DVD only on XB2 says inquirer

[Phil]

I think people are forgeting one advantage of having much more space available. I am going to assume that games on DVD would be maxing out its space to the maximum - however the same game on Blu-Ray with 3 times as much space could use the remaining room to store redundant blocks of data to swap data quicker into memory.

A DVD being maxed out wouldn't have the space to do so and thus, would most likely have to fetch its data from various parts of the dvd in order to get the right information together. Surely depenendant on the software, but the point remains that more space gives you more freedom. This is already done nowdays on DVD given that there's enough space for "intelligent blocks of data". Once the DVD is maxed out though, you loose that ability.

Might give Blu-Ray an edge when it comes to real world performance since data could be swapped off the fly without random searches. Just a thought, please consider.

 

[cthellis42]

True. I have confidence in developer's abilities to burn storage space to their every advantage. Good developers, at least. It's quite likely a lot of developers and the bulk of games wouldn't bother unless the techniques were pre-coded and thrust right in their face.

Will DVD be good enough for games 5-6 years from now, though? On that point, I'm not too sure. I'd much rather see the consoles over-estimate, because at least that way the game developers will have certain resources when they need it, rather than being constrained by it.

 

[DuckThor Evil]

What's that esoteric info have to do with the fact that DVD launched way back in 1995? You are just trying to veer away the discussion for no reason.

Dvd was announced 1995, but basically shipped in 1997, so is your friend CEO of Toshiba?, or where did he get his films?.

 

[Shogmaster]

What's that esoteric info have to do with the fact that DVD launched way back in 1995? You are just trying to veer away the discussion for no reason.

Dvd was announced 1995, but basically shipped in 1997, so is your friend CEO of Toshiba?, or where did he get his films?.

Hmmm.... Maybe it was late 1996 instead of late 1995, but it was definitely at least a year earlier than late 1997 when I bought mine in Vancouver (I paid almost $900 Canadian). I left for Vancouver in summer of 1997, and I distinctly remember watching his DVD player during the Thanksgiving break or X-Mas break prior to leaving for Vancouver.

He bought the very first Toshiba model that came out in the States BTW.

 

[cthellis42]

The first Toshiba DVD player seems to have been announced in September, 1996 and gone on sale in November in Japan. I don't think it would have made it across the water until 1Q 1997. (I know the SD-3006 was out in March. Not sure if that was the first model available, though. Other sources to mention its initial "spring launch" though, so I believe the SD-2006 was also launched then.)

 

[Dave Baumann]

Not that I have any clue what MS are doing here (nor have I read this thread, so sorry if it already been said), but couldn't this fit in with some of the other stories of multiple versions? i.e. release a leaner "gamers" machine initially, which may have just a DVD, but then a year or so later release a "Media Center" type version with an HD Optical device (and hopefully getting a better feel for which way the decks are going to be stacked in that interim period)>

 

[Jov]

When you've got an HDTV film format sitting under your TV, won't you want to get an HDTV set to see it on? And how's about one with MemStick support to show the digital photos or videos you took on holiday?

Nail on head!!

Take my Camera purchase experience for example. While shopping in Japan for a new camera, I ended up with a Cybershot even tho the competitions were very tempting (form factor, design, etc). All because I didn't want two different Memory storage cards.

Its all on MS, MS for PSP, Cybershot, laptop and MP3 player. That said, Sony’s products are still very attractive (personal view, no flame plz!!).

 

[Jov]

Is "PS3 with BR vs X2 with DVD" similar to "PS1 with CD-ROM vs N64 with Cart"?

Maybe not quite as bad.

From most of the arguments regarding speed and size, history has shown size seems to matter more. Albeit I skipped the 32bit era mainly because the PS1 was damn slow, it had the best content due to the storage.

Could this be repeated next-gen?

Working in the IT and computers in general, storage is never enough. U give content creators 1TB, they'll fill it if the goal requires it, but most of all, having larger storage just gives u the flexibility to play around.

 

[one]

Not that I have any clue what MS are doing here (nor have I read this thread, so sorry if it already been said), but couldn't this fit in with some of the other stories of multiple versions? i.e. release a leaner "gamers" machine initially, which may have just a DVD, but then a year or so later release a "Media Center" type version with an HD Optical device (and hopefully getting a better feel for which way the decks are going to be stacked in that interim period)>

It means most games will be forced to come in a DVD after all. Since the days of Sega CD and Turbo Duo, such add-on things have been doomed. EA, Vivendi, Dell and HP announced their support toward Blu-ray - larger capacity is what game developers and PC manufacturers want.

 

[BigGamer X]

Well, you're a bit off with your knowledge of the speeds.

