, then in that case Blu-Ray would end up being a major factor between the 2 machines, but as of now it seems more like a luxury or convenience rather than a necessity.

Raistlin_HT

11-21-06, 09:54 PM

Taken from the same article:

There are however methods to gain use of more ram as from e-mail exchanges with developers I found out that it’s possible for the PS3’s GPU (RSX) to texture from the XDR, but there is a penalty for texturing from the XDR ram because in order to do so it would need to travel over the cell’s FlexiO , which some developers have actually done. There is also another way of going about doing this which is by copying from the XDR to the GDDR3 memory kind of like a fast cache and just proceed to stream in the content. Even with such methods available, the Xbox 360 just has more memory to work with, especially when you factor in the costs associated with running the operating systems for both consoles which I’ll get into later.

That doesn't say you can't use both banks at the same time, I'm not sure where you are getting that impression.

Just because it can fit on a disc doesn't mean the console can display it all.

Taken from the article again:

One thing that escapes most people is that anything that makes it into a game level is taking up space in memory. Now if the PS3 had a gigabyte maybe even 2 gigs worth of ram, for example, then in that case Blu-Ray would end up being a major factor between the 2 machines, but as of now it seems more like a luxury or convenience rather than a necessity.

Something not mentioned in that article is that the 360 has the worst data capacity versus RAM ratio of any modern console (by SEVERAL times).

Interestingly, the PS3's is quite near the norm. While it is possible all previous consoles were 'wrong' ... I am not convinced. Some devs have pointed out this same ratio as being a bit ... off.

Neo1965

11-21-06, 11:13 PM

A few million people "put up" with it too, making it one of the best selling games of all time, so it can't have been a very powerful deterent. Developers can extend their sandbox with multiple DVDs.
If Man did not invent wheel, then walking seems like a good idea, but once the wheel shows up, then new possibilities open up too, meaning the wheel allows you to travel longer distance in the same time, or spend less time travelling the same distance.

Given the choice, we won't want to spend all our time walking, but unless a better way shows up, you just do what it takes to get to where you want to go.

Case in point is the game LOTR Battle for Middle Earth II, I had the choice of PC at $10 less than the 360. 360 was a DVD, PC was CDrom(s)(?) I picked the DVD version (360), even though this game turned out to be better playable on a PC with a kbd. That was a game that should have had better cut scenes....

yoyoniner

11-22-06, 11:32 AM

Figured some people in this thread would enjoy this latest bit of news:

-

http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/747/747023p1.html

"Blue Dragon ships on three DVDs, making it bigger than any Xbox 360 title to date. According to Sakaguchi, the game required compression technology to fit onto the three disks. In uncompressed form, the game's data takes up over 30 Gigs of space!"

-

ARPRINCE

11-22-06, 12:48 PM

The OP has been PWNED. SO TRUE! :D

Raistlin_HT

11-22-06, 12:52 PM

SteroMAdMAn

11-22-06, 05:31 PM

And yet it is somehow still made for the 360 without using a 50gb storage medium....

briankmonkey

11-22-06, 05:47 PM

ninjanki

11-22-06, 05:52 PM

Sure, in 3 disks. And that is a second generation game for the console.

Fact is: Developers don't need to like or hate the disc format choices Sony made. Only the consumers(who pay for it) and Sony(who takes the risk) should worry about that. There is no question that, for anyone wanting a more integrated Ht system, the PS3 is an even better hit than the x360. As a video-game, the discussion is totally different though. But that's another on forum, right?

Allan

SteroMAdMAn

11-22-06, 06:59 PM

Well there goes the theory that all 360 games would fit on one DVD due to magical compression techniques.

I'm pretty sure 360/Wii owners aren't as worried about this as the PS3 fan boi's are.

So far there are PLENTY of good games on the 360 AND even a few right now on the Wii. All on one disc much smaller than the SUPERIOR BD[/sarc]! A game with multiple discs, as long as it is FUN to play will have no problem selling :)

I don't see anything now or in the near future that leads me to believe BD is the superior format for making FUN/GOOD games. Though some try real hard to make that connection it seems.

