'Blu-Ray is key for games,' says Sony's UK MD

[Arwin]

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.

That's not the point. The point is that it would happen at this early point in the next-gen cycle. Microsoft needs people to believe DVD is enough, certainly at this stage. Multiple disc games this early gives the Sony marketing people a lot of extra ammo to say "See? We were right, and look it's already happening now. And we are anticipating that towards the end of the console's lifecycle, we may even see a multiple BR disc ... "

And so I believe Microsoft will try very hard from keeping multiple DVD games from being released in the first few years. Sony would do the same the other way round, though I have a feeling it'll be a much smaller effort.

 

[Sis]

That's not the point. The point is that it would happen at this early point in the next-gen cycle. Microsoft needs people to believe DVD is enough, certainly at this stage. Multiple disc games this early gives the Sony marketing people a lot of extra ammo to say "See? We were right, and look it's already happening now. And we are anticipating that towards the end of the console's lifecycle, we may even see a multiple BR disc ... "

And so I believe Microsoft will try very hard from keeping multiple DVD games from being released in the first few years. Sony would do the same the other way round, though I have a feeling it'll be a much smaller effort.

This is only compelling to the consumer if they lose features, and "not swapping discs" rarely makes it to the back of a video game cover or video game review as a "feature". If that's the 'feature' that we get for the added cost of a Blu-ray drive, it's a pretty expensive one at that.

 

[Arwin]

This is only compelling to the consumer if they lose features, and "not swapping discs" rarely makes it to the back of a video game cover or video game review as a "feature". If that's the 'feature' that we get for the added cost of a Blu-ray drive, it's a pretty expensive one at that.

If consumers were that smart, we'd not have this discussion in the first place.

 

[Sis]

If consumers were that smart, we'd not have this discussion in the first place.

If don't know if you're agreeing with me or not.

Based on my own personal experience, I never once gave a second thought to GameCube's multiple discs. I'm not saying this to downplay the benefit, just that it never really became an issue.

So, if it wasn't a personal issue and reviews don't mention it and the game box doesn't mention it, how does the dumb consumer even know about it?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Yeah. Now tell me exactly how those affect loading in percent difference terms in all instances.

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%.

It depends on how the data is structured. Reading a big contiguous block, 12x DVD is okay, but reading files spread over the disc, a model here, a texture there, the head spends more time looking for than reading data. HDD seek times are an order of magnitude faster than optical discs.

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 can't say from personal experience, but someone like Faf could. I'd say in a game situation streaming content, you're looking at at least 2x as fast HDD access over DVD, and likely multiple times faster.

 

[mckmas8808]

It depends on how the data is structured. Reading a big contiguous block, 12x DVD is okay, but reading files spread over the disc, a model here, a texture there, the head spends more time looking for than reading data. HDD seek times are an order of magnitude faster than optical discs.

Hey Shifty, so if devs stream info from a Blu-ray disc using a bunch of dummy data and use the HDD effiently how much of a different would that game have over not having a HDD and using a DVD?

 

[StefanS]

That's not the point. The point is that it would happen at this early point in the next-gen cycle. Microsoft needs people to believe DVD is enough, certainly at this stage. Multiple disc games this early gives the Sony marketing people a lot of extra ammo to say "See? We were right, and look it's already happening now. And we are anticipating that towards the end of the console's lifecycle, we may even see a multiple BR disc ... "

The only people concerned about multiple discs are people posting on internet fora. Seriously I've never heard people complaining about such a non-issue. BTW, the first multiple disc GCN game was the RE-Remake, which, I believe, was released slightly after 1 year.
Sony will rather market BR Disc as the next thing after DVD (HD movies, etc.), not by: "Wow, on X360 you have to swap to d2 discs, here on PS3 is just 1 disc!" That just sounds retarded.

 

[London Geezer]

Hey Shifty, so if devs stream info from a Blu-ray disc using a bunch of dummy data and use the HDD effiently how much of a different would that game have over not having a HDD and using a DVD?

Shifty won't be able to give you a number.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Shifty won't be able to give you a number.

42

To answer the question, you could get 'more stuff faster'. Reading BRD and HDD, you could maybe double your throughput best case scenario. But that would be basically readin one big long file off BRD and lettingthe HDD do it's thing. I don't know what it'll actually enable in games. Streamed audio is one possibility, using BRD for music (uncompressed even?) while game data is loaded off HDD. More likely I imagine the BRD will be feeding data to HDD for caching. After all you've still got to get it onto the HDD and multi gigabyte installs won't go down well - we want to put in the disc and play! So the BRD would perhaps just copy data onto HDD for the current level, and the HDD feeds that to the game.

It's an area the devs really need to comment on. XB could have handled the same. Did it at any point?

 

[SugarCoat]

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.

Thats all well and good by the more amounts of data you need transferred over the disc drives causes spin-up or running the drive at its maximum speed. Two problems with this is noise, which is the biggest cosmetic flaw of the 360 many would say, and the reduction of disc life. Am i the only one thats noticed just about every PC game released in the last 2 years never actually uses the discs to run but merely does a check for security purposes? Theres a reason they started doing that.

Mark my words as HDDs get cheaper and cheaper we wont need large capacity optical discs. But Sony quite problably will still be making newer disc drives simply due to their other investments in the movie/tv/player technologies.

