Alternative distribution to optical disks : SSD, cards, and download*

[TheWretched]

Really... the best looking stuff nearly always breaks the DVD limit, especially on the 360, since it's even less.

God of War 3, Uncharted 2, Final Fantasy XIII, Mass Effect 2, Metal Gear Solid 4... this list is very long. You would compromise quite a lot, if they went for a single DVD, if not breaking the game entirely.

 

[cal_guy]

Yeah, reduce the graphics to monochrome, go for 8Khz mono sound and it fits on a floppy.
You compromise anything can fit on whatever media you choose. Thank you for proving my point.




Are you trying very hard to ignore the point? Put the games mentioned on a storage media that doesn´t hold 25/50GB and you will compromise, that was the point.

And of course the reviewers are "wrong" what a surprise

But don't you also compromise with the PS3's blu-ray lower transfer rate?

 

[manux]

But don't you also compromise with the PS3's blu-ray lower transfer rate?

Is it really much slower if you compare average speed and not the outer layers from XBox360 dvd drive to blu-ray drive on ps3? Blu-ray is constant speed for whole disc.

Blu-ray could probably get quite a bit faster for next gen consoles, something along the lines from going 2x drive in ps3 to 8-12x drive. DVD on the other hand is pretty much maxed out on XBox360 already. Of course having some flash memory as cache can make optical drive speed less important.

 

[eastmen]

I find it hard to tell any difference between DTS and lossless stuff like TrueHD, but TrueHD is lossless so it should be better, although I don't know if I'd be able to hear it. Going from DTS to lossless is just not as big a leap as going from regular DD to something that's still lossy but at a higher bitrate like DTS or DD+. The latter was very easy to hear in my experience.

In either case, TrueHD requires even more space than DTS, so it's not helping the game storage requirements argument. The $5 minimum cost difference of flash vs. blu-ray will always be there, and chip foundries running close to full capacity isn't going to help with allocation and pricing either.

Also, some gamers might be content with compressed 720p FMV sequences in games with DD sound, but some aren't.

True hd will reduce the sound foot print.


Also personaly i'd be happy with no fmv i really hate it and wished it disapeeared this generation .


Also can you stop throwing out made up costs as if they are facts. we don't know the minimum cost diffrence between flash and bluray and we may never know however i hardly doubt its $5 and when you add in savings you can get from other areas like packaging costs and shippince.g costs it may end up being muc less than $5 diffrence

 

[corduroygt]

True hd will reduce the sound foot print.

Only compared to LPCM. It's still an increase in file size compared to Dolby Digital and DTS.

Also personaly i'd be happy with no fmv i really hate it and wished it disapeeared this generation .

You're entitled to your opinion, but you don't represent the mass market.

Also can you stop throwing out made up costs as if they are facts. we don't know the minimum cost diffrence between flash and bluray and we may never know however i hardly doubt its $5 and when you add in savings you can get from other areas like packaging costs and shippince.g costs it may end up being muc less than $5 diffrence

All flash carts have plastic surrounding them, and then they also have a case. It will not be less than $5 given that 8GB flash has been $9 and 4GB flash isn't half the price, it's only a couple bucks less. There is a hard floor with flash prices, whereas with optical discs, that floor is pennies.

Just look at a couple recent games, Medal of Honor and Dead Space 2. Both used the extra capacity on the blu-ray disc to give an incentive to buy the PS3 version by including extra games on the disc. With flash carts, not only you won't have this advantage, but also have a price disadvantage of at least $5.

Also, if you won't have online activation, games on flash can easily be pirated, and you can't force everyone to activate online unless you limit your target market.. Also, the disc scratching problem has been pretty much solved by blu-ray, whereas you'll be back to NES style cleaning methods with carts.

 

[joker454]

Are you trying very hard to ignore the point? Put the games mentioned on a storage media that doesn´t hold 25/50GB and you will compromise, that was the point.

I'm not ignoring anything. It was implied that extra blu-ray storage made for the best looking games, that is what I don't agree with at all. There are dvd games out there that look better than the aforementioned ps3 exclusive games. So extra storage does not automatically mean better looking game.

