I said most games, it's pretty obvious that 16GB will be the upper limit at least initially for the biggest blockbuster games. Since we'll likely see better texture/sound/video compression on the actual media itself, the effective space of 8/16GB in todays console terms will be at least 9/18 or 10/20GB respectively on 8/16GB cartridges.
Alternative distribution to optical disks : SSD, cards, and download*
- Thread starter Cheezdoodles
- Start date
I said most games, it's pretty obvious that 16GB will be the upper limit at least initially for the biggest blockbuster games. Since we'll likely see better texture/sound/video compression on the actual media itself, the effective space of 8/16GB in todays console terms will be at least 9/18 or 10/20GB respectively on 8/16GB cartridges.
TheWretched
Regular
Keep in mind that most bigger games are only just 7GB because of the 360... they cut down on content and quality to stay within these limits... Just look at some PS3 ports or exclusives... those games often exceed the 360 versions by a LOT... and that's not just "uncompressed audio and video" as some people at N4G et al say. I consider it added value, when I can play my games in more languages than my own, and Sony delivers on that front more often than not. Especially if you consider translated games a crime against humanity, as I do. Many PS3 games also carry "behind the scenes" videos, which I love. Nothing of this is seen on most DVD games, or it's on another disc and considered "deluxe edition".
I don't mind downloading big games, as I have quite a fast internet connection here (16Mbit/s, which actually arrive constantly here), so downloading 1GB takes just over 8 minutes, if the servers allow for it... Steam and PSN usually do. Downloading Grand Theft Auto 4 Complete was a chore at my mothers, though... 32GB at 3Mbit/s^^
I don't mind downloading big games, as I have quite a fast internet connection here (16Mbit/s, which actually arrive constantly here), so downloading 1GB takes just over 8 minutes, if the servers allow for it... Steam and PSN usually do. Downloading Grand Theft Auto 4 Complete was a chore at my mothers, though... 32GB at 3Mbit/s^^
corduroygt
Banned
If you're going by sales, then even one DVD is too much since how many copies of MK Wii sold again?
Many HD console games are bigger than 8 or even 16 GB and the quality difference is easily visible. There is a reason PS3 exclusives such as GOW3, Uncharted games, Killzone 2&3, MGS4 are considered to be on another level in terms of visuals. It's only going to get more storage intensive next gen.
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tongue_of_colicab
Veteran
That hardly has anything to do with storage and all with developer talent/budget. The amount of data you can load into ram is far less than storage available so visuals shouldn't have to suffer at all. The only result will be that either your game get shorter, or you will have to use 2 disks. The latter is no problem apart from open world games and if we look at GTA4 the ps3 version is infirior to the x360 version so more storage means better visuals just isn't true. Atleast, it's not a technical limitation.
That has less to do with storage and more to do with people who don't play many games, perhaps they went straight from PS2 to PS3 and hence haven't been exposed to what's out there. If they were then they would realize that the games you mentioned are not on another level of visuals, and that indeed there are more impressive examples of visuals out there on other devices with just plain old dvd storage.
Having said that it's fair to say that 8gb won't cut it for next gen. But there has to be a balance to make them workable via download. What I don't get is how the publishers would feel about having to front the extra cost for flash media. Even if it's just $1 extra per game that still amounts to millions of extra dollars to a publisher going flash compared to plain old optical. Also, could they even produce the volume of flash needed? Say near the holidays where you need 8 million cod's, 7 million halo's, etc, all these big hit games hitting at once, can that kind of volume be met?
What better compression techs are in the pipeline? I'm expecting we'll be using the same compression schemes as now - h.264, MP3, maybe Dolby for music, JPEG for art, PNG for lossless imagery like UI stuff, and the usual S3/DXTC texture compression.
tongue_of_colicab
Veteran
Disk pressing also has to be arrange well in time right? I don't see why the same thing wouldn't work for flash media. If a publisher is aiming for a holiday release they could start ordering months in advance to make sure whoever makes it has a certain amount of flash available when the time comes.
Actually if you go back to the cart days lead times were much larger, largely limited by the small number of manufacturers, and them all being located in Japan.
One of the issues was if you underestimated your initial order, the lead time for a followup order was such that the game would be dead by the time you got it. It lead to a lot of gambling on initial orders, which hurt a lot of companies.
Of course you also had to pay for the entire order up front, so there were companies that did nothing but lend money for the period of the lead time.
It was one of the real reasons CD won, a combination of cost and the ability to make smaller more frequent orders with leadtimes in days rather than weeks or months, rather than more storage.
One of the issues was if you underestimated your initial order, the lead time for a followup order was such that the game would be dead by the time you got it. It lead to a lot of gambling on initial orders, which hurt a lot of companies.
