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

[eastmen]

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

sdxc 4096 would take 13 seconds

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

.

I don't see why blu ray would be quitter. The noise of a dvd drive is due to the spinning of the disc , the same would apply to a bluray drive. As the disc spins faster the drive will create more noise.

I have a 12x burner here and i can tell you it makes the same noise when a disc is being ripped as my 24 speed dvd burner

BDXL should allow for up to 128 gigs but thats alot of layers. 100 gig disc is 4 layers. With each layer the bluray drive will read the disc slower and there will be a pause as the laser refocuses to read the next layer.

Not to mention that 4 layer discs will cost much more than a single or dual layer disc. I remember reading that dual layer dvds cost 5 times as much as single layer. I can't imagine how much more a 4 layer bluray would cost over a single layer one.

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.

Hardrives aren't going to be increasing in speed. A 2.5inch drive
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/storage/display/25inch-500-640-750gb-hdd-roundup_7.html#sect1

sequential reads will top out just over a 100mb/s however random reads will suck.

So it will be better than a bluray drive most likely almost twice as fast.

However it will still lag behind flash

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/storage/display/flash-ssd-forecast_2.html

according to these guys flash prices drop 40% annually

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.

Sure at this point in time but the 360 was on a fixed format. Moving to flash would move them away from a fixed format and while 7GB of space ( i believe its actually 6.7GB avalible) is not enough right now , 16 gig which is more than double the space might be fine at the start of the next generation. With flash prices droping 40% year in and year out 32 gigs could be an option also at the start of next gen. After all if Intel micron is claiming that its .50cents a GB now in 2012 it will be .30 cents a GB and in 2013 it will be /18 cents a GB . So in 2013 the cost of 32GB of flash would be about 5.76 and 16 gigs would be around 2.88 . that .50 cent figure is also before the 3b cell chip they are moving to which they said will reduce the size of a 8GB chip by 20% . So prices may be even less. Of course thats if they are able to continue making the advancements they are making now

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.

Well i'm not a developer however

8 times the amount of content plus higher resolution content to me is going to cost more than what todays content costs. It may not be 8 times but it will surely cost more.

Then again we've already had talks about new compression tech.

 

[-tkf-]

sdxc 4096 would take 13 seconds

Guess what i would prefer

I don't see why blu ray would be quitter. The noise of a dvd drive is due to the spinning of the disc , the same would apply to a bluray drive. As the disc spins faster the drive will create more noise.

The data density is greater on Blu-Ray so for the same amount of transfer pr sec the rotation speed is lower.

BDXL should allow for up to 128 gigs but thats alot of layers. 100 gig disc is 4 layers. With each layer the bluray drive will read the disc slower and there will be a pause as the laser refocuses to read the next layer. Not to mention that 4 layer discs will cost much more than a single or dual layer disc. I remember reading that dual layer dvds cost 5 times as much as single layer. I can't imagine how much more a 4 layer bluray would cost over a single layer one.

Absolutely true, but as with dual layer BD or DVD if the cost goes down the advantage may be greater than the cost. It was meant to point out that even 50GB isn´t the limit.

Hardrives aren't going to be increasing in speed. A 2.5inch drive

If we get 100MB pr sec and a random access that is vastly superior to optical it´s still worth using for cache. A really cool setup would see the Consoles use the Optical and Harddrive at the same time, using each strength. I think some games already do this.

Sure at this point in time but the 360 was on a fixed format. Moving to flash would move them away from a fixed format and while 7GB of space ( i believe its actually 6.7GB avalible) is not enough right now , 16 gig which is more than double the space might be fine at the start of the next generation. With flash prices droping 40% year in and year out 32 gigs could be an option also at the start of next gen. After all if Intel micron is claiming that its .50cents a GB now in 2012 it will be .30 cents a GB and in 2013 it will be /18 cents a GB . So in 2013 the cost of 32GB of flash would be about 5.76 and 16 gigs would be around 2.88 . that .50 cent figure is also before the 3b cell chip they are moving to which they said will reduce the size of a 8GB chip by 20% . So prices may be even less. Of course thats if they are able to continue making the advancements they are making now.