Additionally we have no clue how they are making use of the space, and whether the use of it matters for anything other than speeding up load times or making piracy more difficult. For an extreme example look at Pac Man. Its 4.1mb on iPhone, does that mean the original ~100kb game will look significantly visually compromised? This extreme example is to point out that we have no clue how the assets are actually used. One way is to play the games and compare them to other competing games, and said ps3 exclusive games do not look visually "in another generation" compared to existing dvd games. To me me that's a clue that the disc space is not being used to improve the game visuals themselves.

I would agree that one dvd will be tight at this point in the console gen so the obvious solution is to use two like Castlevania, Mass Effect 2, etc do. But note that it doesn't mean a two dvd game will automatically look better than a one dvd game though. Additionally as stated, blu-rays slow access times impose an upper barrier to visuals as well as latency to access assets is very important but often glossed over.

 

[-tkf-]

But don't you also compromise with the PS3's blu-ray lower transfer rate?

Compared to Flash anything is a compromise on speed, for a next gen blu-ray based console i would hope and expect that at least 8x if not the current max of 12x speed drive would be included. Giving us a transfer rate at around 50MB pr sec instead of 10? Just a 6x speed drive would be faster than a 24x speed DVD Drive.

 

[-tkf-]

I'm not ignoring anything. It was implied that extra blu-ray storage made for the best looking games, that is what I don't agree with at all. There are dvd games out there that look better than the aforementioned ps3 exclusive games. So extra storage does not automatically mean better looking game.

Additionally we have no clue how they are making use of the space, and whether the use of it matters for anything other than speeding up load times or making piracy more difficult. For an extreme example look at Pac Man. Its 4.1mb on iPhone, does that mean the original ~100kb game will look significantly visually compromised? This extreme example is to point out that we have no clue how the assets are actually used. One way is to play the games and compare them to other competing games, and said ps3 exclusive games do not look visually "in another generation" compared to existing dvd games. To me me that's a clue that the disc space is not being used to improve the game visuals themselves.

I would agree that one dvd will be tight at this point in the console gen so the obvious solution is to use two like Castlevania, Mass Effect 2, etc do. But note that it doesn't mean a two dvd game will automatically look better than a one dvd game though. Additionally as stated, blu-rays slow access times impose an upper barrier to visuals as well as latency to access assets is very important but often glossed over.

I think it was implied that superior storage space helped achieve the impressive graphics and audio on these games. How good it looks compared to other games is obviously a completely different discussion

I disagree with your example, a 1 dvd mass effect 2 would look worse than the 2 disc version. Or they would have to cut alot of content.

 

[aaronspink]

Killzone3 apparently has 45GB.

Then apparently KZ3 is wasting a LOT of space on worthless crud like video.

 

[eastmen]

Only compared to LPCM. It's still an increase in file size compared to Dolby Digital and DTS.

Yes of course its still a decrease over LPCM moving to it on a next gen system would not be a bad thing at all .

You're entitled to your opinion, but you don't represent the mass market.

I stated it was my opinon no reason for you to say it again

All flash carts have plastic surrounding them, and then they also have a case. It will not be less than $5 given that 8GB flash has been $9 and 4GB flash isn't half the price, it's only a couple bucks less. There is a hard floor with flash prices, whereas with optical discs, that floor is pennies.

That hardly matters. you do understand that there are multiple mark ups involved.

1) The foundry creating the micro chip gets it cut 2) The company transcend , sandisk whoever gets their cut 3) the retail/online store gets their cut 4) The is packaging and shiping costs .


For a console next gen you would get 1) The foundy 2) programing it if the foundry doesn't do it
With dvd's blurays your already paying for packaging , your already paying for shiping .

Also as I pointed out discs cases are stuck at the same packaging size as bluray is now , costs wont go down there. However you can create smaller cases for flash games and save money on the packaging and also shipping costs.

Just look at a couple recent games, Medal of Honor and Dead Space 2. Both used the extra capacity on the blu-ray disc to give an incentive to buy the PS3 version by including extra games on the disc. With flash carts, not only you won't have this advantage, but also have a price disadvantage of at least $5.

What about the extra capacity on flash carts ? Boom end of next gen 128 gig flash carts avalible , bluray is stuck at dual layer for 50 gigs or they go with ultra pricy hard to manufacture bluray xl . Now flash ahs the capacity increase.

