So PGR4 has issues fitting on a DVD. They had to axe day/night cycles, because they didn't fit on the disc. Which has a few PGR fans feeling blue. Sony, though, Sony are happy. They're chirping like little baby birds at feeding time. Dave "Don't Hate On My Blu-Ray" Karraker:
We took a lot of heat at launch for including Blu-Ray in PS3. Now it looks like that investment is being justified.
Next generation games simply need more space on the disc to contain all that high definition content. Take a look at Lair, for example, already pushing 25GB of content, and that is a first-generation title. At 50GB storage capacity, Blu-Ray gives the PS3 plenty of headroom for developers to fully realize their visions well into the future.
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Dave Karraker is about as right as one can get on this whole topic. As I've said before, Blu-ray WILL become increasingly more important as time rolls along.
Remember, as I said, say a game takes 15 GB on a single Blu-ray disc. You think, well, ok, that's 2 DVD-9s for Xbox 360, that's no big deal. But that simply isn't the case. You see, although both systems have the ABILITY to load the entire game engine into RAM, the devs choose not to. Every piece of system RAM, and VRAM is necessary to have open when at all possible.
So, which brings me back to the original point. If you have 6-8 GB of textures FMV on one disc, and the rest is game data, remember, all of that game data must also occupy the second disc. Even if different modes are on different discs, unless it's single vs multi player, NEVER should types of play in single player be split, not only is it inconvenient, it's simply err on the side of causing data loss. Even if not in the application sense, simply in the sense if the person doesn't switch discs, or something happens in between.
Bottom line. As I've said all along, and I agree with Dave (who's usually right on the money), that the space is needed, and I've been expecting this. Who knows what will come of the future games, but multi disc, as I've iterated, and I can go further at a later date, does not always work, and/or is not always practical. For the Wii, DVD is fine, but when you have hi-res textures on a machine with that much more power than a Wii, it's naturally going to need more space.
Don't be surprised if 3rd party games start to look/play considerably better on PS3, and may go PS3 exclusive if sales pick up. You could also see 1st party titles getting severely gimped by the end, as the need for space on the engine and textures ever so continues to grow. Redundant textures, only one time of day, progress could actually fall backwards. Anyone notice how game story lines on most, not all, Xbox 360 games are quite short?
Glad to see Blu-ray has the space needed for the foreseeable future in the industry. But again, it seems here that Microsoft sacrificed HD-DVD support (which really would have done the job), simply to get the product out early, and get (a somewhat) high install base, which later turned out to be a regret due to defects (which seem from rushed design). Next, I do believe we will see the 360 start to get hammered by it's lack of an HDD standard. 360 is great right now, but just wait for the PS3. As I've always said, 360 is 2005's system/technology, and it made a great life through 2007, but it's days are getting numbered to how much more it can do technologically.
sc7
This was a good PR move to jump on what the game maker said about PGR4. I'm sure when companies went from a cartridge to a CD there were those who said that was all the room they needed too, but as things went on CDs went to DVDs and now we're seeing those becoming full. Something, eventually has to change and Sony was forward thinking and gave us Blu Ray to combat this issue.
Yup it might have been done so that they could sell a format they were pushing, but it also help the gamer.
That's what I always say to people who say that it was pushing a movie format, and they should take it out. It's like, uh, no, it affects the games too.
I think this example right here is proof of why alot of analysts say the PS3 will eventually pull ahead and beat the 360
I believe the PS3 will eventually pull ahead of the 360. Eventually the PS3 and the Wii will be the only competitors left in this console war. 360, coming out too soon with too many hardware failures, will drop to dead last.
I think Blu Ray will be the one technology that allows the PS3 to live as long as it's older brother the PS2 and probably even longer. Yeah it seemed crazy at first, but the better and more sophisticated games get, the more space programmers will need.