I would absolutely love everything being flash, but i doubt it will make it costwise. The advantages in speed makes it the best upgrade you can do for your PC, and i think it would be the same for Console tech.
But it seriously doubt that it will be able to compete in price, and i would hate if we end up with games being compromised because of space=cost. It would be cool if the big 3 leaves the option open so they can chose both formats.

Well i'm not a developer however
8 times the amount of content plus higher resolution content to me is going to cost more than what todays content costs. It may not be 8 times but it will surely cost more.
Then again we've already had talks about new compression tech.

Compression tech isn´t 8 times today than what is was before this gen.

 

[manux]

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.



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.



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

Blu-ray is constant speed for whole disc whereas DVD speed depends on the location of data. You have the inner rim of second layer where read speed is only 4.36MB/s for DVD. With DVD you only have very small space that has good read speed. Guess what happens with this kind of solution and megatexturing/Heavy streaming next gen...

Drive speed is a factor in filling the memory but the assets are not uncompressed on the disc. You can be quite sure that significant amount of data that gets read from disc is uncompressed after loading. Also quite some games do progressive loading of assets(i.e. uncharted) where you gradually fill up the memory and cache.

If you assume load times will get that much longer how do you explain that binary size doesn't grow in equal proportion? Let me guess, it's better compression where the extra data comes from and we still see relatively better performance out of 8x blu-ray next gen than from 12x dvd drive on best case scenario this gen.

 

[corduroygt]

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

You're pulling pricing out of your ass. Flash is not cheap and it'll never be as cheap as optical which is pennies per disc vs. dollars per disc. In fact it'll be at least 10:1 in favor of optical. 32 GB flash is 50-60 bucks which is the cost of a whole game! Process tech is not improving as fast anymore and the price trend of flash memory isn't following Moore's law at all. My X25-M G2 is still the same price as last year when I bought it.
I know you're heartbroken because Blu-ray won the format war, but if MS is smart, they'll just put blu-ray in the next gen console and be done with it. Let it cache to flash memory that's built into the console.

 

[TheWretched]

The "fill ram" speeds here implicate that all data is uncompressed on the disc and will be uncompressed in RAM... and all data in RAM will be used by data from the disc.

That is not correct... at least not completely. I remember Evolution Studios saying something like that the data on Motorstorms disc was compressed about 2:1 on disc, which essentially doubled read speeds with on the fly decompression. Plus, a LOT of data from the 512MB the consoles have will NOT be used by Textures, Models or Audio, but by the engine.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

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

That's assuming it's a CLV drive which is more expensive to manufacture. It is far more likely that it'll be a CAV drive. A CAV drive will spin at 10k RPM constantly for 12x read speeds at the outer ring and greatly reduced at the middle to inner rings. A CLV drive will only be 10k RPM when reading from the outer ring but significantly faster (over 20k RPM) when reading from the inner rings which will start to pose problems.

As well, a 12x BRD will spin as fast as a 20x DVD (10,000 RPM) . Hence a 12x BRD is going to be significantly louder than the drives shipping in the current X360's.

You're pulling pricing out of your ass. Flash is not cheap and it'll never be as cheap as optical which is pennies per disc vs. dollars per disc. In fact it'll be at least 10:1 in favor of optical. 32 GB flash is 50-60 bucks which is the cost of a whole game! Process tech is not improving as fast anymore and the price trend of flash memory isn't following Moore's law at all. My X25-M G2 is still the same price as last year when I bought it.

The price of flash starts to become insignifcant if you aren't using it for permanent storage 1 game = 1 cart. Lets take a 32 GB SDHC Class 10 card and assume there are absolutely no price reductions. 18-20 MB/s read speed would be a fair upgrade over current optical drives and is absolutely silent.

Youc an also get them for 50 USD current or cheaper with the frequent sales on flash devices.

To an end user after using it to purchase/transfer 10 games that's already down to 5 dollars per game for distribution. Versus greater than 10 USD per game for optical media for manufacturing, packaging, distribution, etc. Add in another 10-20 for retailer margins.

I realise that your response was to Eastmen and you're probably both assuming a 1 game = 1 media permanent storage situation, but I just think that's incredibly backward looking and counter productive with the cost reductions for software developers/publishers and console manufacturer's inherent in using reuseable media as a distribution media in addition to DD.