Or even still with 20nm nand we can 16 , 32 or 64 gig games as you said there is a price floor that we don't agree on the price we both agree its there. As the gen progresses devs will have more and more room avalible. Since flash is faster than optical esp if you use multiple nand chips in raid config to do it , they can even do something bluray can't. Load new content like map packs and other dlc directly to the card for faster loading time

Also, if you won't have online activation, games on flash can easily be pirated, and you can't force everyone to activate online unless you limit your target market.. Also, the disc scratching problem has been pretty much solved by blu-ray, whereas you'll be back to NES style cleaning methods with carts.

Ready for it ... I solved cheaply and easily ..... 3G in the console.

It will be even cheaper than buying books on 3g because your sending kilobytes over the conection to activate games.

A 2013 console wont be affected by 3g costs as everyone will be moving to 4g . Sprnit and tmobile here in the states are already on it and each adding more sites every day , verizon and att will move to it during this year. 2013 gives them an additonal 2 years of extending the next work.

So 3g will be cheap for the console makers.

 

[eastmen]

Compared to Flash anything is a compromise on speed, for a next gen blu-ray based console i would hope and expect that at least 8x if not the current max of 12x speed drive would be included. Giving us a transfer rate at around 50MB pr sec instead of 10? Just a 6x speed drive would be faster than a 24x speed DVD Drive.

I'm not sure why but my 12x bluray burner is louder than my 22x dvd burner when both are burning at max speed. It makes the original xbox 360 sound quiet.

i'm not sure either of these will be an option on a next gen console unless they find a way to drasticly reduce the noise

 

[manux]

I'm not sure why but my 12x bluray burner is louder than my 22x dvd burner when both are burning at max speed. It makes the original xbox 360 sound quiet.

i'm not sure either of these will be an option on a next gen console unless they find a way to drasticly reduce the noise

Blu-ray on ps3 is pretty damn silent(2x) and still nearly as fast as 12x dvd drive on XBox360(which is infernally loud and...). I would assume 8x blu-ray would be pretty much 3 times as fast as dvd drive on XBox360 for streaming stuff in. If some manufacturer is willing to go to extreme I don't see 12x blu-ray drive impossible, it would only be very noisy(similar to xbox360 dvd drive again). Ofcourse seek times would not be 3x but still blu-ray can give quite healthy boost for read performance next gen. Pair that 8x blu-ray with some flash memory inside console for cache. Cache should eliminate crazy need for seeking around disc and let blu-ray just stream data in near linear fashion.

Having 16-32GB fast flash memory as cache inside console should be quite a bit cheaper than shipping each game on equally fast and reasonably sized flash memory. It also creates nice base a la xbox arcade. Add optional 2.5" sata hdd for those who need more slower storage space and everyone is happy. If the slower storage space is problem for downloaded games they can still be cached to the flash memory.

edit. If we are willing to believe game sizes will not increase then all the read speed improvements from faster blu-ray drive go towards making load times/streaming faster and need for caching on flash/hdd is less next gen... Even if we assume game sizes will double we still see relatively better performance from 8x blu-ray drive than from dvd on xbox360 or blu-ray on ps3 this gen. Pretty good, yes?

edit2 for reference old discussion of optical drives speed http://forum.beyond3d.com/showthread.php?t=42157

 

[corduroygt]

Precisely, it makes much more sense to include flash memory costs per console versus per game. The difference in costs are in the billions.

 

[manux]

I'm quite sure we will see DD only variants of consoles next gen(pspgo anyone?). But will some manufacturer skip optical all together and go to pure DD only, doubtful as DD only strategy closes more doors than it opens.

For sony blu-ray makes a lot of sense as they can press their own discs(and the movie business too). For other console manufacturers I doubt flash can have similar pricing as blu-ray discs have. I suppose pressing single layer 25GB blu-ray disc is less than 0.1$ nowdays and there is plenty of factories around to do the job. Though I wonder what the price for buying those discs are as the factory needs to make a profit, package the discs and so on.

For movies some pricing is found here: http://www.pacificdisc.com/PricingBluRay.html

I wonder what the pricing is when one goes in with a game and asks for 2 million copies instead of 10000.