 

[Tap In]

It depends on how the data is structured. Reading a big contiguous block, 12x DVD is okay, but reading files spread over the disc, a model here, a texture there, the head spends more time looking for than reading data. HDD seek times are an order of magnitude faster than optical discs.
I can't say from personal experience, but someone like Faf could. I'd say in a game situation streaming content, you're looking at at least 2x as fast HDD access over DVD, and likely multiple times faster.

which is why I suspect is the main reason that PS3 has introduced HDD for both systems as standard.

 

[Arwin]

which is why I suspect is the main reason that PS3 has introduced HDD for both systems as standard.

Yes, being able to cache the data you're going to have to random-access a lot gives you the biggest gain. The rest can be streamed very well, which is something Playstation developers have got pat and can do much better because you can rely on the one type of hardware a lot more than on PC games.

This is why criticism of the no-HDD 360 was high among developers, as they really, really wanted to be able to count on having a HDD around. The irony is worse because on the original Xbox, they actually could count on that.

 

[scooby_dooby]

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

To the contrary, the overwhelming majority have been 4-6GB.

 

[Tap In]

...
This is why criticism of the no-HDD 360 was high among developers, as they really, really wanted to be able to count on having a HDD around. The irony is worse because on the original Xbox, they actually could count on that.

not as critical with a 12x DVD to stream from and yes, the HDD caching is used in most X360 games anyway, if the HDD is not present, they just don't get the benefit.

Not really a dev problem it is an end user ($100 cheaper) problem.

but with a 2x Blu ray, they had no choice IMO. Again another aspect of the cost structure that I think tied Sony's hands a bit this gen (in order to drive the Blu Ray format)

In a perfect world, trust me, Sony would have loved to do a $399 core system with no HDD as the costs will scale down to critical marketshare pricing much faster.

 

[scooby_dooby]

After all you've still got to get it onto the HDD and multi gigabyte installs won't go down well - we want to put in the disc and play! So the BRD would perhaps just copy data onto HDD for the current level, and the HDD feeds that to the game.

It's an area the devs really need to comment on. XB could have handled the same. Did it at any point?

Generally games on XBOX that made good use of the cache would have a longer initial load time as the cache was created, and that cache would usually stick around until it was overwritten by another game. There were 3 caches, so you could have up to 3 games at once using them, except in a case like Halo 2 where it uses 2 of the 3 caches for itself.

It should be noted in this discussion that MS has embedded HDD streaming in the SDK for 360 so it's a very easy feature for developers to utilize. Given the 90% hDD install rate as of now, and the relative ease of implemenation, I expect most developers will make use of the HDD on the 360 to stream/cache data as well. So it's not 2x BR + HDD vs 12x dvd, the 12xDVD also has access to a HDD it can and will use to stream and cache data.

 

[RobertR1]

I'll wait to see how games like Forza2, GoW, Lost Planet, and many others turn out and at how much DVD space used before passing judgment on the "need" for more capacity. Again, if I have to swap out a DVD, I'm not going to lose sleep over it. As others pointed out, games will take advantage of the HDD if present and I wouldn't be shocked to see a HDD on both packages when they come up for a revision. If this console is only meant to last 5years, then they should be fine.

 

[mckmas8808]

To the contrary, the overwhelming majority have been 4-6GB.

Isn't that 6 gigs cutting it kinda close for 1st gen (some non tiling) games?

I'll wait to see how games like Forza2, GoW, Lost Planet, and many others turn out and at how much DVD space used before passing judgment on the "need" for more capacity. Again, if I have to swap out a DVD, I'm not going to lose sleep over it. As others pointed out, games will take advantage of the HDD if present and I wouldn't be shocked to see a HDD on both packages when they come up for a revision. If this console is only meant to last 5years, then they should be fine.

Serious question. How would or could Forza 2 or say PGR4 come on two disc?

 

[Arwin]

not as critical with a 12x DVD to stream from and yes, the HDD caching is used in most X360 games anyway, if the HDD is not present, they just don't get the benefit.

Not really a dev problem it is an end user ($100 cheaper) problem.

but with a 2x Blu ray, they had no choice IMO. Again another aspect of the cost structure that I think tied Sony's hands a bit this gen (in order to drive the Blu Ray format)

In a perfect world, trust me, Sony would have loved to do a $399 core system with no HDD as the costs will scale down to critical marketshare pricing much faster.

Don't act as if the difference in speed between 2x BR and 12x DVD is actually that significant, it's silly.

Also, get your historical facts right. The costs of HDD not scaling down very well in the last gen was what caused Microsoft so much problems and was a major factor to get a Core system out without it.

 

[TheChefO]

Isn't that 6 gigs cutting it kinda close for 1st gen (some non tiling) games?



Serious question. How would or could Forza 2 or say PGR4 come on two disc?

One potential way would be to have the secondary disc (im asuming the total file size is in the 12gb range) be loaded onto the hdd and then put back into the case never to be seen again (unless you need to wipe the space for other needs).

 

[Tap In]

....
Also, get your historical facts right. The costs of HDD not scaling down very well in the last gen was what caused Microsoft so much problems and was a major factor to get a Core system out without it.

huh?

that's what I was implying would be a problem for Sony (scaling down the HDD costs)

although I'd imagine Sony is using the same Seagate drives that they designed fo MS (and will use in other markets as well) which are about $30/unit cost.