And if permanent storage of a game is an issue then that's easily solved by allowing users to store/transport the distributable game files on any media of their choice. If they choose to burn it to DVD/BRD or store it on a 2 TB HDD, or whatever, it's up to them.

In fact, while PSP2 may or may not be the greatest example to look it, it certainly appears that it's a key test platform for Sony with regards to that. Any game that will be available on Flash (implicating that all games are DD but only some will be distributed physically through retailers) will launch day and date on DD.

I'm not sure Sony is ready yet to embrace the use of reuseable Flash devices purely as a means of distribution of DD content. Thus it's possible PSP2 might feature secure encrypted proprietary flash devices and thus lose all cost benefits of moving to reuseable flash distribution.

Anyway, back to that original example. After 20 games, your cost is down to 2.5 US per game. 50 games and down to 1 USD per game. Throw in the ability to grab the file anywhere (ownership verification through account activation) and there's no distribution or very minimal distribution fee's incurred. Gamestop/McDonald's/Walmart/7-Eleven charging 5-10 USD to copy a 30-40 USD game (cheaper prices and massively more revenue for the publisher/developer) to your media or trade you a preloaded cart with your media? No biggie. Just share the costs with a few friends and load it onto multiple machines. Or find one friend with uncapped broadband that downloads it for everyone.

20 mb/s read too slow? Think you're an enthusiast gamer like those snobby PC guys? Then get yourself an SSD external drive for 300+ MB/s reads.

The point being that as soon as you remove optical media from the whole chain and move to DD only and account based activation of games you immediately cut out more than 50% of the cost of a retail game that goes to manufacturing, packaging, distribution, and retailer with each part of that chain needing to make a profit before it moves on to the next part of the chain.

And then it's up to the end user to determine how much he wants to spend to buy his game from a physical location if he doesn't have access to uncapped broadband or a friend with uncapped broadband. And up to the end user to determine how fast his game media is going to be.

IMO - I don't view PSP2 as a proving grounds for a distribution method of 1 flash cart device = 1 game, but rather as a proving grounds to see how well distribution works as DD primary with "something else" as a secondary means to transport games to a console device. THAT, IMO, is the only distribution that makes sense for the future. As long as that "something else" is a reuseable method of transfer, even if it isn't quite to that point yet with PSP2.

Optical media as a means of distribution needs to die ASAP, IMO. Actually that's not really accurate. 1 game = 1 distribution media type of distribution needs to die ASAP. Optical just happens to be the cheapest distribution media for that paradigm. But regardless of what media is used, that distribution paradigm really needs to die ASAP.

IMO, the only thing that would prevent this in the generation of consoles to follow the current one is the fear of piracy and not being able to adequately protect games through account activation + secure console + encrypted redistributable game files.

Regards,
SB

 

[eastmen]

Guess what i would prefer

I'd hope its flash

The data density is greater on Blu-Ray so for the same amount of transfer pr sec the rotation speed is lower.

A 12x bluray drive will be spining at 10,000rpm which is what a dvd drive will spin at for maximum speed also as past that the disc will shater while spining. So a 12x bluray drive will sound the same as a 24x dvd drive.

Absolutely true, but as with dual layer BD or DVD if the cost goes down the advantage may be greater than the cost. It was meant to point out that even 50GB isn´t the limit.

For now bdxl is a limit due to the small amount of capacity to make the devices.

If we get 100MB pr sec and a random access that is vastly superior to optical it´s still worth using for cache. A really cool setup would see the Consoles use the Optical and

Harddrive at the same time, using each strength. I think some games already do this.

however you could just go to flash with 300MB/s and vastly superior random acess to hardrives

I would absolutely love everything being flash, but i doubt it will make it costwise. The advantages in speed makes it the best upgrade you can do for your PC, and i think it would be the same for Console tech.
But it seriously doubt that it will be able to compete in price, and i would hate if we end up with games being compromised because of space=cost. It would be cool if the big 3 leaves the option open so they can chose both formats.

If you google around you will find its about 50cents per GB of flash from Intel/Micron press releases

Compression tech isn´t 8 tim
es today than what is was before this gen.

But going to 4 gigs of ram is a 8 times increase in avaliable ram for assets. Going to 8 gigs would be a 16 times increase.

