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Sony Adopts Blu-ray Disc PlayStation 3

Posted by timothy on from the take-that-other-formats dept.

fenimor writes "Sony announced today that it had begun preparations to adopt Blu-ray Disc ROM (BD-ROM) format as a medium for the next generation PlayStation. Single side double layer Blu-Ray discs have a huge memory size of 54 GB, being an ideal medium to distribute next generation entertainment content from movies and music to computer applications. Next month Sony plans to announce a 200GB 8-layer version of BD-ROM according to MacWorld."

25 of 335 comments (clear)

  1. I wonder by JaffaKREE · · Score: 5, Interesting

    how badly a small scratch will affect these ? How much data redundancy is there ?

    1. Re:I wonder by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

      And, just how many games will ever use that much space? Considering a large slice of PS2 games that come on DVD are just barely scraping a single gig (and filled to the brim with empty "dummy files") I'd be surprised if any game hits over 10 gigs.

      I mean, let's have higher resolution FMV's! Crisp! Less artificing. But seriously, the game itself -- Do you suppose they'll ever make a 50 gigabyte PS3 game?

      I'm not denying that they will. Just being curious.

    2. Re:I wonder by vasqzr · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Keep 10 copies of a game on the disc. Bad spot in one? read it from another copy of the game on the same disc.

      Or, maybe they'll start using some sort of caddy, much like when CDROM's first became used in PC's.

      Or, they'll use some 'space-age' technology where you can't scratch the disks.

    3. Re:I wonder by MalaclypseTheYounger · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I honestly have no idea, but the latest Final Fantasy games I've played (X and X-2) seem so well done and crafted, with tons of audio/video, I'd wager at least one company (SquareSoft, or is it SquareEnix now or some other name?) will make use of this extra added space.

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    4. Re:I wonder by libra-dragon · · Score: 4, Interesting

      How about distributing 10 different games on one disc. Allowing access to games via an activation key hashed from the internal host id. Maybe tack on a few Sony movies accessed by the same method.

    5. Re:I wonder by British · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Look on the bright side. With the next installment of Grand Theft Auto, they could have a larger library of tunes to play while you're driving around in Liberty/Vice City. beats mere 15 minute tracks per station like GTA3 had.

      Of course, they could just make some premium version of GTA that would use something like private shoutcast stations to stream radio stations and have virtually unlimited in-game music.

    6. Re:I wonder by Baikala · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Thats the compression algorithms and the quality of the player, not the imperfections in the medium

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    7. Re:I wonder by geminidomino · · Score: 2, Interesting

      As much as it made my skin crawl to see someone judge FF by X and X-2, I have to agree that SE will probably use a good part of this extra space. If I'm not mistaken (and I might well be) Star Ocean 3 (an Enix title) is the first US-released game to span more than one DVD.

  2. What will XBOX 2 use by ThomasFlip · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Probably not this, anyone know ?

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  3. backwards compatible by Tante · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Will this be compatible with all my PS2 games?

  4. Security by Obscurity? by LostCluster · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Since most of us don't use this type of disc in our computers, and are unlikely to upgrade solely to copy videogame disks... could they be hoping on good old fashioned security by obscurity to be an extra hurdle against piracy?

    1. Re:Security by Obscurity? by nbert · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I wouldn't call it Obscurity, because this format is very well documented and Bluray writers are planned. But it definitely slows down piracy since those discs are more expensive (lowers pirates profit). It's also quite likely that the PS3 will come out before any affordable writers are out... so there won't be any illegal copies around for a certain timeframe...
      And even if piracy becomes a problem they will get an advantage in the next format war.

      IMO those factors played a higher role in their decision than enabling developers to create 54 GB games.

      --
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  5. Hmmm..... by superpulpsicle · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Actually we need a decent media reader. I have never had a playstation 1 or 2 for more than 2 years. The lens or lens motor always die on me. Will Blue Ray be better?

    1. Re:Hmmm..... by Neon+Spiral+Injector · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I've never had a Sony optical media reader that lasted more than a couple years. Discman portable CD players, DVD players, and of course PS2s. I've stopped buying Sony products. But I will probably get a PS3, just nothing else where I have a choice of manufacturers.

  6. Re:BD-RW by Zorilla · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Let's see, it took seven years for affordable DVD writing, and dual layer discs are still either unavailible or expensive to the asinine degree. Prepare to wait a while.

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  7. finally a followup to The Dukes of Hazzard by Tante · · Score: 2, Interesting

    With PlayStation, PlayStation 2 and PSP(TM) (PlayStation(R) Portable), SCEI will continue to expand the market and create a new world of computer entertainment. Have they made anything new for the PlayStation in the past 3 years? Or do they think making it smaller is a breakthrough.