1xDVD = 11.08Mbps
1xHD-DVD = 36Mbps
16xDVD = 177.28Mbps

33 v 36. Sue me.

Besides, those figures bolster my points even more! 16X DVD is almost 3 times as fast as 2X HD-DVD, according to your numbers. Even a mere 12X DVD drive will be twice as fast as a 2X HD-DVD drive.

PDF released on August 3rd 2004 (a few days before specification 1.0 was approved on Aug 11th), the Blu-Ray consortium stated

1xBD-R/BD-RE = 36Mbps
1xBD-ROM = 54Mbps

Blu-Ray is ~5 times faster than DVD on a single speed basis, but yeah, DVD 16x would be approximately Blu-Ray 3x

The 2.0 format is assumed to be bringing with it the 2x speed (and possibly the 4x) and should be out mid-to-late this year.

Interesting stuff.

Finally, there are some very real concerns about 16x DVD being viable for a home console based on usage patterns, wear and tear (on both the drie and the discs), and as someone stated above, the volume.

Hell, you don't even need 16X in the Xenon. 12X will do fine since it's twice as fast as a 2X HD-DVD drive.

That's some fuzzy math. We are talking BD-ROM, not BD-R. A 12X DVD would only be slightly faster than a 2X BD-ROM. (133 vs 108 Mbps) Either way, the small amount of ram and horribly slow storage for the consoles will be their real bottlenecks.

 

[Shogmaster]

That's some fuzzy math. We are talking BD-ROM, not BD-R. A 12X DVD would only be slightly faster than a 2X BD-ROM. (133 vs 108 Mbps) Either way, the small amount of ram and horribly slow storage for the consoles will be their real bottlenecks.

Actually, we were talking HD-DVD, since we are talking about Xenon. And 1X HD-DVD is still rated @36MBits per second. 36x2=72. 72 is almost half of 133.

 

[Dave Baumann]

It means most games will be forced to come in a DVD after all.

Yes. I'm not yet entirely convinced that would be an issue for games. And if this were the case then the point of an HD optical format would primary be for HD video, which would fit with a Media Center type capability.

EA, Vivendi, Dell and HP announced their support toward Blu-ray - larger capacity is what game developers and PC manufacturers want.

Ultimately they'll support whatever gets prevelence, and if there is nigh on an equilibruim in the formats then the PC/CE hardware vendors will inevitably support both.

 

[one]

It means most games will be forced to come in a DVD after all.

Yes. I'm not yet entirely convinced that would be an issue for games. And if this were the case then the point of an HD optimcal format would primary be for HD video, which would fit with a Media Center type capability.

Well, GameCube had the version called Panasonic 'Q', released from Panasonic in Japan only, which could play DVD movies. IIRC it could not earn more momentum than the regular version. The PSX DVD recorder was in the similar situation too Though Xbox failed because of the HDD price, as long as you have a prospect of being able to procure required parts cheaper in the later period, the standard version shouldn't be kept too cheap IMHO.

 

[Pozer]

Your assuming the Xenon drive is gonna be an off the shelf DVD-Rom. Im expecting a proprietary drive similar to Dreamcast GD-ROM or Gamecube. Im sure there will be enough space though. Im more worried about speed and reliability. (what was MS thinking with the Thomson)

I persoanlly don't think HD-DVD/Blue-Ray is gonna sell consoles like DVD sold the ps2. Standard DVD will rule until 80% of households have HDTV.

I think 9 gigs would be more than enough especially if MS uses some type of realtime-lossless compression. It wouldn't be hard to implement and would even speed up games that do streaming from the media like gta3:sa and halo2. (put that tri -core cpu to work somehow or implement a hardware solution )

Seriously though I don't know any developer that can afford to create 50gigs of content and make it profiteable and I dont see that changing till 2010. AVERAGE size last gen was 200-500megs (well not n64), this gen has been about 1.0-1.7 gigs, average next gen will be 5-8gigs.

 

[Acert93]

I am interested... What will developers be doing in the next 4 years that *requires* over 9GB of space?

Btw, the money saved by using a fast, reliable DVD drive compared to a BR drive will probably be substantial. Maybe MS will go with a DVD burner??? I would guess that would still be cheaper than BR.

