I didn't say it was big. One of many factors, if 10 factors count for 2%, you end up with 20% lost sales.
Do you agree it can account for 2% ?
Alternative distribution to optical disks : SSD, cards, and download*
- Thread starter Cheezdoodles
- Start date
Do you agree it can account for 2% ?
Nope. I'd be shocked if it was 1/10th of 1%. The people who want this feature are people who have a lot of investment because they enjoy gaming, they aren't going to stop playing games if the feature doesn't ship on the new hardware. It's just a feature on a long checklist, a feature that's long forgotten once there's content for the new platform.
So big that Sony made a important part of their launch console, for the exact give reasons, didn´t the 360 has limited BC as well? Later in the generation costs was cut and BC became HiDef reboots.
Data duplication on games???? Lets just say that 10% of your market has lousy broadband, that is customers gone away, and they will typically be challenge on price anyway, so a "expensive" premium sku is a bad choice for those parts.
There are serious tangible benefits to not using optical drives from a noise, cost, form-factor perspective. These benefits will likely increase as the console ages whereas the benefits from optical media will likely decrease as processes get better, internet improves and broadband penetration from services such as LTE reach even quaint little British villages like yours!
Noise and Cost of optical drives has so far not been a problem for every console launched, limited Flash space and price on the other hand has. 360, most noisy console ever, beat the PS3. N64, lost 2 generations while Sony won 2 based on optical.
Unless flash can compete on cost vs space there is no contest, it would be purely strategic choices that made anyone pick flash. Nintendo proved that with the Wii-U, they can do math and have the real numbers, they chose optical.
Yeah, it has been done quite a bit to improve data locality on disk for better streaming. I simply don't know how much it's used in an average game.
From what I gather US is nearly the only place that has relatively slow, expensive and capped broadband, I don't think money is anywhere near as much of an issue there as in for example Eastern Europe.
Noise was the reason why I didn't bother getting myself xb360. Anecdotical, yes, but I'm sure I'm not quite alone. Probably there are about as many (few
) people like me as there are people crying about backwards compability.
No. Lots of places have slow, capped, and/or unreliable broadband.
How many of them make up a meaningful portion of the target market?
Prophecy2k
Veteran
The article only considers data for consoles that are connected to the internet. There's a significant percentage of Xbox's that aren't. Trying to make any kind of conclusion about overall console useage using such figures is a fools errand.
With Microsoft the a large majority of their profits have (likely) come from:
1. Live.
2. Xbox 360 profitable redesign, smaller and quieter.
3. Kinect.
The first being online services, the second being a smaller and quieter machine which is what optical media prevents and the third being a hands free interface which benefits from not having to physically interact with a controller or the console itself.
There are serious tangible benefits to not using optical drives from a noise, cost, form-factor perspective. These benefits will likely increase as the console ages whereas the benefits from optical media will likely decrease as processes get better, internet improves and broadband penetration from services such as LTE reach even quaint little British villages like yours!
A large part of the console business model is making decisions to implement technologies which may not make perfect business sense in the short term which turn into money spinners in the longer term. Not making profit from media initially and using a different distribution model could be considered a good compromise for the serious question of whether or not to lose money on the console at launch. They could price for instance at a profitable level and then not have to make up the losses through royalties on media. How will the optical vs other distribution question look in 2016 or 2018 assuming these next generation consoles are still on the market?
Tbh i think the growth of internet based services in the US is only really significant, and i believe it will plateau very very soon. Internet infrastructure, or the lack thereof will ensure it, and very few countries actually care to invest in the infrastructure to ensure the continued growth of these sectors.
People that bang on about DD content taking the lions share of distributed media in the near future are dreaming imho. Things won't change by 2016 or 2018, or even 2025 for 50-100+GB games downloads, plus music and video, plus content streaming to become reasonably available to the greater majority of people globally. Broadband networks are poor, and with things like households moving to 3/4G mobile internet connections rather than home landline connections (quite popular in Britton), the connections through which all these multi GB's of content will be delivered are not getting any better quickly enough. Nowhere near what many people seem to believe.
Physical distribution will be with us for another 20-30 years at least. Even if the US goes mostly DD, the rest of the world will still cling to physical content as the most resonable & reliable means through which to consume their media content.
Edit:
Additionally, ensuring that a console is compatible with physical media will grant you the opportunity to take advantage of emerging markets. Sony have sold many PS2s in south america since the PS3s launch. Likewise PS3 sales in places like India, the middle-east and latin america have also been a good contributory factor to the PS3s success in rising to take back pretty much half the global HD console installed base. If MS goes DD only next gen, they constrain themselves to markets with developed broandband infrastructure only, as well as a mere fraction of those markets they're forced to target. They'd basically be leaving Sony to go completely uncontested in the rest of the world. Not really a smart strategy imho.
How's about half the UK for starters? This is an old topic. Go look up an existing thread where I spell it out.
upnorthsox
Veteran
The majority of your target market, 13-18 year olds, don't even make the internet decision in their household, that would be a meaningful portion.