Blu-ray is constant speed for whole disc whereas DVD speed depends on the location of data. You have the inner rim of second layer where read speed is only 4.36MB/s for DVD. With DVD you only have very small space that has good read speed. Guess what happens with this kind of solution and megatexturing/Heavy streaming next gen...

Drive speed is a factor in filling the memory but the assets are not uncompressed on the disc. You can be quite sure that significant amount of data that gets read from disc is uncompressed after loading. Also quite some games do progressive loading of assets(i.e. uncharted) where you gradually fill up the memory and cache.

If you assume load times will get that much longer how do you explain that binary size doesn't grow in equal proportion? Let me guess, it's better compression where the extra data comes from and we still see relatively better performance out of 8x blu-ray next gen than from 12x dvd drive on best case scenario this gen.

Thats only if it stays as a clv drive and not a cav drive. The 12x drive i seel are not a constant speed they are variable.

You're pulling pricing out of your ass. Flash is not cheap and it'll never be as cheap as optical which is pennies per disc vs. dollars per disc. In fact it'll be at least 10:1 in favor of optical. 32 GB flash is 50-60 bucks which is the cost of a whole game! Process tech is not improving as fast anymore and the price trend of flash memory isn't following Moore's law at all. My X25-M G2 is still the same price as last year when I bought it.
I know you're heartbroken because Blu-ray won the format war, but if MS is smart, they'll just put blu-ray in the next gen console and be done with it. Let it cache to flash memory that's built into the console.

Numbers are not pulled out of my ass. Your numbers however are pulled out of yours because once again you do not understand that Retail does not equal whole sale prices

Unlike you i've actually been linking to press releases and articles

Prices have gone down greatly. Intel/Micron 25nm process does 8 GB per chip and is just 167mm2 (smaller for the 3bit a cell chip 20% they say). Last year it was 4GB per chip. So costs will go down less chips per 8GB will affect prices across the board.

This is tech that started ramping at the end of 2010 . Now extend out to 2013 and we will be on another process shrink From 32NM to 25NM they were able to double the capacity per chip from 4-8GB with 3 bit cells and another micron chip they may be able to do it again bringing 16GB data to a single chip.

So look at it this way

2010 32GB would require 8 chips
2011 32GB would require 4 chips
2012/13 32GB would require 2chips

Prices per GB continue to go down year in and year out. Read some articles i linked to and do some searches. Its currently less than 50 cents a GB to produce flash nand


Oh so 25NM MLC is 165mm2 3bit MLC is 131mm2 . Same 25nm micron process.

 

[eastmen]

The point being that as soon as you remove optical media from the whole chain and move to DD only and account based activation of games you immediately cut out more than 50% of the cost of a retail game that goes to manufacturing, packaging, distribution, and retailer with each part of that chain needing to make a profit before it moves on to the next part of the chain.

And then it's up to the end user to determine how much he wants to spend to buy his game from a physical location if he doesn't have access to uncapped broadband or a friend with uncapped broadband. And up to the end user to determine how fast his game media is going to be.

Yes DD or some form of it (kiosks) would be cheaper than all around. Console makers reduces costs of the console , publishers no longer have to worry about inventory and gamers should in theory have more places to buy the games from.

IMO, the only thing that would prevent this in the generation of consoles to follow the current one is the fear of piracy and not being able to adequately protect games through account activation + secure console + encrypted redistributable game files.

Regards,
SB

I still say the easiest way to prevent piracy is to install a 3G chip inside every console and to have it report home all the time.

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

If the machine is hacked who says they can't get around a 3g chip? Besides that you need to sign contracts with dozens of mobile operators worldwide and who's going to pay for the bandwith and 3g chip? I rather see them coming up with something to reduce costs. Not adding shit that doesn't benefit me but does cost me extra.

 

[AlphaWolf]

If the machine is hacked who says they can't get around a 3g chip? Besides that you need to sign contracts with dozens of mobile operators worldwide and who's going to pay for the bandwith and 3g chip? I rather see them coming up with something to reduce costs. Not adding shit that doesn't benefit me but does cost me extra.

Well the bandwidth would be nothing. That's not saying the idea is workable or anything, but it's not like you need to stream gigabytes of data over the network. Just a verification code every so often.