Maybe next summer you guys can bump this thread and show us something worth bragging about :cool:

briankmonkey

11-22-06, 07:10 PM

I'm pretty sure 360/Wii owners aren't as worried about this as the PS3 fan boi's are.

So far there are PLENTY of good games on the 360 AND even a few right now on the Wii. All on one disc much smaller than the SUPERIOR BD[/sarc]! A game with multiple discs, as long as it is FUN to play will have no problem selling :)

I don't see anything now or in the near future that leads me to believe BD is the superior format for making FUN/GOOD games. Though some try real hard to make that connection it seems.

Maybe next summer you guys can bump this thread and show us something worth bragging about :cool:

There really is no need to get defensive. The article didn't say the game wouldn't sell if it were on multiple discs. In fact they plan on making a sequel. I bet the game will do quite well.

Blu-ray though is indeed far superior to DVD.

txfilmguy

11-22-06, 07:11 PM

This thread should have been moved to a gamig forum a long time ago.

SteroMAdMAn

11-22-06, 08:59 PM

There really is no need to get defensive. The article didn't say the game wouldn't sell if it were on multiple discs. In fact they plan on making a sequel. I bet the game will do quite well.

Blu-ray though is indeed far superior to DVD.

Who's defensive? Just pointing out the obvious.

BD>DVD

As a storage format? I don't think anyone would disagree.

As a gaming media? Its not going to break MS or Nintendo for not using BD or even HD-DVD. So no, its necessarily superior in a gaming platform. Convenient? Sure. Necessity? No.

Forceflow

11-22-06, 09:07 PM

Name any gamer that is craps on games that are on multiple discs? Its like saying people refrained from buying LOTR:EEs because the movie was spread over 2 discs... :rolleyes:

Its just stupid to assume that multiple discs are a taboo in gaming. Many RPGs will require many discs and users like that in linear RPGs. Having 1 disc would be nice, but its certainly not something to brag about. Brag about the gameplay and the graphics. In a couple months, I doubt this will be as big of an issue.

Now I'm not knocking BD for getting a larger capacity disc, but really this is a pointless discussion. Both are great consoles, I think having the BD drive in the PS3 only encourages overuse and ultimately issues from that use (nothing lasts forever, most especially blue laser disc drives that are being purchased and assembled in a break-neck rushed pace). If I was lucky enough to have a PS3, I wouldn't use it for BD playback if I was concerned about gaming on it long term. The argument about buying another if it breaks is just silly.

HeadRusch

11-22-06, 09:19 PM

briankmonkey

11-22-06, 09:22 PM

Only if they do something useful with the space.

The extra Headroom is therr if they need it, probably why many developers have stated they want it. Much better than as Itagaki says, having to keep an eye on space.

HeadRusch

11-22-06, 09:37 PM

The extra Headroom is therr if they need it, probably why many developers have stated they want it. Much better than as Itagaki says, having to keep an eye on space.

Agreed, but until we see something done with that space....its just a great big empty shopping cart waiting to be filled up.

Since I *loathe* RPG's laden with CGI cut-scenes, and since those have primarily been the #1 culprit in space-hogging games, I find it hard to get excited about the BD/HD/DVD thing as it pertains to gaming.

The more powerful systems become, the less need there is for pre-rendered environments. Since Pre-rendered environments were what took up all that space causing games like Resident Evil and FF to take up 2, 3, 4 CD's, maybe its a big moot point.

But man i STILL get a chuckle out of that Japanese developer doing DoA 4 saying they had to take a bunch of stuff out to fit it on a DVD. Who the hell is he kidding.....that game hasn't changed since it was out on CD on the PS1 :D
Higher poly models (which, to me, dont look any better than they did on the PS2) and more detailed textures (which are arleady detailed enouhg IMHO).....that slays me, it just slays me.

Now you hear RockStar saying "they need more space to do a more detailed city", then I jump on the bandwagon.