 

[eastmen]

Blu-ray on ps3 is pretty damn silent(2x) and still nearly as fast as 12x dvd drive on XBox360(which is infernally loud and...). I would assume 8x blu-ray would be pretty much 3 times as fast as dvd drive on XBox360 for streaming stuff in. If some manufacturer is willing to go to extreme I don't see 12x blu-ray drive impossible, it would only be very noisy(similar to xbox360 dvd drive again). Ofcourse seek times would not be 3x but still blu-ray can give quite healthy boost for read performance next gen. Pair that 8x blu-ray with some flash memory inside console for cache. Cache should eliminate crazy need for seeking around disc and let blu-ray just stream data in near linear fashion.

Doesn't work. This gen we had 512 megs of ram. Next gen we will have 2-4 gigs basicly 4-8 times the ram. a 8x bluray drive at 3 times the speed of this gen's fastest drive will still result in slower load times.

bluray 2x is 9MB/s
8x would be 36MB/s
12x 54MB/s

dvd would be 8x 10.57
12x 15.85

So 8x bluray would only be 2.3 - 3.4 tiems faster. than the dvd drive in the 360.

To transfer 2 gigs of data at 8x would take 55 seconds and at 12x second vs 37 seconds 512 megs at 8x 48 seconds and 32 seconds .

however if we get 4 gigs of ram which i see no reason why not with current ram costs we would see 111 seconds and 74 seconds.

You can add flash into the console but then you will stll have the long initial loads unless your going to put a few hundred gigs of flash into the console.

Having 16-32GB fast flash memory as cache inside console should be quite a bit cheaper than shipping each game on equally fast and reasonably sized flash memory. It also creates nice base a la xbox arcade. Add optional 2.5" sata hdd for those who need more slower storage space and everyone is happy. If the slower storage space is problem for downloaded games they can still be cached to the flash memory.

The way some people talk in this thread 16-32gigs wont be enough as your still going to hit the bluray disc to acess data , didn't u hear resistance 3 is going to be 40 something gigs.

edit. If we are willing to believe game sizes will not increase then all the read speed improvements from faster blu-ray drive go towards making load times/streaming faster and need for caching on flash/hdd is less next gen... Even if we assume game sizes will double we still see relatively better performance from 8x blu-ray drive than from dvd on xbox360 or blu-ray on ps3 this gen. Pretty good, yes?

I think next gen game sizes will go up from xbox 360 sizes. However i don't think they will go up from ps3 standards. The question is who is going to create that content. This gen alot of the discs space is used for multiple languages losessless audio , 1080p high bit rate video , redundant data to improve load times.

If we move to flash for next gen alot of that wont be needed. You can fit a 40-50 gig game with all that garbage on it into a 32gig flash card

 

[corduroygt]

Fortunately, corporations like MS go by the bottom line instead of sour grapes from losing the format war unlike some people here, and won't choose flash carts, since they'll cost billions more than pressing discs over the lifetime of a console.

 

[eastmen]

Precisely, it makes much more sense to include flash memory costs per console versus per game. The difference in costs are in the billions.

To who.

It will cost ms/sony hundreds of millions to put in ssds to the consoles. It will cost developers x amount of money over x amount of software sales by switching to flash.


Lets take two systems. Each has the same specs.

Console A the traditional one has a 2.5 inch drive for dlc and psn/xbox arcade games , an optical drive and then either 32-128 gigs of flash ram in it or an ssd of some sort.

Console B has custom slots for flash cards and a 3.5 inch drive for dlc and psn/xbox arcade games.


What we know is that console B will cost less to manufacture up front. You remove the optical drive that has a pricing floor of $20-$30 bucks , you remove any codec liscense fees associated with that , you remove the lower capacity slower 2.5 inch drive , you remove the expensive 32-128 gig flash ram or ssd and you simply add a cheap slot for the flash carts that costs a few bucks and a 3.5 hardrive that will cost the same as the 2.5inch drive but will be faster and higher capacity.

At the same time console B will become smaller and easier to cool along with the casing costs , packaging costs and shipping costs decreasing. If they are smaller then retailers will also be able to stock more of them.

In the end a console maker could shave off $100 or more off the cost of the console which will either allow them to increase the specs over the competition or keep the specs the same and charge $100 less for the console. $100 over the life time of console sales lets say the xbox 360s at 50m for easy math would equate to a $5 billion dollar savings for the console creator .