 

[eastmen]

If the machine is hacked who says they can't get around a 3g chip? Besides that you need to sign contracts with dozens of mobile operators worldwide and who's going to pay for the bandwith and 3g chip? I rather see them coming up with something to reduce costs. Not adding shit that doesn't benefit me but does cost me extra.

My nook has 3g and i didn't sign a single contract.


Look at it this way . The game would send a code that is mabye in the few kilobyte range every time you start up a game. Your most likely using less than 1MB a week for the 3g. Thats extremely cheap .

The cost for a console maker to add 3g would be very low compared to almost everything a 3g connection would normaly be for .

 

[Squilliam]

Flash vs optical console costs:

How much does the entire optical disc drive cost in terms of PSU, Chassis, RAM etc over a simplified flash media based console? Surely the whole entirety of the cost difference doesn't come down to optical drives + media vs flash readers + media.

 

[AlphaWolf]

How much does the entire optical disc drive cost in terms of PSU, Chassis, RAM etc over a simplified flash media based console? Surely the whole entirety of the cost difference doesn't come down to optical drives + media vs flash readers + media.

This is the real advantage of the flash based box. You'll start out with a much smaller, quieter, cheaper and lower powered box. A lower profit margin on the games (because of higher media costs) initially could be at least somewhat offset. And an optical competitors slim version will still probably have as big or bigger footprint than your launch console.

 

[TheWretched]

The Kiosk idea has one advantage for the console makers too... it'd basically kill off second hand sales, if you tie the games to the console, just like Steam does. I could live with it, if I knew I could enable all my games on any console I want to play on... just like Steam does. Retail wouldn't like that (at least Gamestop and such), but the others would love it, because they can sell ANY game ANY time with NO storage needed.

If the NGP really can play most PS3 games with little additional work, then making cross platform games a one time buy for both consoles would be awesome. Again... if I could enable any console I want to play on... at least as long as I am logged in.

 

[eastmen]

How much does the entire optical disc drive cost in terms of PSU, Chassis, RAM etc over a simplified flash media based console? Surely the whole entirety of the cost difference doesn't come down to optical drives + media vs flash readers + media.

It certianly doesn't , i brought it up a couple of times but was ignored.


my idea here is simple. Take the volume of the optical drive + 2.5inch hardrive and subtract the volume of a 3.5inch drive.

That left over volume is now reflected in the cost on multiple levels. First a 3.5inch drive will allow you to put in a larger drive for the same cost. 2TB WD green drives are going for the same price as 640GB 2.5inch drives. This allows gamers to buy more dlc and games on your service.

You remove the optical drive which most likely has a price floor of $15-$25 depending on the quality of the drive.

You now have increased area for better cooling / smaller case.

sd cards are what a 100µA


a bluray drive has 24w max i tseems power consumption
http://www.buffalotech.com/products...iastation-12x-external-usb-30-blu-ray-writer/

sadly i don't know how these two compare in all honesty except that i'm sure the sd card is many times less power than the optical.

As I said you should be able to shave quite alot off the cost of the console $50-$100 bucks is not unreasonable by moving to flash


Over 50m consoles that could be up to 1B in cash that is saved. Nothing to sneeze at

 

[Xenus]

Here is the issue why are you assuming that it will be size of a 2.5inch drive? Laptop drives are far smaller in volume. It'd be safer to say to use them.

 

[corduroygt]

Prices per GB continue to go down year in and year out. Read some articles i linked to and do some searches. Its currently less than 50 cents a GB to produce flash nand

Caught you in a lie again. Show me where it's .50 per GB, show me where I can get a GB flash for less than a buck?
The lowest 2GB SD card price according to www.dramexchange.com is around $4. You cannot get pure chip prices, there's connectors, assembly and casing, so SD card pricing is more accurate.

PS2 sold about 1.5 billion discs in its lifetime. Multiply by $5 (It's more realistically $10 but I'll let it slide) and you get 7.5 billion dollars. Consumers aren't going to pay that* so the makers will have eat the cost. Especially 6 months down the road with half price greatest hits editions, that $5 will represent a whopping 18% of the final selling price before retailers, etc. get their cut.