PS: I have no qualms at all about a game coming out on HD and requiring the HD-DVD add on to play it for the 360......there were plenty of games that wouldn't run on older systems without an add-on, this should be no different if the need was so paramount.

avshaman

11-23-06, 10:43 AM

I have been playing games for over 20 years and I think I have a pretty good finger on the pulse of the gaming community. Of course better graphics does not equal a better game but it is a very important ingredient that I think any gamer if they are honest with themselves would have to agree with. I am just astonished some people here in a HD video forum would actually question the value of having better visuals. I mean if it is so important to movies that it warrants time spent in forums discussing the two competing next-gen HD formats it must be pretty important. Why should graphical fidelity be any less important for gamers? Of course, having a more pristine presentation does not automatically make a bad movie good but it sure does make a good movie better, doesn't it. The same thing is true of games. But extra processing power and even the medium's storage space have important roles to play in many other areas of a game's presentation.

For example, as already mentioned the PS3 simply has more potential for higher quality sound. More storage space allows for less compressed audio just as it does in the HD DVD and Blu-ray formats for movies. It also allows for less compression of game data which means less processing used up for decoding and more that can be used for other game-related operations.
And just because some of you might pretend to see no advantage to having a game fit all on one disc, the advantage is undeniable. If this wasn't true we wouldn't be worrying about a format war right now because we would all be watching our HD movies played back from sets of 6 standard dvd discs. Now I realize that there are significant differences between games and movies but don't assume that gamers wouldn't prefer a more seamless experience over a more fragmented one.
Also, just because you don't prefer Japanese made games heavy with CG cut scenes does not mean that other gamers do not. I for one enjoy both approaches. I like the variety. Games that use the game's engine to render the cut scene have the benefit of being more seamless and perhaps a bit less jarring but they are never as beautiful. Gears of War's cutscenes, for example, have noticeable slowdown and the animations are not nearly as smooth as you would see in a traditional CG cutscene since all the geomety, textures, etc are being rendered in real-time. CG cutscenes on the other hand have the potential to be as beautiful as any full length CG feature film and they are sometimes appreciated as a sort of special reward for achieving certain things within the game world. These games can be seen as a kind of hybrid between gamplay and movies.
Like I said, I enjoy both approaches. But CG laden games with HD fidelity will be limited on the 360 and not nearly so much so on the PS3.

I would also like to point out that Gears of War is a short game (although a very beautiful and wickedly fun game) and that if you were to try to create a game of that caliber that was even a third longer it would no longer fit on a single dvd. I played the second half of that game through to the end in one sitting and I can tell you that I would have been annoyed if I would have been required to stop to switch to another disc, just as I am when I have to do so for a movie. Is it the end of the world? No. But it certainly is a benefit not to have to do that.

The PS3 and Xbox 360 are very capable game systems and I am genuinely excited about the future of both systems. It will be interesting to see the roles that each of them will play in how the HD DVD/Blu-ray format war developes.

William Mapstone

11-23-06, 11:20 AM

The only reason the xbox360 doesn't have a next generation drive for games, is because they wanted a head start this generation. On the other side of the coin, Sony made the decision to delay the PS3 untill next generation drives are available. If the xbox360 was released this Fall, I am pretty confident that MS would of thrown a HD-DVD drive in their for gaming. You can argue that Sony made the wrong business decision in delaying the PS3 for the BD drive(gave MS a year head start), but to argue that a BD drive won't be an excellent tool for developers is rediculous.

ZenMono

11-23-06, 05:26 PM

The added HD video in games is a big plus for me. I bought NinetyNine Nights only because of the added HD video footage between levels. I saw the video running in the store and that was an impulse buy. The rest of the game blows.

The lord of the rings middle earth II games was terrible. They still use still jpegs that are badly drawn and that ruined the game for me. I stopped playing after a few levels because of that. EA really should spend some money and invest in some 3D renderering apps for their video segment.

SteroMAdMAn

11-24-06, 09:39 PM

Guys, I don't think anyone is saying games in HD isn't nice. But if you are a real GAMER. Then you know there is more to this NEXT generation game play that just purdy graphics.

I think the Wii has brought the real next gen in game play, more so than the PS3. Xbox has at least brought console gaming into the online world with a REAL, USABLE online network that is global through out its whole gaming library.

