To those who say bluray isn't necessary

[QUOTE="HuusAsking"]How many console gamers are out there? They'd better be somewhere in the 400 million range. Also consider that, outside of Japan and the US, PC is king. I mean, in South Korea, it's a professional sport, for goodness sakes. And PS. WoW is as far from casual as The Sims is from hardcore. Ask anyone who's tried to get far in Wrath of the Lich King.lolfaqs

And you have a source for that 400 million figure? WoW is a casual MMO. I played it for 4 years myself before I finally quit. If you don't think WoW attracted casuals, you're mistaken. That's why it has such low system requirements as well.

Also, South Korea is a very small country. I should know having been born there.

[QUOTE="lolfaqs"][QUOTE="HuusAsking"]How many console gamers are out there? They'd better be somewhere in the 400 million range. Also consider that, outside of Japan and the US, PC is king. I mean, in South Korea, it's a professional sport, for goodness sakes. And PS. WoW is as far from casual as The Sims is from hardcore. Ask anyone who's tried to get far in Wrath of the Lich King.HuusAsking

And you have a source for that 400 million figure? WoW is a casual MMO. I played it for 4 years myself before I finally quit. If you don't think WoW attracted casuals, you're mistaken. That's why it has such low system requirements as well.

Also, South Korea is a very small country. I should know having been born there.

Ah, the good old PCGA. The "non-profit" organization whose board members include corporate officers from Microsoft, Epic, Intel, NVIDIA, Del/Alienware, AMD, Antec, Capcom, Logitech, Acer/Gateway, and more. If you're going to cite data, at least get it from a source that isn't biased.

[QUOTE="HuusAsking"][QUOTE="lolfaqs"]

And you have a source for that 400 million figure? WoW is a casual MMO. I played it for 4 years myself before I finally quit. If you don't think WoW attracted casuals, you're mistaken. That's why it has such low system requirements as well.

Also, South Korea is a very small country. I should know having been born there.

lolfaqs

Ah, the good old PCGA. The "non-profit" organization whose board members include corporate officers from Microsoft, Epic, Intel, NVIDIA, Del/Alienware, AMD, Antec, Capcom, Logitech, Acer/Gateway, and more. If you're going to cite data, at least get it from a source that isn't biased.

Excuse me, but Microsoft, AMD, and nVidia hold interests in both PCs and consoles. Logitech makes console accessories, and Epic and Capcom make console games. And I think the main speaker of that stat was Microsoft. Now why would they give a number like that when they're one of the console makers? It'd be like shooting yourself in the foot.HuusAsking

And guess where they make the bulk of their profits. In 2008, Microsoft made about 16 billion dollars. Of that amount, only about 3 billion dollars came from its Entertainment and Devices Division (EDD). EDD is comprised of 5 Microsoft businesses including Xbox, Zune, MSNBC, etc. So guess how much revenue the Xbox generates as a percentage of Microsoft's total revenue.

[QUOTE="darkguy_101"][QUOTE="SpruceCaboose"] So....make consoles gimped PCs?SpruceCaboose

They have always been gimped PCs.

Blu ray is VERY handy for large games, Hideo Kojima states that MGS4 takes up a really large protion of the BD discs they put it on, and considering how Rage (an FPS by id) needs 3 disks on 360 to work at the same level, blu ray is the way to go, especially if you are against digital distribution. Just as well, I've never once had a scratch or disc read related problem on blu-ray. Also, I do believe that the 360 unwilling to use any high storage type discs is holding us all down.

http://kotaku.com/5051504/id-try-to-explain-away-rage-360-cuts

Please 360, get blu ray, or at least make the 720 run on hd dvd discs (even though it will be useless for movies and has less storage than blu-ray). Please, do it for the children. Do it for me.

Blu ray is VERY handy for large games, Hideo Kojima states that MGS4 takes up a really large protion of the BD discs they put it on, and considering how Rage (an FPS by id) needs 3 disks on 360 to work at the same level, blu ray is the way to go, especially if you are against digital distribution. Just as well, I've never once had a scratch or disc read related problem on blu-ray. Also, I do believe that the 360 unwilling to use any high storage type discs is holding us all down.

http://kotaku.com/5051504/id-try-to-explain-away-rage-360-cuts

Please 360, get blu ray, or at least make the 720 run on hd dvd discs (even though it will be useless for movies and has less storage than blu-ray). Please, do it for the children. Do it for me.