Mean while lets say flash's floor is $5 as you say. And lets for fairness sake say that 16 gigs will hit that $5 floor in time for launches after all 8 gigs is already at the $10 mark and 16 gigs is at the $20 mark. So lets say its $5 for the flash . Game publishers would only have to absorb $5 per disc. Or pass the cost to customers and incerase prices to $65.

Since the cost of moving to flash for games is not absorbed by any single company but is spread across all companys it will not cost anyone anything if done properly except the consumers.

But then again if its done properly consumers will get decreased load times more durable products and better verisons of games.

I'm quite sure we will see DD only variants of consoles next gen(pspgo anyone?). But will some manufacturer skip optical all together and go to pure DD only, doubtful as DD only strategy closes more doors than it opens.

For sony blu-ray makes a lot of sense as they can press their own discs(and the movie business too). For other console manufacturers I doubt flash can have similar pricing as blu-ray discs have. I suppose pressing single layer 25GB blu-ray disc is less than 0.1$ nowdays and there is plenty of factories around to do the job. Though I wonder what the price for buying those discs are as the factory needs to make a profit, package the discs and so on.

For movies some pricing is found here: http://www.pacificdisc.com/PricingBluRay.html

I wonder what the pricing is when one goes in with a game and asks for 2 million copies instead of 10000.

Thats pretty expensive . Remember there are more steps in the process than cds or dvd and then the coating so they scratch easily .

I don't think they will ever drop to dvd costs .

 

[corduroygt]

At the same time console B will become smaller and easier to cool along with the casing costs , packaging costs and shipping costs decreasing. If they are smaller then retailers will also be able to stock more of them.

In the end a console maker could shave off $100 or more off the cost of the console which will either allow them to increase the specs over the competition or keep the specs the same and charge $100 less for the console. $100 over the life time of console sales lets say the xbox 360s at 50m for easy math would equate to a $5 billion dollar savings for the console creator .

FAIL
2.5 + ODD isn't significantly bigger or hotter or heavier than 3.5" + card reader, plus you have the insta fail of ignoring the ODD movie market, which is still an order of magnitude bigger than the DD movie market. That $100 cost difference estimate is just as absurd as your $400 6-core 300W space heater console estimate. At most the cost difference is $20 bucks.

Mean while lets say flash's floor is $5 as you say. And lets for fairness sake say that 16 gigs will hit that $5 floor in time for launches after all 8 gigs is already at the $10 mark and 16 gigs is at the $20 mark. So lets say its $5 for the flash . Game publishers would only have to absorb $5 per disc. Or pass the cost to customers and incerase prices to $65.

That's absolute economic suicide. Not only you're not going to get 16GB for 5 bucks in 2 years, but if you want to see the absolute best case on how a console with smaller and more expensive game storage performs against one with optical disc, look at N64/Gamecube vs. PS1/PS2. $5+ difference will make a lot of influence on the consumers' choice of console and sales. Console manufacturer would have to eat it unless they wanted to get left behind in the dust with their console.

 

[eastmen]

FAIL
2.5 + ODD isn't significantly bigger or hotter or heavier than 3.5" + card reader, plus you have the insta fail of ignoring the ODD movie market, which is still an order of magnitude bigger than the DD movie market. That $100 cost difference estimate is just as absurd as your $400 6-core 300W space heater console estimate. At most the cost difference is $20 bucks.

There is no fail at all. It has nothing to do with the heat given off by the optical drive and the 2.5 inch drive vs the 3.5 inch drive and card reader. It has to do with the volume consumed in the case

http://guide-images.ifixit.net/igi/yGyDbybL2EXvsbjH.medium

Take a look inside the 360. Look at the volume of the OOD inside of it

and here is the slim ps3
http://guide-images.ifixit.net/igi/be1bSIBJJAk1dEvk.medium

and the original
http://www.llamma.com/PS3/repair/disassembly/PIC_0030thumb.jpg
Removing the 2.5 and ODD and replacing with a single 3.5inch hardrive would alllow for a more optimal cooling path and a smaller case. You no longer have wasted space in the console

That's absolute economic suicide. Not only you're not going to get 16GB for 5 bucks in 2 years, but if you want to see the absolute best case on how a console with smaller and more expensive game storage performs against one with optical disc, look at N64/Gamecube vs. PS1/PS2. $5+ difference will make a lot of influence on the consumers' choice of console and sales. Console manufacturer would have to eat it unless they wanted to get left behind in the dust with their console.

