Black Dragon37
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SCE UK boss Ray Maguire has dismissed suggestions that Sony is bullying gamers by forcing them to adopt its movie-playing technology with PlayStation 3 - claiming Blu-Ray is essential to the next-gen gaming experience.
'Blu-Ray is key for games,' says Sony's UK MD
- Thread starter Black Dragon37
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We've had other threads on equally pointless PR talk before, including that one about MS's reaction on PS3 presentation during E3 and such. It's not like it's anything unique.xbdestroya said:Black Dragon, why even bother posting this PR stuff?
I mean are you trying to start something?
PR threads are pointless, though having said that, I'd like to add that I couldn't care less about blu-ray being used to usher in a new era in gaming. I want a PS3 blu-ray player purely to enjoy HD movies. I wouldn't mind for a second if games came on good ol DVDs really.
The one redeeming feature about games on BR is that a 2X BRROM drive will be a LOT cooler and quieter than a 10-12X DVDROM drive. I am sure Wii will have no more than a 6X drive for this very reason.
So in a way this sony guy is right, but not anywhere close to what he actually wanted to make people believe!
This is about as helpful as Moore saying that Xenos is key for next-gen games.
I’d like to know what will happen to multi platform games, will publishers have to decide to either cut down for the 360 platform or spend more budget on the PS3 version, or just plan with dvd in mind from the outset.
As for the interview, eurogamer has the interview on video, he comes across as an ok guy but it’s all the same “I can’t believe how cheap the ps3 is considering blu-ray players cost…†as heard before. But what else exactly were people expecting him to say?
As for the interview, eurogamer has the interview on video, he comes across as an ok guy but it’s all the same “I can’t believe how cheap the ps3 is considering blu-ray players cost…†as heard before. But what else exactly were people expecting him to say?
To add a little weight to the discussion and drag it a little bout of the PR realm, here's some stuff I've gathered so far on the subject.
Mark Rein (Epic) said he expects PS3 Unreal Engine games to need the space that BluRay provides (around 20gb and upwards). Ninja Theory have confirmed on their forums they they will use the extra space BluRay provides. PD has indicated that they expect to need more than DVD since they have so much car data. As far as I know these all talk about data requirements rather than CGI / FMV requirements.
Of course, on the FMV heavy users, Team Ninja indicated they were disappointed with the 360 for just having DVD, as did From Software. (Both did eventually release 1 disc games on the 360 though.) Final Fantasy XIII is another contender for heavy use of disc space.
Then of course there is the London demo, which is said to use 20gb already. Procedural synthesis cannot be used for everything (see the Wiki entry for Procedural Synthesis). Games like Singstar, when they feature full HD videos, will need plenty of space obviously, and I'll be interested to see how they handle downloadable content in that respect - perhaps they'll go for h264 avc there.
Another interesting discussion could be if for those games where you can indeed use compression techniques to lower disc use, if and how much this affects performance, positively or negatively.
Mark Rein (Epic) said he expects PS3 Unreal Engine games to need the space that BluRay provides (around 20gb and upwards). Ninja Theory have confirmed on their forums they they will use the extra space BluRay provides. PD has indicated that they expect to need more than DVD since they have so much car data. As far as I know these all talk about data requirements rather than CGI / FMV requirements.
Of course, on the FMV heavy users, Team Ninja indicated they were disappointed with the 360 for just having DVD, as did From Software. (Both did eventually release 1 disc games on the 360 though.) Final Fantasy XIII is another contender for heavy use of disc space.
Then of course there is the London demo, which is said to use 20gb already. Procedural synthesis cannot be used for everything (see the Wiki entry for Procedural Synthesis). Games like Singstar, when they feature full HD videos, will need plenty of space obviously, and I'll be interested to see how they handle downloadable content in that respect - perhaps they'll go for h264 avc there.
Another interesting discussion could be if for those games where you can indeed use compression techniques to lower disc use, if and how much this affects performance, positively or negatively.
'PS3 is key for games,' says Sony's UK MD
(Sorry, couldn't resist.)
(Sorry, couldn't resist.)
mckmas8808
Legend
Arwin said:
This post is perfect for the PR speak. Why do people assume that devs will not use the extra space on BD disc?
Arwin said:
Exactly my thoughts. People have been saying the same things about DVD when Sony announced PS2's support of the format. I remember people saying that games will exploit DVD's only for FMV's, and there is no real need for it, but today even games without FMV's need more than 750MB. Getaway doesnt have any FMV's if I recall but a CD could never be enough at all. The same goes for MGS2 and 3.
The same counts for this genereation. Cardridges got bigger as time passed, then they were replaced by CDs, CD's were replaced by DVD's and I am sure someday DVD's wont be enoughfor this generation either
I agree to a point, games naturally get bigger as time goes by, but was it not the case that near the end of the Playstation 1's life, games such as Final Fantasy and Gran Turismo were using multiple CD's? I don't have a playstation 2, so maybe it's different on there, but i can't think of a single game on xbox that needed more than 1 DVD. So whereas at the last generation change, developers were already far exceeding the limits of the storage media (CD), including as many as 4 discs, this time round, they aren't so much.
Also I would have to agree with RobertR1, swapping disks is nothing new, and although it's a slight inconvenience, it's not very often. I don't think it's going to be big deal, you never had to swap carts on N64, but that didn't help it any compared to PS1 did it?
Also I would have to agree with RobertR1, swapping disks is nothing new, and although it's a slight inconvenience, it's not very often. I don't think it's going to be big deal, you never had to swap carts on N64, but that didn't help it any compared to PS1 did it?
It's not an issue of swapping disks, but an issue of cost. A 5 disk game cost more to make and distribute than a 1 disk game, and development costs will be more too. And in many games disk swapping is entirely infeasible, especially if you have a single huge world that you will regularly move around in, so it will be more like a disk swap every few minutes.