Everything you say is true... and it still doesn't make bluray necessary this gen. At all.dsmccracken

Not everyone shares your sentiment.

John Carmack, game programmer and co-founder of id Software, has brought this up many times relating to his upcoming title, Rage. He has stated that in orderto put the game onto the Xbox 360 and have it look identical to the PlayStation 3 version, they would need to put it on about four discs which would cost them a lot in production costs. He also stated that if Microsoft does not allow for them to put this game on four discs without charging them extra, he will have to compress the game massively to have it fit on two discs degrading the visuals of the game.Developers will adopt Blu-ray because of advantages in size, as well as price. Who would not want to make a larger, cheaper game?

[QUOTE="dsmccracken"]Everything you say is true... and it still doesn't make bluray necessary this gen. At all.lolfaqs

Not everyone shares your sentiment.

John Carmack, game programmer and co-founder of id Software, has brought this up many times relating to his upcoming title, Rage. He has stated that in orderto put the game onto the Xbox 360 and have it look identical to the PlayStation 3 version, they would need to put it on about four discs which would cost them a lot in production costs. He also stated that if Microsoft does not allow for them to put this game on four discs without charging them extra, he will have to compress the game massively to have it fit on two discs degrading the visuals of the game.Developers will adopt Blu-ray because of advantages in size, as well as price. Who would not want to make a larger, cheaper game?

[QUOTE="LosDaddie"]

[QUOTE="HuusAsking"]Because I'm not talking about the quality of the graphics...simply the quantity. What if it was more than just Liberty City. What if they added an analogue to Long Island and more of upper Jersey? Since the PS3 can do GTA4, the throughput is already there. It's simply a matter of bulk, which bandwidth would not affect at all. I mean, if Hideo Kojima can pack MGS4 with high-test audio data and whatnot, it's almost certain someone's gonna try one of my two scenarios. LBP already comes close to the second idea (huge asset assortment).HuusAsking

What do you mean "quantity" ? :|

And yes, handling "bulk" has everything to do with bandwidth.

You sound like you know nothing about gaem development. Blu-ray is just a storage medium. It doesn't affect a game's size.

Nothing you said makes any sense.

Sure a game could be created that is 4x-5x larger than Liberty City and easily be stored on blu-ray. That's obvious and didn't need to be said.

The crucial part you seem to be missing is that for all this large Liberty City to be accessible at any time (like the "real" LC is in GTA IV), then it still has to fit in the PS3's 500MB of RAM. Game development is all about compromise. For example, Rockstar had to run the PS3 version of GTA IV at a sub-HD resolution in order to achieve the type of game they wanted (ie. a compromise).

So yes, you're correct. A game with a world 5x larger than LC could be made only for the PS3. But anyone with game development knowledge will tell you said game won't look anything like GTA IV.

[QUOTE="HuusAsking"][QUOTE="LosDaddie"]

What do you mean "quantity" ? :|

And yes, handling "bulk" has everything to do with bandwidth.

You sound like you know nothing about gaem development. Blu-ray is just a storage medium. It doesn't affect a game's size.

LosDaddie

Nothing you said makes any sense.

Sure a game could be created that is 4x-5x larger than Liberty City and easily be stored on blu-ray. That's obvious and didn't need to be said.

The crucial part you seem to be missing is that for all this large Liberty City to be accessible at any time (like the "real" LC is in GTA IV), then it still has to fit in the PS3's 500MB of RAM. Game development is all about compromise. For example, Rockstar had to run the PS3 version of GTA IV at a sub-HD resolution in order to achieve the type of game they wanted (ie. a compromise).

So yes, you're correct. A game with a world 5x larger than LC could be made only for the PS3. But anyone with game development knowledge will tell you said game won't look anything like GTA IV.

[QUOTE="lolfaqs"]

[QUOTE="dsmccracken"]Everything you say is true... and it still doesn't make bluray necessary this gen. At all.dsmccracken

Not everyone shares your sentiment.