Flash cost structure only makes sense as cache soldered to the board for next generation. Three delivery options, listed from highest to lowest sales are listed below:

1. Disc,
2. DD,
3. Take your portable USB device to a kiosk to load a game.

* Unless they're still butthurt over Blu-ray 5 years down the road

 

[Squilliam]

This is the real advantage of the flash based box. You'll start out with a much smaller, quieter, cheaper and lower powered box. A lower profit margin on the games (because of higher media costs) initially could be at least somewhat offset. And an optical competitors slim version will still probably have as big or bigger footprint than your launch console.

Beyond this you're not paying all that money to support optical media when the real money maker is online distribution. If Microsoft makes $9 on a $60 game bought at a store they probably make $18 or 30% on a game bought online. So to them some form of digitial distribution would probably be preferable to optical based distribution and im sure that publishers would eat a couple of dollars per SKU to remove the 2nd hand market from the equation.

How much does the RAM cost to offset the slowness of the optical drive? How much noise does that make? What kind of compromises would they have to make with cooling? How much does say 10W extra cost in terms of power supply and finally if theres a 1/100 chance even that the optical drive will break down, how much does that add to the cost when thinking simply of warranty repairs? It seems we're running low on practical reasons why optical drives might be better than flash media.

It certianly doesn't , i brought it up a couple of times but was ignored.


my idea here is simple. Take the volume of the optical drive + 2.5inch hardrive and subtract the volume of a 3.5inch drive.

That left over volume is now reflected in the cost on multiple levels. First a 3.5inch drive will allow you to put in a larger drive for the same cost. 2TB WD green drives are going for the same price as 640GB 2.5inch drives. This allows gamers to buy more dlc and games on your service.

Using 2.5" or 1.8" HDDs would be better simply because they're removeable and can be taken to a kiosk etc and plugged in, also they use less power and are smaller again. It makes sense to use the HDD in that doubled up fashion. Personally I don't see how the space issues will be a problem, once we're over 500GB at the start of the next generation most probably won't even go through half that space.

 

[AlphaWolf]

Caught you in a lie again. Show me where it's .50 per GB, show me where I can get a GB flash for less than a buck?
The lowest 2GB SD card price according to www.dramexchange.com is around $4. You cannot get pure chip prices, there's connectors, assembly and casing, so SD card pricing is more accurate.

PS2 sold about 1.5 billion discs in its lifetime. Multiply by $5 (It's more realistically $10 but I'll let it slide) and you get 7.5 billion dollars. Consumers aren't going to pay that* so the makers will have eat the cost. Especially 6 months down the road with half price greatest hits editions, that $5 will represent a whopping 18% of the final selling price before retailers, etc. get their cut.

Flash cost structure only makes sense as cache soldered to the board for next generation. Three delivery options, listed from highest to lowest sales are listed below:

1. Disc,
2. DD,
3. Take your portable USB device to a kiosk to load a game.

* Unless they're still butthurt over Blu-ray 5 years down the road

Take $20 off the price of each unit by removing the optical drive and you've covered 40% of that cost on 150 million ps2s.

I don't think you'll see a blu-ray drive in any future xbox or nintendo unit. There's plenty of optical alternatives that aren't blu-ray if they want to go that way.

<edit> and anyway you slice it DD is going to be a big part of the next generation, which favors lower upfront cost units

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

My nook has 3g and i didn't sign a single contract.


Look at it this way . The game would send a code that is mabye in the few kilobyte range every time you start up a game. Your most likely using less than 1MB a week for the 3g. Thats extremely cheap .

The cost for a console maker to add 3g would be very low compared to almost everything a 3g connection would normaly be for .

You didn't sign a contract but the company that builds/sell the nook probably did. Somebody has to pay for using that 3g connection.

Even if you only use 1mb a month it's still expensive. My mate's girlfriend got a 95 euro bill for using 60mb. Now she doesn't have a data plan so she gets screwed but even for a 1gb data plan you pay 10 euro's a month and Holland is probably one of the cheaper countries when it comes to mobile data connections.

Even if it would only cost a couple of euro's over the consoles lifetime if you sell 50million+ consoles even a couple of euro's means a console builder would still be spending hundreds of millions and that is without the added costs of the 3g chip itself.

I don't believe the idea is workable. It will cost a lot of money with no guarantees that it will actually prevent piracy if a console gets hacked. If you want to do a check everytime a game boots just use the normal internet connection. It's not like somebody who owns a wii/ps3/x360 doesn't have a internet connection.