Nesh said:
HDDs are the future as far as money is concerned. There will be a limit to how much these companies will be willing to spend for the next generation of digital disc just so the game can load off it. By comparison the largest computer games weigh in at about 12-15G total before install. I'd expect console disc drives to take a dive someplace and start to literally install a large portion of files directly into the systems hard drive.
RobertR1 said:Oh noes! I'll have to swap out a DVD once in a blue while. How ever will I cope?
With a bottle of Jack and a loaded pistol.
Gears doesn't use two DVD's AFAIK. Nuff said.
High end PC games dont install to more than 4-5 gigs currently. They are at next gen specs already, so it's pretty clear to me you wont need more than DVD this gen. Especially considering PC games are notoriously unoptimized.
Sure, PC games will eventually go over 9 gig, but by then the specs on those high end gaming PC's will far exceed PS3/360 as well, especially in RAM which is the really relevant area dealing with storage (and they already dwarve next gen consoles there).
I mean it's a question of matching content size to a power frame. DVD would not have done a pentium 2, TNT 2, PC with 128 MB of ram all that much good, CD was fine for that era. If half a DVD is fine for high end PC's that match or exceed 360/PS3 specs..
Extra space is nice, but it will be mostly for extras.
As well, you trade off the slower load times of the 2x Blu-Ray drive versus the 12X DVD.
I'd expect not. DVD drives are much closer to Hard Drives in speed now, so you dont gain that much. I'd guess the 360 HDD is maybe 20, 30% faster than the 12X DVD drive. Not a big deal. What are hi end Blu Ray drives going to top out at? They'll probably be faster than Hard Drives! Unless Hard Drives have some new technology I'm not aware of coming up.
As well, X360 as well as Wii does not have a standard HDD. I'm surprised PS3 went with one. Very surprised, actually. I really dont see the cost/benefit eqaution at all in favor of HDD's in consoles at this time.
High end PC games dont install to more than 4-5 gigs currently. They are at next gen specs already, so it's pretty clear to me you wont need more than DVD this gen. Especially considering PC games are notoriously unoptimized.
Sure, PC games will eventually go over 9 gig, but by then the specs on those high end gaming PC's will far exceed PS3/360 as well, especially in RAM which is the really relevant area dealing with storage (and they already dwarve next gen consoles there).
I mean it's a question of matching content size to a power frame. DVD would not have done a pentium 2, TNT 2, PC with 128 MB of ram all that much good, CD was fine for that era. If half a DVD is fine for high end PC's that match or exceed 360/PS3 specs..
Extra space is nice, but it will be mostly for extras.
As well, you trade off the slower load times of the 2x Blu-Ray drive versus the 12X DVD.
I'd expect not. DVD drives are much closer to Hard Drives in speed now, so you dont gain that much. I'd guess the 360 HDD is maybe 20, 30% faster than the 12X DVD drive. Not a big deal. What are hi end Blu Ray drives going to top out at? They'll probably be faster than Hard Drives! Unless Hard Drives have some new technology I'm not aware of coming up.
As well, X360 as well as Wii does not have a standard HDD. I'm surprised PS3 went with one. Very surprised, actually. I really dont see the cost/benefit eqaution at all in favor of HDD's in consoles at this time.
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sonyps35 said:
You know about seek-times, right?
That was my reaction too, Shifty, guess he doesn't.
Also, of course all developers are going to try to keep their games on one DVD now. And of course PC games which typically install themselves on HDD completely because they are even worse optimised for DVD play than console games, will only use one DVD, not only because the budget for PC games is limited, but also because HDD space is limited and there is only so much users will put up with.
Imagine the embarassment of microsoft if they'd have a multiple DVD title in its first year, let alone a high profile one like Gears For now it will be much more interesting to see how much the PS3 games will use the extra BluRay space and what effect this will have on games.
Also, of course all developers are going to try to keep their games on one DVD now. And of course PC games which typically install themselves on HDD completely because they are even worse optimised for DVD play than console games, will only use one DVD, not only because the budget for PC games is limited, but also because HDD space is limited and there is only so much users will put up with.
Imagine the embarassment of microsoft if they'd have a multiple DVD title in its first year, let alone a high profile one like Gears
For now it will be much more interesting to see how much the PS3 games will use the extra BluRay space and what effect this will have on games.Shifty Geezer said:
Yeah. Now tell me exactly how those affect loading in percent difference terms in all instances.
LOL.
The pure throughput of the 12X DVD is getting close to the 5400 RPM HDD. Not sure how the slower seek time affects things but I'm counting some more off for it..hence 20-30%.
Of course you're hinting that the seek time is a huge factor. I mean I'm sure it is but I've seen no articles discussing exactly how all this breaks down in loading speed in percentage terms, let alone a game only workload. So that would be speculation.
I bought a 160 GB hard drive some time ago..thought it was impressive at the time, now, anything under 250 GB is tiny. I dont come close to using all that storage (also have a 100GB HDD as a second drive, or had, also have a 160GB external HDD). I maybe use ~25GB of that typically. Right now am at 17.8 GB used on my main drive.
I still see loading on PC games btw..with the 7200 RPM drives. Some games are very bad with this. I think Unreal 2 was one of the worst if I remember correctly. That game had worse loading than a console game..Course it was crap..why oh why did I make myself play it all the way through..
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Arwin said:Imagine the embarassment of microsoft if they'd have a multiple DVD title in its first year, let alone a high profile one like Gears
I remember that we were having the same discussion when the GCN launched with the MiniDVDs. Switching discs is not a problem unless it's a free roaming game with frequent sector changes. Otherwise I'd not even consider it to be a problem.