John Carmack, game programmer and co-founder of id Software, has brought this up many times relating to his upcoming title, Rage. He has stated that in orderto put the game onto the Xbox 360 and have it look identical to the PlayStation 3 version, they would need to put it on about four discs which would cost them a lot in production costs. He also stated that if Microsoft does not allow for them to put this game on four discs without charging them extra, he will have to compress the game massively to have it fit on two discs degrading the visuals of the game.Developers will adopt Blu-ray because of advantages in size, as well as price. Who would not want to make a larger, cheaper game?

If I want to watch BluRay, I'll just get a Bluray player.:?awmannn

I laughed so hard I violently expelled all fluids within my body. Movies are one of the worst ways I think to put blu ray to use since it just makes the movie look better, but doesn't really add to the movie. Games on the other hand, can be amazing. MGS4 wouldn't have been the great game it was without blu ray (taking up over 44g of disc space), and the makers of Uncharted 2 say that they can use the disc to do things that weren't possible with normal discs, adding a wider range of motions and stating the game would have absolutely 0 loading times.

who ever thinks blueray is not important for games and i see that there is alot who do

are wrong

fact.

like dvds an improvement upon cd media, cds were just fine for games untill nextgen systems (ps2,xbox) wich games were bigger in size and thus required a bigger medium of storage

just think were going through another change again ,,blue ray which may not be used to its fullest right now, will be in the near future

[QUOTE="dsmccracken"][QUOTE="lolfaqs"]

Not everyone shares your sentiment.

http://www.thegameraccess.com/2009/02/should-360-go-blu/

Rockstar has stated that they will not be able to pull off the next Grand Theft Auto due to the struggles with Grand Theft Auto IV (source) on a disc that holds only 8.54 GBcompared to a Blu-ray that is currently holding 50 GB. This may harm them in the long run because you see developers now a days wanting to expand their games while saving as much money as they can.Making a game on a Hi-Definition Blu- ray disc not only allows for more uncompressed raw data and more audio support, it also benefits the developer at cutting cost of production.

John Carmack, game programmer and co-founder of id Software, has brought this up many times relating to his upcoming title, Rage. He has stated that in orderto put the game onto the Xbox 360 and have it look identical to the PlayStation 3 version, they would need to put it on about four discs which would cost them a lot in production costs. He also stated that if Microsoft does not allow for them to put this game on four discs without charging them extra, he will have to compress the game massively to have it fit on two discs degrading the visuals of the game.Developers will adopt Blu-ray because of advantages in size, as well as price. Who would not want to make a larger, cheaper game?

HuusAsking

Are Wii and 360 discs scratch proof? Do they perform the highest quality video and audio? And can they hold massive data 25gb, 50gb, 100gb, 150gb, 250gb?

As a PS3 owner I know my discs wont ever scratch. I know the devs aren't limited by space. And I know it will always perform at the highest quality for games and videos. And the PS3 games are the same price as a 360 game, but the PS3 game is on a much better disc.

I paid $100 more for my PS3 than for my 360, but I get so much more for it and I don't pay to play online.

It is necessary for preventing scratches, for having quality audio/video, and for allowing devs to make a game as big as they want to.

patriots7672

When Sony starts offering Full retail games as downloads for $20 less then Bluray becomes irrelevant.

[QUOTE="dsmccracken"]Everything you say is true... and it still doesn't make bluray necessary this gen. At all.lolfaqs

Not everyone shares your sentiment.

John Carmack, game programmer and co-founder of id Software, has brought this up many times relating to his upcoming title, Rage. He has stated that in orderto put the game onto the Xbox 360 and have it look identical to the PlayStation 3 version, they would need to put it on about four discs which would cost them a lot in production costs. He also stated that if Microsoft does not allow for them to put this game on four discs without charging them extra, he will have to compress the game massively to have it fit on two discs degrading the visuals of the game.Developers will adopt Blu-ray because of advantages in size, as well as price. Who would not want to make a larger, cheaper game?

[QUOTE="lolfaqs"]

[QUOTE="dsmccracken"]Everything you say is true... and it still doesn't make bluray necessary this gen. At all.imprezawrx500

Not everyone shares your sentiment.

