Even if the drive costs only $30 you still have to add hardware margins, warranty costs, integration costs and retailer margins on the final product. It is a major cost for a console and hence if there are alternatives they need to be explored. It starts to get expensive having both a HDD and an optical drive in the same console and you essentially have two devices duplicating each others functions because neither quite does it all.
Alternative distribution to optical disks : SSD, cards, and download*
- Thread starter Cheezdoodles
- Start date
Even if the drive costs only $30 you still have to add hardware margins, warranty costs, integration costs and retailer margins on the final product. It is a major cost for a console and hence if there are alternatives they need to be explored. It starts to get expensive having both a HDD and an optical drive in the same console and you essentially have two devices duplicating each others functions because neither quite does it all.
Optical, cheap distribution platform for large games, expect 25GB and larger games during next gen.
Added value for Blu-Ray playback, no need for another Blu-Ray player, and 4K support is pretty much a given for very little money. Yes yes, i know the classic argument, "i can get a Blu-Ray player for $5" i read that argument when it was $100, it's been played out to no end, and i have read the same people arguing that they don't have space for another console. Like whatever. It's added value to most people.
I think a DD only console should be done as a cheap edition of PS4/XBOX720, many would have what they needed and it would make the launch price better. But expect huge games, big downloads and filled harddrives. And those that use the 2nd hand market to save money, they wont join this crowd.
I hope that Microsoft and Sony avoids other crazy ways of creating cheap SKU's. No limits on install size or download size please.
Added value for Blu-Ray playback, no need for another Blu-Ray player, and 4K support is pretty much a given for very little money. Yes yes, i know the classic argument, "i can get a Blu-Ray player for $5" i read that argument when it was $100, it's been played out to no end, and i have read the same people arguing that they don't have space for another console. Like whatever. It's added value to most people.
I think a DD only console should be done as a cheap edition of PS4/XBOX720, many would have what they needed and it would make the launch price better. But expect huge games, big downloads and filled harddrives. And those that use the 2nd hand market to save money, they wont join this crowd.
I hope that Microsoft and Sony avoids other crazy ways of creating cheap SKU's. No limits on install size or download size please.
An external player isn't really the right one to pick, they have additional costs which don't apply to internal drives (lots of extra IP for one, which consoles need any way).
PC drives are a better example and those start at 40$ (31 actually, but that's an outlier). This is including warranty and retailer margins ...
upnorthsox
Veteran
It's ironic we are having this conversation during the Christmas without Netflix.
Huh what do you mean?
In regards to Netflix, everybody got downtime, including old analog TV, nothing got 100% uptime.
tkf; yes, current DRM schemes are flawed, but it takes 1 to make a good one and people to support it. My assumption is that for Valve to change it to all your games can be played at the same time is easy to do, problem is that when you, me and the rest of the people on the Beyond3d buys 1 game and adds it to your library and have access to it, they just got "screwed" out of x number of copies.
As for the 3G/4G crowd, if they buy mobile internet and expect it to work the same as a fixed line, they are in for a rude awakening, its not just games that will suffer. Ie people will have to get fixed to accomodate more services than just games.
As mentioned before, its not about going Digital only, but having that as an option. For me DD and no optical drive works out just fine, I do not watch DVD/BlueRays anyway. I got streaming services for my TV/Movie addictions
tkf; yes, current DRM schemes are flawed, but it takes 1 to make a good one and people to support it. My assumption is that for Valve to change it to all your games can be played at the same time is easy to do, problem is that when you, me and the rest of the people on the Beyond3d buys 1 game and adds it to your library and have access to it, they just got "screwed" out of x number of copies.
As for the 3G/4G crowd, if they buy mobile internet and expect it to work the same as a fixed line, they are in for a rude awakening, its not just games that will suffer. Ie people will have to get fixed to accomodate more services than just games.
As mentioned before, its not about going Digital only, but having that as an option. For me DD and no optical drive works out just fine, I do not watch DVD/BlueRays anyway. I got streaming services for my TV/Movie addictions
They MUST offer both like they did with the Vita. It's the logical thing to do. They have physical media that allows cheap physical distribution, no game size limit, and they reach consumers that need it or prefer it, and they get a strong retailers support. If they also have all games downloadable for those people with speedy broadband, large storage space, (and a naive tolerance to DRM ), they reach that crowd too. The only reason we don't have this now, except for the Vita, is that neither MS or Sony forced it from the start. If the game publishers are forced to make their games available in both formats from the start it's going to be best for everybody.
), they reach that crowd too. The only reason we don't have this now, except for the Vita, is that neither MS or Sony forced it from the start. If the game publishers are forced to make their games available in both formats from the start it's going to be best for everybody.Albofighter
Newcomer
I think what would be smart for their business is to make digital copies of all their games with the added benefit of streaming in the cloud so you can play them on your phone and tablets. Where as retail copies have the benefit of resale but a I can see a lot of people preferring the digital copy just for the cloud add on. It would help the companies put a huge dent in the used game market without forcing anyone to just buy digital.
And we have a potential contender for this thread when the next generation (PS5 etc) is ready...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23492609
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23492609
Downloads packers will be organized so to download first what you play first so it should be possible to just download individual packages if you have a limit
Yeah.
If we could also plan/schedule downloads it would be perfect.
Sony have shown starting a download from mobile, no?
Yes.
Form what they showed we will be able to use our mobile phones to purchase game an such form the PS Store and remotely activate the download on the PS4.
Planing/scheduling downloads isn't available for now though.
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And we have a potential contender for this thread when the next generation (PS5 etc) is ready...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23492609
So we have a capacity decrease ? As it stands Bluray xl is able to do 300 gigs is it not. Remember all those lovely threads about the ps3 having bluray and future discs being 8 layers and some such nonsense.
I rather they make a real generational leap and put out 1TB single layer discs or go strait to holographic discs.
We also had discussions about the cost of 8 layer discs. Chances are this is a one layer disc just as the "professional disc" started with a single layer 23GB disc, followed up with Blu-Ray in 2006
How likely it is to see this technology in the next gen would be guessing. But making sure it's easy to stamp the discs and make the drives would be a priority. Being just one layer helps
It should be noted that this is mainly aimed at their archive business. Sony has a Optical Disc Archive storage system that claims +50 year lifetime for the cartridges. Panasonic has something similar.
I am not disagreeing since it would be a pretty wild guess, what i wonder is where is the cut off. Considering the same stats, in 99 the sales was 61 million units, compared to 127 million units in 2012. So in terms of optical and video/movie sales it seems it will take a long while before that goes away if ever.
And as i think we have seen with consoles, it's not just a straight copy of the PC market. There is a clear demand for stuff there isn't on the PC now. Free tradeable games, no online requirement and consoles that isn't even connected to the internet. And lets not forget that even PC games still gets released on discs.
You are comparing year one of DVD with year 7 of bluray? Last year wasn't a bad year, its been a steady decline over the last 3 or 4. Netflix, vudu, hulu etc... physical media is dying.
And some PC games are released on discs, many are not. I expect it will be the same on consoles going forward.
If optical wants to make any kind of comeback, they need a solution that isn't just huge capacity, it needs to be an order of magnitude faster than current formats. They have reached the limits of how fast they can spin a disc and it's still too slow.
And some PC games are released on discs, many are not. I expect it will be the same on consoles going forward.
If optical wants to make any kind of comeback, they need a solution that isn't just huge capacity, it needs to be an order of magnitude faster than current formats. They have reached the limits of how fast they can spin a disc and it's still too slow.