PS3 has tried(miserably) to capture the magic of the Wii controler. PS3 has also tried(again, miserably) to create an online environment like Xbox Live.

Sony has been working on this thing for years and they just half assed everything. Even the launch titles are horrid. I mean, the developers have had a whole extra year to get their tweaking set straight. Yet all of its games are tanking compared to the 360 versions. Its like the saying goes "jack of all trades, master of none". With the only exceptions being the audio output. Which the gen pop could care less about.

Hell, this gaming machine of the HD era can't even play games in 1080i on most CRT HDTV's and won't display BD correctly on 95% of the LCD, DLP, Plasma and LCoS HDTV's out there. Sony, a HDTV manufacturer should have gotten this straight before a major release.

I mean, we all know MS is notorious for rushing beta products to the people first, and fixing it later. But Sony has really screwed the pooch on this.

Up untill today I was what could be considered, neutral. I didn't own either 3 machines. But, after hearing about what a craptacular product the PS3 is(save for audio). ALOT of Sony "fanboi's" have even stated how happy they are with the 360 which to me, says something. So, I bought a 360 this afternoon @ Target with a copy of GRAW for free. Would have been a tough call if the Wii would have been available. But I'm a huge Ghost Recon fan and this was just too good to pass up.

Hmerly

11-24-06, 10:19 PM

Except, if you wanted a more detailed city, with more life then you have to render it with the PS3's GPU and put it into memory on the PS3's 256mb (accessing the other 256 mb of memory in the PS3 is unacceptably slow in a high speed environment like real time rendering), and no matter how much space you had on your 50GB Blu-Ray, you cannot display it on your PS3 at reasonable framerates because you run out of room in memory. That is why this argument that more disc space = better graphics is debunked. You can put all the high res textures on your blu-ray you want, but you can't display it. If you want to put a texture that is very high quality, and is, lets say 100mb, how many of them can you fit into vid ram? Not a whole lot, unless you do some major compressing, but then that defeats the purpose doesn't it? Please stop thinking more disc space = better graphics. You are limited by memory on the system as well as what the GPU can process. It is pretty much recognized that the 360's unified architecture is a better and more advanced and efficient design, and is what the video industry is headed towards. Just look at the nVidia 8800, it also uses this unified architecture and is being promoted as the next thing by the same people who made the GPU on the PS3 using their older designs.

I can see a dual layer BD being used in a game such as GTA to make the city more life like and add all the little details that you would see in a real city show up. But that is more of just filler.

But for sports games, I mean unless they wanted to fully try and recreate every major venue a game is held. Which is just filler again and not really necessary for game play. But cool none the less.

I don't really see much more reasons for it. Other than using for extremely detailed backgrounds. Some FPS would be nice like Ghost Recon or what ever.

SteroMAdMAn

01-18-07, 10:33 AM

Oh whats this?

http://www.digitaldisplacement.com/?p=2208

GameSetWatch has some interesting quotes from Oblivion producer Todd Howard talking about porting the game to the PS3 and, more interestingly, to Blu-ray. During the leadup to the PS3 launch many pundits and fanbois opined on the speeds of DVD vs. Blu-ray, most saying convincingly one was vastly superior to the other. When it comes to speed, at least, it's clear now that Blu-ray is the loser, and for gaming applications at least, that speed is apparently killing the size advantage as well.

According to Howard, Blu-ray is slow, and to make up for that they're forced to duplicate large portions of data across the disc to ensure that it can be streamed all sequential like, rather than darting around seeking. Here's what he had to say:

Drive speed matters more to me [than capacity], and Blu-ray is slower…People have done this on other platforms before for the same reasons - particularly the PSP, with its horrible UMD seek times. However, it does rather negate the whole increased storage capacity advantage.