John Carmack, game programmer and co-founder of id Software, has brought this up many times relating to his upcoming title, Rage. He has stated that in orderto put the game onto the Xbox 360 and have it look identical to the PlayStation 3 version, they would need to put it on about four discs which would cost them a lot in production costs. He also stated that if Microsoft does not allow for them to put this game on four discs without charging them extra, he will have to compress the game massively to have it fit on two discs degrading the visuals of the game.Developers will adopt Blu-ray because of advantages in size, as well as price. Who would not want to make a larger, cheaper game?

Highest quality audio and video aren't needed to play a game, nor make it good. As for scratches, if you're paying over $60 a game for most of them, you should already be taking care of them.Legendaryscmt

[QUOTE="imprezawrx500"][QUOTE="lolfaqs"]

Not everyone shares your sentiment.

http://www.thegameraccess.com/2009/02/should-360-go-blu/

Rockstar has stated that they will not be able to pull off the next Grand Theft Auto due to the struggles with Grand Theft Auto IV (source) on a disc that holds only 8.54 GBcompared to a Blu-ray that is currently holding 50 GB. This may harm them in the long run because you see developers now a days wanting to expand their games while saving as much money as they can.Making a game on a Hi-Definition Blu- ray disc not only allows for more uncompressed raw data and more audio support, it also benefits the developer at cutting cost of production. How likely is it that the next GTA is coming for this gen of systems? With both target platforms having DD networks in place, odds are this gen will see DLC to GTA 4 and GTA5 coming for next gen. Also, single bluray is still more expensive than multiple DVD's(and since most games don't even use multiple discs even with DVD, where are the production savings coming from?) This dude is flat out wrong on this point.

John Carmack, game programmer and co-founder of id Software, has brought this up many times relating to his upcoming title, Rage. He has stated that in orderto put the game onto the Xbox 360 and have it look identical to the PlayStation 3 version, they would need to put it on about four discs which would cost them a lot in production costs. He also stated that if Microsoft does not allow for them to put this game on four discs without charging them extra, he will have to compress the game massively to have it fit on two discs degrading the visuals of the game.Developers will adopt Blu-ray because of advantages in size, as well as price. Who would not want to make a larger, cheaper game?He said they would have to put it on THREE discs, not four(another error by the quoted source), and the issue isn't production costs it is ONLY because of MS charging royalties above 2 discs. He will have to compress the game a bit(not "massively")and stated the difference would end up being on the periphery rather than everywhere. It is strictly a money issue, not a DVD limitation.

Martin_G_N

[QUOTE="Legendaryscmt"]Highest quality audio and video aren't needed to play a game, nor make it good. As for scratches, if you're paying over $60 a game for most of them, you should already be taking care of them.shoemen22

Highest quality audio and video aren't needed to play a game, nor make it good. As for scratches, if you're paying over $60 a game for most of them, you should already be taking care of them.Legendaryscmt

[QUOTE="LosDaddie"]

[QUOTE="HuusAsking"]Um...a DVD loaded with 1GB of data and a DVD loaded with 8GB of data transfer at about the same rate at any given time, right? And a 2x BD drive is incapable of overwhelming the available memory bandwidth of the PS3. Its transfer rate maxes out at 9MB/sec. That couldn't max out an IDE channel, let alone the 20+GB/sec available to the PS3 at any one time. So whether the game has 20GB on it or 50GB, the data's gonna transfer at the same rate. Now, if you had graphics of GTA4 quality, then the PS3 can handle it (proven: it handles GTA4). Now multiply the quantity of the data by around 4 or 5 rather than the quality of said graphics. Then it doesn't matter if you've got 9GB or 39GB of game world. As long as it can be loaded an acceptable amount at a time (that's why the quality limit--it limits the data necessary to transfer at any one time), it could care less. Let me put it in plain English. Whether the cookie jar has 10 cookies in it or 100 cookies, if you took just one a day, your stomach would handle it no problem, wouldn't it?HuusAsking

Nothing you said makes any sense.

Sure a game could be created that is 4x-5x larger than Liberty City and easily be stored on blu-ray. That's obvious and didn't need to be said.