Of course you also had to pay for the entire order up front, so there were companies that did nothing but lend money for the period of the lead time.
It was one of the real reasons CD won, a combination of cost and the ability to make smaller more frequent orders with leadtimes in days rather than weeks or months, rather than more storage.
Another interesting story.
When MS released XBox 1 with a DVD drive one of the bigger logistical issues was figuring out how to schedule manufacturing of the launch titles because of the limited DVD production capacity at the time.
Any new physical media will have logistical issues of the same sort.
When MS released XBox 1 with a DVD drive one of the bigger logistical issues was figuring out how to schedule manufacturing of the launch titles because of the limited DVD production capacity at the time.
Any new physical media will have logistical issues of the same sort.
What sort of ROM techs are available these days? My first thought for NGP's format was an SD card with a few tweaks and security IC, but flash may not be a good idea. I don't know what static formats there are though, or performance, or even if they're needed these days with flash.
Some MCU uses mask ROM for their firmwares for cost reasons, but their capacity are generally quite small. Also you need a really large amount to amortize mask charge. The lead time is normally 3 to 4 weeks. There are also PROM which can only be programmed once to reduce lead time, such as P2ROM. They are a little more expensive than mask ROM per bit, but with short lead time comparable to flash. But IIRC right now Oki only provides up to 4Gbits (512MB) per chip in their P2ROM product line.
So are you saying that the mentioned games would have sounded and looked just as good on a 8GB DVD?
I would say, they would not, compromises would have been introduced and quality would suffer in some way or another.
And i still think they are among the best looking games on any platform and that is in part thanks to the superior Blu-Ray storage
Correct me if im wrong but I thought the compression ratios achieveable with current generation texture compression was 8:1 whilst the present hardware can handle 10:1 texture compression. Since the texture budget for a current generation game might be 2-3GB they could increase that to 3-4GB even on a smaller 8GB card with a further increase of around 25% with better compression from modern GPUs. I wouldn't expect most moderately expensive to develop games wouldn't really move far beyond the current texture budgets for cost reasons for several years into the next generation.
corduroygt
Banned
I disagree, there's more to graphics than just resolution and AA. Even GOW2 with its 480p resolution looked better than many PC games at the time because of the art and the variety of levels. You can only fit so much art in a limited amount of space, and you will get much more level variety if you can have more textures. An adventure game like UC2 which takes you all over the world wouldn't fit in one DVD with as many detailed textures and models. When you look at the quality and variety of art in games, the ones that utilize Blu-ray storage capacity come out ahead.
A huge problem in flash cart games is also the fact that foundries are close to working at full capacity, and of course the $5 minimum cost difference between optical disc and flash.
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Not as far as I know, but I'm no expert. I thought the higher compression ratios like 10:1 were for specific types of data like greyscale bump/light maps. Higher compression ratios are achieved by being more lossy. I don't know of any upcoming compression scheme that'll maintain the quality we know with higher compression ratios. If the end result is going to be blurred or messy, may as well use a quarter the resolution and just upscale it!
At the moment I don't think better data compression is an option. People were talking about better data compression this generation and it didn't happen. Of course there's the option of things like loading a JPEG2000 format image and converting that to a texture if you are preloading and not streaming, but opportunities are limited.
Data compression moved forward on video and this generation did benefit from it, but at the same time the demand for HD more or less made it status quo when it comes to space saving.
The next generation doesn´t have anything like h.264 in the pipeline.
Silent_Buddha
Legend
That's why, IMO, reuseable distribution media would be a must. There would generally be a one time cost associated with it for a customer. After that they either bring their media to a location to "load and wait" or just trade it in for identical media pre-loaded with the game they want. That one time cost would also be far more palatable to a customer if the prices of games dropped say 10-20 USD due to there no longer being any packaging, manufacturing, or retail distribution related costs.
The whole system would be compatabile with DD.
Yes, the game would look exactly the same. If there was FMV, it may need to be compressed, but as long as you avoided BINK and used more modern h.264 or VC-1 there should be very little degredation in properly re-encoded FMV. Audio might need to be compressed, but while some may notice the difference between uncompressed audio versus one of the various theatre quality compression techniques, the great majority of people wouldn't.
At most you may need 2x DVD's unless you have excessive FMV.
Regards,
SB
Why would you even need a FMV if you're using a next generation console with flash media? FMV is good to hide non existant loading? It doesn't really seem to make sense, we're seeing less and less FMV in our games for the most part even in Sony exclusives where disc space isn't at a premium.
corduroygt
Banned
How about people who buy games online but don't have the speed/bandwidth for DD? How about getting games as gifts?
Reusable distribution media could only be an additional alternative to traditional discs and DD. In fact, current consoles could easily support this with a software update since they all have USB slots.