Why wont you. Look Sandisk and toshiba are going to 3bit per cell tech and it seems intel and micron are moving to sub 25nm processes this year which will make 16GB 2bit per cell dies avalible .

According to intel on 24mm process it would take 64 dies to make a 256GB ssd and with the 25nm process that they are ramping up now it will be done with half the chips and that at a die size of a 167mm2 a 300mm fab will produce 400 die per wafer or $ 4 per chip basicly .50/GB . 45nm nand would be 1.75/GB

http://news.micron.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=499901

intel/micron's 3bit nand flash memory chip is only 131mm2 and is 20% smaller than the normal 2bit they make on 25nm.


Also as I already said things are diffrent than the n64 generation. N64 carts were $20-$40 per cart to program and you had to go to nintendo to get them. They were also limited in size to 64megs i believe. Cds were $1-$2 and held 750MBs . There was no contest.

Heading into next generation we see 8 -16 gigs of flash ram costing less than $5 and the price continuing to drop. Even if limited to 16 gigs at the start of the generation you would only be 3 x the data behind . With the n64 you were 11 times behind.


Going to flash would be a plus for consumers. You'd have much faster load times , a quiet system , a smaller system , and the console manufacture can move to a 3.5inch drive and offer multi terabyte hardrives vs hardrives in the hundreds of gigs and the downloaded content would play faster .

Not only would you have faster load times but you could also have much better games due to the developers being able to refresh the texture ram multiple times vs the optical drive.

Remember its not just transfer rate. A disc drive would be much slower at seeking and you'd have a speed decrease across the disc , switching layers and of course as the disc drive spins up and spins down.

You'd then also have a longer life console as flash has no moving parts and the flash ports would have no moving parts. There is also no noise.


I think many would pony up $5 more for a next gen game on flash vs a next gen game on optical

 

[-tkf-]

Doesn't work. This gen we had 512 megs of ram. Next gen we will have 2-4 gigs basicly 4-8 times the ram. a 8x bluray drive at 3 times the speed of this gen's fastest drive will still result in slower load times.

PS3 512MB with 2xspeed takes 1 minutes to fill
PS4 4096MB with 2xspeed takes 7.5 minutes to fill

PS4 4096MB with 12xspeed 75 secs
XBOX720 4096 with 24xspeed DVD would take 128 secs

At any rate the Blu-Ray drive should and will be quitter than a DVD.
However, it might be that Sony chooses to go with BD-XL or atleast open up to the possibility by making the drive compatible so they have 100GB as a possible. Depends on cost vs just making 2 BR
With the steady increase of Blu-Ray manufacturing and their by reduction in costs i think it´s a safe bet that there wont be any format that can compete with the cost of 50GB storage on a pressed disc.

Since the next generation consoles all with come with a minimum of 500GB harddrive plus all the lessons learned from this gen i would expect the developers and MS+Sony to have a plan on the install issue.
And that could solve most of the "slow load" issues that could creep up.

next gen game sizes will go up from xbox 360 sizes. However i don't think they will go up from ps3 standards. The question is who is going to create that content. This gen alot of the discs space is used for multiple languages losessless audio , 1080p high bit rate video , redundant data to improve load times.
If we move to flash for next gen alot of that wont be needed. You can fit a 40-50 gig game with all that garbage on it into a 32gig flash card

360 games are dictated by 7GB of space, that is a fact. It is also a fact that going over this limit costs money as was clearly shown by John Carmacks comments about this.The end result is Compromises when you run out of space. Every game on the 360 is created with this in mind, while every game on the PS3 is created with that as a non issue.

You can be certain that space requirments are going to go up, if there is 8 times the amount of RAM for graphics and sound there can be 8 times the demand for storage. And unless i am mistaken, the price for creating a highres texture pack isn´t 8 times the amount. For example, the GTA series on the PC had better textures than the PS2. Afaik, they created higher res textures from the start and resized them (crammed them in) to the PS2. Leaving them with a cheap way to get highres textures into the PC and XBOX version. Content doesn´t have to be more maps, levels, chars whatever. It can just be higher quality of what is already in a normal game.