Wasn't the average gamer over 30?
upnorthsox
Veteran
I'd be surprised if the average B3Der was over 30, and this is a geezer site.
steampoweredgod
Banned
I like having a nice library of discs organized with their nice boxes, just like a nice bookshelf, it is always nice to collect and have a solid physical representation of one's digital collection.
As a collector dis(c|k) longevity is also an issue, which is why I can't wait for milleniata blu ray discs. Hopefully the technology can be extended to multi-layer in some way. I'm a fan of discs(just look at disc sama in the 'needless' manga or anime), and boxes and collectibles. I also doubt flash memory can outlast milleniata's technology which is being used in military or naval settings. I'm sorry but when I say military grade, I like it, military grade encryption, security, and weaponry, surely no one dare move against such.
Right now I've a ps3 an xbox 360 and a wii. Obviously I buy from all 3, but surely the 100x dvd antiscratch anti dirt coating on ps3 discs is something of a plus, dvds have also had such coatings which makes one wonder nintendo microsoft is a few cents worth so much that you'd produce an inferior disc or product?
My lost odyssey disc(s), which i bought used was unreadable in the 3rd disc, had to go and get the disc repolished at one of the now extinct video rental stores for quite some money. It delayed my ability to play the game, and screwed around with having me pay for playing what I'd already paid for.
As a collector dis(c|k) longevity is also an issue, which is why I can't wait for milleniata blu ray discs. Hopefully the technology can be extended to multi-layer in some way. I'm a fan of discs(just look at disc sama in the 'needless' manga or anime), and boxes and collectibles. I also doubt flash memory can outlast milleniata's technology which is being used in military or naval settings. I'm sorry but when I say military grade, I like it, military grade encryption, security, and weaponry
, surely no one dare move against such.Right now I've a ps3 an xbox 360 and a wii. Obviously I buy from all 3, but surely the 100x dvd antiscratch anti dirt coating on ps3 discs is something of a plus, dvds have also had such coatings which makes one wonder nintendo microsoft is a few cents worth so much that you'd produce an inferior disc or product?
My lost odyssey disc(s), which i bought used was unreadable in the 3rd disc, had to go and get the disc repolished at one of the now extinct video rental stores for quite some money. It delayed my ability to play the game, and screwed around with having me pay for playing what I'd already paid for.
The noise of one optical drive has been a problem, you cited it. Would future consoles employing fast drives be considered 'silent' by any definition? I think you're confusion correlation with causation here, the noise of the 360 isn't exactly a 'pro' and there were other reasons aside from optical why the PS1 beat the N64.
Nintendo also chose a purple console with a handle.
Well i don´t consider noise a pro, i am just pointing out that the problem is.. shall we say overdone to the extreme and without any proof of it being a problem except in the relation to the next generation, and funny enough, the same people that would make it a problem had no problem buying the most noisy console ever produced..
I am going for the blu-ray install to hard drive solution. Imho that is the right way to solve the next gen storage challenge. My solution does not need the fastest drive possible, it just needs one that is fast enough.
I am not sure where you are getting at with the purble comment, how does that relate to flash/optical costs and benefits.. they also did Wii?
Your solution leads to long install times and an increase in the time it takes to refresh your system ram vs last generation.
I like having a nice library of discs organized with their nice boxes, just like a nice bookshelf, it is always nice to collect and have a solid physical representation of one's digital collection.
As a collector dis(c|k) longevity is also an issue, which is why I can't wait for milleniata blu ray discs. Hopefully the technology can be extended to multi-layer in some way. I'm a fan of discs(just look at disc sama in the 'needless' manga or anime), and boxes and collectibles. I also doubt flash memory can outlast milleniata's technology which is being used in military or naval settings. I'm sorry but when I say military grade, I like it, military grade encryption, security, and weaponry
Right now I've a ps3 an xbox 360 and a wii. Obviously I buy from all 3, but surely the 100x dvd antiscratch anti dirt coating on ps3 discs is something of a plus, dvds have also had such coatings which makes one wonder nintendo microsoft is a few cents worth so much that you'd produce an inferior disc or product?
My lost odyssey disc(s), which i bought used was unreadable in the 3rd disc, had to go and get the disc repolished at one of the now extinct video rental stores for quite some money. It delayed my ability to play the game, and screwed around with having me pay for playing what I'd already paid for.
I had over 1,500 dvds and I ripped them and put them in storage. I love that I regained a large amount of square feet in my house. I was able to put a 175 gallon fish tank in one of the area's that housed a large amount of my cds and dvds.
I think going foward people are going to become more acustom to having everything on cloud storage or home server storage vs having a ton of discs taking up rooms.
Only those who consider themselves collectors (and old collectors at that) will want discs and boxes for everything.