Of course another option would be to install the game to the HDD like Ridge Racer 7 does, but with Ridge Racer 7 taking up 5 gigs of disk space (after a 9 minute install), if every game opts into this sort of scheme even the 60 gig drive will be quickly full.

http://www.gamesetwatch.com/2007/01/ps3_oblivion_seeing_double_to.php

Having just got the newest February 2007 issue of EGM (you guys should subscribe and keep print alive, it's wholesome and woody!), perhaps the most interesting tidbit is hidden in the middle of a story about Blu-ray vs. HD-DVD. Specifically, it comes from Todd Howard, talking about the PlayStation 3 version of Oblivion.

Howard notes: "Drive speed matters more to me [than capacity], and Blu-ray is slower", with EGM revealing that "the PS3 Oblivion team compensated for the slower drive by duplicating data across the Blu-ray disc, making it faster to find and load."

Well, I say ugh - that sounds like a terrible kludge to have to do. What happens if you don't have your pieces of data correctly sync-ed and one of them is an old version of an object/piece of code and one is a newer version? Unless this was well-dealt with, it could lead to some nasty issues, I'd imagine.

OK, so apart from you wags who are now proclaiming: 'So _that's_ what the Blu-ray's extra disc capacity is used for!', it's worth mentioning that Oblivion for PS3 has now been pushed out to March 2007, even though it was officially going to be a launch title until November 8th or so of last year - that is to say, very close to the PS3 launch date.

Not sure if this was unfortunate planning on Bethesda's part or technical difficulties, but I noticed a bunch of two-page adverts for Oblivion, specifically mentioning the PS3 version, in the holiday issues of Official PlayStation Magazine and EGM - so I'm guessing that marketing was booked before the game was pushed back. Ouch. Still, I imagine that the final product will be up to scratch.

[UPDATE: A perceptive comment from 'Marvin' is worth reprinting: "You'd automate the duplication at the image creation stage to avoid any stale data problems. People have done this on other platforms before for the same reasons - particularly the PSP, with its horrible UMD seek times. However, it does rather negate the whole increased storage capacity advantage."

Duplicate data stored on the disk. Hmm, sounds like a great reason to have 50g of space. ;)

apodaca

01-18-07, 01:11 PM

All I want is another Metal GEar Solid Soap Opera with 80% cut scenes and stupid dialog and 20% action. YEah! CAnt wait! Serously people this was so annoying on MGS that I stopped playing the series entirely and I actually prefered Syphon Filter to this video-opera. I seriously hope developers dont do the same given all the extra storage.

A benefit I do see for larger storage is to offer bonus content or previous versions of games which were too primitive for older game consoles. For example the Tomb Raider series in the best quality available all inone disc. OR All of the final fantasy games in one disk etc. Things like this I would go for but not more soap opera stuff. How about Half Life 2 included in all its 1080p glory along with Half Life 3. I dont think DVD9 could do it in one disc but then again disks are so cheap they could do it in two.....

pcrx

01-18-07, 01:17 PM

This will become apparent in short order by anyone who follows the sales trends of the PS3. I will go so far as to say that rather than the Playstation 3 being the savior of Blu Ray, That Blu Ray will be what ultimately brought down the Playstation as the dominant gaming platform.

Big ouch to Sony's bottom line.

I had to revive this quote here because alas it is indeed coming true now as sales flater...

pcrx

01-18-07, 01:30 PM

I would also like to point out that Gears of War is a short game (although a very beautiful and wickedly fun game) and that if you were to try to create a game of that caliber that was even a third longer it would no longer fit on a single dvd. I played the second half of that game through to the end in one sitting and I can tell you that I would have been annoyed if I would have been required to stop to switch to another disc, just as I am when I have to do so for a movie. Is it the end of the world? No. But it certainly is a benefit not to have to do that.

GOW is a sweeet gaming experience on the 360. LIVE makes it SWEETER. COD2 the same. Neither are "long" games like say Oblivion, but for todays market I think they are spot on for time/game experience. I don't have all day for weeks on end to play a 200 hour version of GOW on the PS3 if there even was one. Plus, as a developer, why in the HELL would you want to do that anyway?? Why not release shorter games and then have part 2 come out ...then part 3 - each better than the last? Sell more copies. More merchandising. The buzz gets around...AGAIN and ahain and again with each release....

