Which is more important, a Standard Harddrive or Blu-Ray??

[Hardknock]

All things being equal as far as graphic capabilities are concerned. Which do you think will have a bigger impact with consumers? HDTVs are still in only a relatively small percentage of homes. So unless you have one, Blu-Ray would be useless. On the other hand, a harddrive is immediately useful to everyone that buys the system.

But asfar as future growth, once HDTVs take off, this will be a major plus for the PS3. With all that said, which do you think would be the better strategy overall? One with Blu-Ray the other with a standard HDD(and possibly a $100 less)?

Please no bickering. I'm just curious as to which holds more weight in consumers eyes.

 

[jvd]

Standard hardrive . Reason why

Bluray is an optical storage . So is dvd . You can easily get more storage cheaply by adding more discs . Dvds literly cost a few cents . So adding more storage isn't a problem .

A hdd will be almost worthless if its not standard as many will forgo supporting it as the amount of customers able to take advantage of it will be small

 

[Psychogenics]

Blu-ray , you won't need to use the HDD for anything esle but for game saves and download.....all of which people can buy seperate.

 

[Gholbine]

That's working under the assumption that Blu-Ray's only use is in HD movies. I don't think that's right, I think the extra space (and potential extra bandwidth) that Blu-Ray offers will be utilized in a lot of games. Japanese developers especially are going to find it painful working with 9gb, especially if they want HD-CG movies in their games.

Itagaki (of Team Ninja) has expressed his frustration about Microsoft's choice to stick with DVD, because he doesn't think it's enough space.

In my opinion, 9gb is certainly enough for most games (probably 90% in the generation), but then there's the few massive games (GTA, FF etc.) that will certainly make use of the extra space.

In any case, chosing Blu-Ray at the start is a better option in my opinion, because it's the only one of the two options (HDD or Blu-Ray) that absolutely must be built into the system; the HDD can be attached later. Although, I do think that it would be a mistake on Sony's part not to include one as standard, otherwise developers cannot make use of it in their games (caching for example).

Maybe they will have both? We don't know yet.

 

[jvd]

Gholbine you didn't seem to understand my post .

All of the reasons you gave you can simply add a second dvd disc which i'm sure costs less than a quater . As for Itagaki he is talking about cgi . Not the actual game content . If devs want to make cgi movies instead of games we will have that trouble .


Also even a 2x bluray drive doesn't give a bandwidth increase over 12x dvd . You would need a 4x drive which i doubt we will see in the ps3 (i'm thinking single speed )

 

[Carl B]

I voted blu-ray simply because it's something with real benefits that you realistically would not be able to add down the line. If it was then a choice of either blu-ray or an HDD in an absolute sense, I might choose the hard drive. But since we're talking about it in terms of launch inclusion, I think it stands to reason that Sony may shove the hard drive down enough early adopters throats in the form of a bundle as to make it virtually standard - even if the result is for all intents and purposes a more expensive system.

 

[DemoCoder]

XBox1's HDD was way underutilized for most of its existence. The best use for the Xbox1 HDD turned out to be the mod-scene, running linux on your xbox, and playing back game backups.

 

[pc999]

Standard hardrive . Reason why

Bluray is an optical storage . So is dvd . You can easily get more storage cheaply by adding more discs . Dvds literly cost a few cents . So adding more storage isn't a problem .

A hdd will be almost worthless if its not standard as many will forgo supporting it as the amount of customers able to take advantage of it will be small

I fully agree, the HDD as starndart is very different from a add on.
But the HDD gives you a lot of options (e.g. XB LIVE, MMO games, better for the games...).

 

[therealskywolf]

You know what? An extra DVD on the case wont cost me more.....

Are you feeling me?

I'm talking games here. As far as Movies go, seriouslly, as time passes most will get a Stand Alone player, when prices for the movies lower down, when renting turns a vast possibilitty, and specially when the winner of next gen format starts setting itself apart in sales.

 

[Gholbine]

(my post wasn't in reply to yours)

I fail to see how a second DVD is going to help in a game like GTA. Final Fantasy? Of course, that's possible as Squaresoft have shown us. In any case, I think the theme of next-generation is going to be massive, open-ended worlds (like GTA), where swapping discs is simply not an option.

And like I said, Japanese developers love CGI (Itagaki included), and they can add to the storytelling experience, and allow for things that even the next-generation of consoles won't be able to produce in real-time.

I also think that Sony won't be putting anything less than a 4x drive in the PS3.

 

[mckmas8808]

Itagaki (of Team Ninja) has expressed his frustration about Microsoft's choice to stick with DVD, because he doesn't think it's enough space.

In my opinion, 9gb is certainly enough for most games (probably 90% in the generation), but then there's the few massive games (GTA, FF etc.) that will certainly make use of the extra space.

And this is why I chose the Blu-ray option. Among other things

 

[Bobbler]

Both an HDD and Blu-ray (or HD-DVD even) are pretty important/useful.