The crucial part you seem to be missing is that for all this large Liberty City to be accessible at any time (like the "real" LC is in GTA IV), then it still has to fit in the PS3's 500MB of RAM. Game development is all about compromise. For example, Rockstar had to run the PS3 version of GTA IV at a sub-HD resolution in order to achieve the type of game they wanted (ie. a compromise).

So yes, you're correct. A game with a world 5x larger than LC could be made only for the PS3. But anyone with game development knowledge will tell you said game won't look anything like GTA IV.

You don't seem to understand that the PS3 still will only have 500MB of RAM to work with.

GTA IV doesn't load the islands as Niko is traveling around the city. It's all done as you boot up the game. That's why Niko can travel to any part of LC without any loading. Maybe it's different on PS3, but on X360, the only time I ever saw a loading screen were:

• Initial game start-up
• After dying
• before & after cutscenes

Again,a game with a world 5x larger than LC could be made only for the PS3. But anyone with game development knowledge will tell you said game won't look anything like GTA IV.

i can't believe this thread is still going. lots of people in here that don't know their tech stuff :P

BR is not NECESSARY. NECESSARY implies required. multiplats say no.

bloated storage and redundant copies that are used due to slow access times with BRD and uncompressed 7.1 HD audio (hello MGS4) do nothing to prove it is necessary. anyone that argues it is necessary doesn't understand the question, or the hardware, or how most devs 'fill' up the BR disk. check out neogaf and other places where they break down what is actually on a BR disk if you think it's necessary. you'll be turning red, lol.

[QUOTE="HuusAsking"][QUOTE="LosDaddie"]

Nothing you said makes any sense.

Sure a game could be created that is 4x-5x larger than Liberty City and easily be stored on blu-ray. That's obvious and didn't need to be said.

The crucial part you seem to be missing is that for all this large Liberty City to be accessible at any time (like the "real" LC is in GTA IV), then it still has to fit in the PS3's 500MB of RAM. Game development is all about compromise. For example, Rockstar had to run the PS3 version of GTA IV at a sub-HD resolution in order to achieve the type of game they wanted (ie. a compromise).

So yes, you're correct. A game with a world 5x larger than LC could be made only for the PS3. But anyone with game development knowledge will tell you said game won't look anything like GTA IV.

LosDaddie

You don't seem to understand that the PS3 still will only have 500MB of RAM to work with.

GTA IV doesn't load the islands as Niko is traveling around the city. It's all done as you boot up the game. That's why Niko can travel to any part of LC without any loading. Maybe it's different on PS3, but on X360, the only time I ever saw a loading screen were:

• Initial game start-up
• After dying
• before & after cutscenes

Again,a game with a world 5x larger than LC could be made only for the PS3. But anyone with game development knowledge will tell you said game won't look anything like GTA IV.

Here's more evidence that what I'm describing is the case. Some people with faulty 360 hard drives have extremely slow caching, resutling in extreme cases of pop-in. Pop-in like they're describing only occurs in a dynamic cache system like I'm describing.

I think people who say tha have seen and heard the stuff that is different about blu-ray and have decided that they are just fine with DVD regardless. It means they think the extra fluff isnt ultimately worth it.

BR isn't necessary NOW, that games have accepted the 360's use of dvd, but if the 720 doesn't use it our games will be severely limited. Heck, think about how big GTA IV could have been? Or how Rage wouldn't be in the middle of a choice between reducing things on the 360 version, or paying an MS mandatory fee for multiple discs. Seriously, MGS4 uses 44g of blu ray disc space, if dvd's really use 6 for games it would be THAT much harder.

Then again...

Fully digital distribution in future consoles would almost completely eliminate space issues, only by the hdd space limiting them, it can even apply to movies and the like and save gas money to the game store (with the downside of no trading for us as the industry would profit considerably more). Until then though, blu ray is great for games, but only exclusives can utilize it.

Blu-ray discs still haven't caught on, mainly because of their high price point. I only buy maybe 1-2 a week. I do think that the storage compacity of those discs are one huge advantage that Sony has over Microsoft, but it seems like Microsoft is still grabbing exclusive titles,selling consoles, and has a high attachemnt of games. It will be interestingto see which way Microsoft goes with their storage media in their next platform. Software is always changing though, I was reading about a game called Fuel, where they have a new game engine that streams the environment like no other game. Looks good.