The only reason I buy blurays currently is because they offer me the highest quality source material to rip. But once i rip them my blurays go in the attic . My purchases of blurays is also much lower than that of dvd. I find that zune 1080p video / amazon video is high enough quality for the majority of movies , esp those with no special effects or action.
Prophecy2k
Veteran
I cannot imagine how long that would have taken.
I have a much smaller DVD/Blu-ray collection (<200) and care not to afford the time nor the effort to start ripping them to digital form. I have an equally as large digital collection of TV series, movies etc. and I appreciate that my PS3 supports all formats.
Had my console been without an optical disc drive, it would have necessitated a need for a secondary device to play my discs until i could find the time to rip them to my PC/NAS/PS3. Currently, I'm thankful to be able to enjoy the choice to rip or not to rip, whilst still being able to consume my content. Plus, my PS3 justifies my LoveFilm rental subscription as a can rent Blu-Rays and play them happily. Wouldn't want to break the law to start ripping rental DVDs/BRs to my system just to watch them ;-)
Next-gen consoles don't need to go one way or the other, and it benefits the complete range of different consumers that prefer to manage & buy their content in different forms to have a console that supports both physical and digital formats.
1500 DVDs is worth about 30000$.
How does one spend that much on a film collection and doesn't consider himself a collector?
Putting all this on a proprietary cloud storage, without any guarantee that the company will preserve them, let alone for years, let alone a cloud storage compatible will all your devices, let alone a codec compatible with all your devices too. Look up how much it'd cost right now for a cloud storage of 12TB of DVDs, imagine a collection of high quality 4k films (which you would love to have, right?).
If movie studios would sell unencrypted 50GB .mp4 files I would pay 30$ each for them, and I'd appreciate the flexibility. Not a single one of the major studio would ever do that, let alone all of them. We need a ubiquitous distribution format, which all studios adhere to, which is not tied to a hardware, nor controlled by a company, nor living in server-side DRM hell. The disk compromise will be there for quite a while, because they want copy protection, and most of us understand the risks of server-side DRM and we wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole. There's no alternative to speak of.
Careful about any claims requiring the use of "everyone" and/or "nobody" for the argument to work. Your media consumption habit are not the norm, nor are mine. What percentage of the population don't rip their DVDs? Likes to have a film collection? Isn't satisfied exclusively with streaming? Prefers disk based ownership? Aren't satisfied with crappy rips? Have friends and family who constantly borrow films? If you put even the most pessimistic numbers there, the conclusion is still that optical media is here to stay for quite another number of years.
How does one spend that much on a film collection and doesn't consider himself a collector?
Putting all this on a proprietary cloud storage, without any guarantee that the company will preserve them, let alone for years, let alone a cloud storage compatible will all your devices, let alone a codec compatible with all your devices too. Look up how much it'd cost right now for a cloud storage of 12TB of DVDs, imagine a collection of high quality 4k films (which you would love to have, right?).
If movie studios would sell unencrypted 50GB .mp4 files I would pay 30$ each for them, and I'd appreciate the flexibility. Not a single one of the major studio would ever do that, let alone all of them. We need a ubiquitous distribution format, which all studios adhere to, which is not tied to a hardware, nor controlled by a company, nor living in server-side DRM hell. The disk compromise will be there for quite a while, because they want copy protection, and most of us understand the risks of server-side DRM and we wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole. There's no alternative to speak of.
Careful about any claims requiring the use of "everyone" and/or "nobody" for the argument to work. Your media consumption habit are not the norm, nor are mine. What percentage of the population don't rip their DVDs? Likes to have a film collection? Isn't satisfied exclusively with streaming? Prefers disk based ownership? Aren't satisfied with crappy rips? Have friends and family who constantly borrow films? If you put even the most pessimistic numbers there, the conclusion is still that optical media is here to stay for quite another number of years.
Refresh system Ram?
Install time will be depending on game type and strategy, if Sony/Microsoft provides the correct tools it should be less of a problem.
Based on your 16GB with a 6 x speed drive a full install will take 10 mins, that is not a problem, installs will be:
1: Full installs
2: Partial installs
3: Installs while you play
4: No install
5: Mix of 2+3
Depending on the game, any of the 5 scenarios will be picked. GT5 is a great example of intelligent installs, most new assets from the Blu-Ray is copied to the hard drive and the next time you need them they are ready, when my old fat died i think it was 25GB data on the hard drive
The worst scenario would be a complete install of a 50GB game, but even that would be faster with a 6xspeed than the worst examples from this generation.. IF they don´t screw up the install process
As soon as the game is on the harddrive read speeds of up to 100MB is possible (depending on drive) and access times are of course way better. Music and other less important assets can just stay on the Blu-Ray.
So far your only reason for Flash is it is fast, so i pay at least $10 for a fast install, i guess $1 dollar a minute if you expect flash games not to be installed at all.. how will they work with DLC?
Some of the DLC is getting pretty big, in the case of GT5 you need 2GB to play it. How much space do you propose should be reserved for DLC? It will have to be as fast as the media the games comes on..