Games will more easily allow for extra downloads and things like that (Live! download packs and all that jazz) if they have an HDD. Blu-ray offers the ability to watch blu-ray movies which expands the usefulness of the console (which pretty much does what the HDD does -- allows you to download extra stuff). I'd be happy with either really, I like the fact that blu-ray is included because I don't want to bother having to buy a seperate player (like I'd have to with HD-DVD), however an HDD would make me happy as well because it saves me the money of having to get a memory card or stick and allows for some nice things outside of just playing the game.

It is a hard choice, but I'll go with Blu-ray because adding a new optical drive isn't optional on any console so the fact that I'm starting out with the best makes me happy -- HDD I can add later, and probably will, depending on the price (linux kit for ps3 sounds kind of neat). The fact that games won't use it for a cache doesn't bother me, since the DVD/BR drives going into all the new consoles are nearly the speed of the 2.5inch HDDs as it is (compared to the 5-7x speed difference of an HDD vs the 2x dvd drive of this generation).

 

[MechanizedDeath]

Both. HDD for games and BR for HD movies. I voted for BR just b/c I don't plan on playing any ppv games, so most of that HDD functionality gets lost for me. Load times would be nice, but I guess once I get a HDTV, I might appreciate having a cheap player while I wait for prices to drop. It's certainly not an easy decision to make. Really would prefer to have both. PEACE.

 

[Farid]

This vote lacks a crucial option. Both.

Blue-Ray has its advantages, as the volume of stockage and the BRD Video. Buying a $300 or $400 dollars console that also work as a BRD Drive is a cool feature.

The HDD has also obvious advantages such as the capacity to hold large save files, and to install game add-on and patches for online games, it also has a fast read/write capabilities.

You can easily get more storage cheaply by adding more discs . Dvds literly cost a few cents . So adding more storage isn't a problem .

It can be a problem, in some cases like free roaming world that rely a lot on streaming redundant data. In this case if the overall volume of game world datas exceed the size of a DVD, you won't be able to divide your game into several disks. Well, actually you can, but it would mean asking the player to switch between the disks as he travel on the world...

 

[Npl]

You can add a HD yourself and if theres sufficient demand Consoles simply can get Bundled with HDs later. Heck, you can buy Consoles without Memory-Cards, no one forces you to buy themm so they aint a "Standard", right?
IF youre gonna use the HD for storing movies, 20GB is an insult anyways, so in the end you just spend money for a Part you replace.

Its different with Bluray as you cant (realistically) offer upgrades to older Models without it - it has to be there from Day 1.

 

[JasonLD]

In terms of consumer buying decisions, Blu-Ray. For uneducated consumers, playing high definition movies sounds lot more attactive than comes equipped with harddrive. Only people who really cares about harddrives are people who are hardcore enough to write a post on console forum like us, and knows what to use best of it rather than using it as just oversized memory card. It might be different in terms of developers perspective but regular consumers simply don't care about Harddrive and rarely a purchasing decision.

 

[jvd]

It can be a problem, in some cases like free roaming world that rely a lot on streaming redundant data. In this case if the overall volume of game world datas exceed the size of a DVD, you won't be able to divide your game into several disks. Well, actually you can, but it would mean asking the player to switch between the disks as he travel on the world...

In a 40 hour game changing your disc shouldn't be a problem .

That is assuming a dev will use more than 7 gigs of room . So far the only dev upset is a dev who is complaining about room for video . Clearly if an epic game like oblivion can fit on a dvd then going foward there shouldn't be many that can't . Unless as I pointed out they rather be making a movie and dressing it with game play .

Bluray adds nothing to the games . It only adds high -def movie playback .

 

[Nicked]

BRD, I hate swapping discs, it interrupts the game experience.

In my opinion, 9gb is certainly enough for most games (probably 90% in the generation)

Before the start of this generation everyone said that most companies would only need a CD, and that the move to real-time cutscenes would keep space down.
Well CG is still prominent and nearly all games use more than a CD.
Give developers the space, and they'll find ways to use it.

 

[blakjedi]

BR is nice but in a console?I'll pass if it were up to me... so many more things you can do with an HDD... the argument form xbox is a non starter... so devs didnt use the hd last gen...so? they didnt use 720p/1080i last gen and it was there right? But this gen, Live which was underutilized, HD which was underutilized, the HDD which was underutilized, have now become a focal point of gameplay improvement for MS and the Xbox team. I have no doubt that HDD as well as Live and HD will be marquee aspects of Xbox gaming this generation.

 

[Gholbine]

BRD, I hate swapping discs, it interrupts the game experience.

In my opinion, 9gb is certainly enough for most games (probably 90% in the generation)

Before the start of this generation everyone said that most companies would only need a CD, and that the move to real-time cutscenes would keep space down.
Well CG is still prominent and nearly all games use more than a CD.
Give developers the space, and they'll find ways to use it.

That's very true. I guess what i'm saying is that only a small fraction of games will truly require so much space (where having less is not an option) while the rest will be able to make cutbacks and the like, to fit their games onto a standard DVD.

I can certainly see quite a few PS3 developers using more than 9gb, but only because they can, not because they have to. Other developers, like RockStar with GTA, I think are going to have a hard time trimming down to fit 9gb...

Time will tell, though.