DVDs took flight because they are noticably better on TVs people own *now* and everyone can use them. BR/HD-DVD is in a position where HD TV is just taking off and is popular among early adopters and audio/video enthusiests but is still pricy for us poor folks. And how much better with BR movies look on a 27inch HDTV compared to DVD? And are consumers willing to jump on HD DVD just because it is new? A lot of questions. Comparing the N64/CD issue is not apples-to-apples. Nintendo was straining 3rd party relationships and basically was forcing very expensive carts on publishers. If a game sold poorly you had a ton of carts you pressed and lost money on. And even if a game sold well a big chunk was going to pay for the ROM. I remember $65 games. CDs were slower, but held almost 100x more info than the initial carts. The point is we cannot compare past generalities about media formats and apply them. Each situation is unique and the market situation will play a big role on whether something is warmly accepted. BR is a good longterm choice, but initially I am not sure it will have the same impact DVD support had for the PS2. Remember, DVDs had been our for a while before the PS2 and there was a solid library of movies available--which looked great and sounded even better on a standard home system. BR does not have the same library and really required a large wide screen TV to get a big benefit from. I am sold on the BR technology and licensing situation, I am not sold on the timing though. Just my opinion of course! Btw, ignore all of this, I really wanted my first question answered!

 

[one]

I am interested... What will developers be doing in the next 4 years that *requires* over 9GB of space?

In Gran Turismo, more cars, more circuits, more HD textures, more HD movies, more music

Besides, 12x/16x DVD drives can be noisy.

 

[passerby]

I am interested... What will developers be doing in the next 4 years that *requires* over 9GB of space?

When we switched from CD to DVD, we were thinking that was a lot. But it turned out now that some studios are pushing into dual-layers already. Give them the capacity, they'll do something with it.

I think Faf mentioned this in the GA Forum. Where streaming games are concerned, the same piece of texture/graphic data can end up being repeated many 10s of times on the media. This is because of streaming requirements and you can't afford to send the media into seek mode looking for thousands of pieces of data located all over the disc. Dunno if this repetition will increase up to 100s of times for next-gen games(or does GT4 do this already!). But taking this into consideration it is not fantastic to expect storage requirements to increase.

Good news is that most games are still designed as levels. A smaller storage capacity will just affect games that are designed primarily on streaming content, I suppose usually the likes of racing games, GTA, J&D, DQ8, etc. It will be very inconvenient to have to switch discs while exploring different parts of the gameworld or changing racing venues.

And of course, FF series FMVs want lots of storage. I don't want to go back to disc swapping on the PS1.

 

[Acert93]

I am interested... What will developers be doing in the next 4 years that *requires* over 9GB of space?

In Gran Turismo, more cars, more circuits, more HD textures, more HD movies, more music

Besides, 12x/16x DVD drives can be noisy.

Ok. But will it require more than 9GB? 9GB is a lot of space. To play devils advocate:

1) How many games are going to use more than 4GB? More than 9GB?

2) Will developers be able to afford to spend the time and money to develop games that take up 9GB+ on next gen hardware? Increased production + increased content = development costs shooting through the roof.

3) Is there something fundamentally "new" that will require more space (e.g. CDs were often filled with FMV which took up a lot of space; note that with extreme effort many N64 games fit on very small ROMs and compared quite well to a medium with 100x the storage).

4) Will game quality suffer from being limited to 9GB?

5) Is the 9GB such a significant hurdle that using multiple disks will be an attractive alternative?

Just playing devils advocate. I think BR and HD-DVD are great technologies and I am excited about them. The BR exclusives and larger space give it an advantage over HD-DVD (but who knows how this will end). But my enthusiasm as a tech head it tempered with a reality check. I already listed some reasons why I do not think BR or HD-DVD are in a position to do what DVD did, but they are none the less GREAT technology and good for consumers. But I am not as confident that next gen consoles need either, or that they offer a benefit. I could be wrong... I could be dead wrong at that. So either time, or someone on the forum, will prove me wrong

Would still like to hear about games that could exceed 9GB. GT is a good example of a game that could (if it exceeded 9GB think of how many cards and tracks that is!!! That would be reason enough right there to get a PS3). Any others? And no, movie games do not count

 

[jvd]

does gt 4 use special textures for the replay ? if so that may be why

 

[RichardCypher101]

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3136423&did=1

Gran Turismo 4 may be the most sizable PlayStation 2 game to date, according to another account from Sony's recent wrap-party event in Japan. Computer News reports that the game fills the entirety of a nine-gigabyte dual-layer DVD.

A few other PS2 games have used dual-layer DVDs -- the first was Monolith Soft's RPG Xenosaga Episode I -- but GT4 would be the first game to fill all that space. With more than 700 cars and more than 50 tracks promised in the finished game, however, it's not terribly surprising to see it pushing the limits of its medium.

At one point, Sony planned to release the game on two single-layer DVDs, each with a capacity of close to five gigabytes, but that's no longer the case.

GT4 will see release in Japan on December 3, arriving in North America about two weeks later. Expect a full report on the finished game soon.

This is from a good while back, but GT4 uses up the 9GB dual-layer DVD.

(Sorry if this has already been posted)

-Rich