Ask yourself this: Would Halo been better profit wise for Bungie if it was Halo 1,2 AND 3 all in one sale - or better broken up and allowing for the games to get better every release gameplay-wise and graphics-wise? Seems like most gamers would get tired really quick if every game labored on forever simply because "it can."

Would bands sell more albums if they can have disk space in BD to allow for 2 hour plus long songs?

As far as including the BD drive - trojan horse...plain and simple. And just as a lot of folks don't like it when their dog drags a dead squirrel into the house...a lot of gamers don't like having to drag the PS3's (dead) trojan horse BD into their home.

Dixie Ruptin

01-18-07, 01:30 PM

hi to all you hd-dvd fans bumping ancient threads bashing ps3 in a blu-ray forum. why isnt this moved to the gaming forum admins?

inkubus

01-18-07, 01:50 PM

It's games require 25 gb? Wow, are you a developer? Xbox 360 Gears of War fits fine on a 9gb dvd disk, and it is definately next gen with mindblowing graphics.

Blue Dragon requires 3x 9GB DVD.... so yes it matters

schticker

01-18-07, 02:05 PM

I do wish the MS went with a next gen storage medium for gaming on the 360, just like Itagaki and other 360 developers wanted.

Tell me that's it's more involved than a flash update for the 360 to enable the external drive to play "bigger games", and I'll worry about the semantics.

It's feasible to offer certain games in an HD-DVD format. Consumers will understand if the game concept is too large to release on DV9, and if the game is announced far enough in advance, will not get much backlash. If the game is that good, trust that drives will be sold to play it with little complaint. If the game isn't that good, no one will care anyway.

The financial risk lies with MS and the game developers to make this work, not the end user. what I mean by that is that if MS and friends do a release like that incorrectly, financially it will be more of an impact (along with the relationship to the developer) than the end-user.

To MS' credit, at least they aren't unnecessarily releasing games on next-gen media to force the purchase of next-gen playback devices for ulterior motives.

schticker

01-18-07, 02:06 PM

Blue Dragon requires 3x 9GB DVD.... so yes it matters

To the Japanese market.

Neo1965

01-18-07, 02:06 PM

It wasn't that long ago when games were released on floppies. I guess back then, floppies were good enough.

XBOX and XBOX360 both use the same DVD drive and DVD content. The PC side otoh, are already exploring the HDDVD and BD side of optical storage.

The BD choice for PS3 makes a lot of sense if you look at the historical context.

PS - CDrom
PS2 - DVDrom
PS3 - BDrom

In each generation, they pushed the barrier out a bit. I don't understand what people have against new storage technologies. Did the Luddites suddenly take over the gaming world recently?

First it was, no, HDMI is not needed, VGA is good enough. Now MSFT includes HDMI in the new 360.

What will people talk about when more of the BlueDragons type of games get released and HD DVD drives are included in 2008's 360?

schticker

01-18-07, 02:17 PM

GOW is a sweeet gaming experience on the 360. LIVE makes it SWEETER. COD2 the same. Neither are "long" games like say Oblivion, but for todays market I think they are spot on for time/game experience. I don't have all day for weeks on end to play a 200 hour version of GOW on the PS3 if there even was one.

This is a core difference between the Japanese and American markets that Sony has failed to grasp. Realize that MS cares a little less about that dichotomy anyway, which is why you see "quick fix" games like FPS and sports titles dominate on the 360, and wander-games more prominent on the PS3, certain sandbox titles excluded of course.

Plus, as a developer, why in the HELL would you want to do that anyway?? Why not release shorter games and then have part 2 come out ...then part 3 - each better than the last? Sell more copies. More merchandising. The buzz gets around...AGAIN and ahain and again with each release....

Yep. And as long as each edition is satisfying (COD franchise comes to mind), nobody cares. They look forward to each version, instead of resenting it. So the strategy is win-win.

As far as including the BD drive - trojan horse...plain and simple. And just as a lot of folks don't like it when their dog drags a dead squirrel into the house...a lot of gamers don't like having to drag the PS3's (dead) trojan horse BD into their home.

Dead squirrel FTW