  8. That's not what worries me. by mcc · · Score: 4, Interesting
    What worries me isn't the use of a proprietary Bluray-based storage format for the games of the Playstation 3 game console (which I personally plan to buy). What worries me is:
    1. Sony will be soon leveraging the Playstation 3 game console to push a proprietary Bluray-based video format they will be attempting to introduce at about the same time.
    2. Sony will be at about the same time attempting to leverage their upcoming PSP handheld game system to push another proprietary video format, this one based on Minidiscs, called UMD.
    Something within this I'm not so comfortable with. We're about to get a bona fide Betamax vs VHS style format war between HD-DVD and BluRay. I don't think it's going to be pretty. I'm glad I don't have plans to buy an HDTV.
    --
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  9. Big Deal by LilMikey · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Most PS2 and XBox games don't even use both layers of today's DVDs. The only one I recall encountering is Rallisport 2 and it was only like 6.5 gig or so. What this does seem likely to do is drive up the production cost of the games and system, however this probably won't translate to higher game prices as competition will even that field.

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  10. backing up will still take 50 disks by davidwr · · Score: 5, Interesting

    In the days of 20MB hard disks, it took about 50 360KB floppies to back up a nearly-full disk, more or less.

    In the days of 40GB hard disks, it took 50 800MB CD-Rs.

    With 250GB systems, it takes about 50 4.7GB DVD-Rs.

    By the time 50-200GB burners are available for under $200 in 7-8 years, I'll probably be using 2.5-10TB systems at home, and the ratio will still be 50.

    I don't know about you, but 50 disk-swaps is several too many. Even with incremental or differential backups, it's a pain in the ***.

    Your disks-per-complete-backup ratio may not be 50 but it's probably fairly stable over time.

    --
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  11. Don't forget about the drives! by ProfessionalCookie · · Score: 3, Interesting

    While I'm mildly concerned about the discs what I'm really worried about is the drive.

    I've gone through 2 PS2 drives- the units function perfectly otherwise they just rarely load discs anymore. I'm sure there's plenty of people out there that this has happened to. I want to know if we're gonna get cheap drives that break every 8 months.

    I have the capacity to take care of the discs pretty well but all I can do with the drive is use it as intended.

    That said, yay for new tech adoption.

    1. Re:Don't forget about the drives! by Spleener12 · · Score: 2, Interesting
      I've had to buy two PS1s. The first was a 1998 model. This model worked quite well (well, it had the overheating problem ONCE) until it died in April 2001. This is probably due to the fact that it was on the carpet at the time when Sony specifically warns that you're not supposed to put it there, something I read in the manual to the PSOne I purchased a couple of days later.

      I recall hearing that Final Fantasy 8 killed a lot of older PS1s (probably first-gen ones), probably due the the fact that it pushed the system a lot harder than any other games had done before it. Xenosaga Episode 1's dual-layered disc required some people to replace their PS2s as well, I beleive.

      And then, of course, there are Playstations and Playstation 2s that are purchased at launch and played extensively and still work today.

      I'd say that it's part luck, part how well you take care of them, and part how many revisions later you buy them that determines how long a Sony system lasts.

  12. PS3 Hard Disk Speculation by blueZhift · · Score: 2, Interesting

    By using such a high capacity read only storage medium, I wonder if this signals even less need for an internal hard drive for the PS3. If the console has enough system memory and/or available memory cards with fast enough read write access and fast throughput, then most games should be able to support updates/patches on the fly. If the memory cards really are up to it, then even a large RPG should be doable without need for a console HD. Most of the game world is going to be static so it can live on the read only disk. Updates for patches and special events are small diffs relative to the global data, so those reside on memory cards and loaded on the fly. Major expansions come on all new disks.

    What does this all mean? It means that the PS3 is even less likely to come out with a HD and by extension, the same can be said for Xbox 2 since it will likely use a disks of similar capacity (to keep up in the spec war). I'd expect to see memory cards for both boxes come in 128MB and 256MB flavors.

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  13. Re:54GB by Chrispy1000000+the+2 · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Well, with that much room, if you could write on the disk, you could boot and run from disk, and save to that same disk, without easily running out. Just one step closer to being able to carry your entire OS in one CD case. And then the next step is just standardized terminals, where you plug this disk in, and go.
    Or, in other words.
    Just think of it as:

    Yes, I would like to install GTA3 to Blu-Ray(1)

    Access time would suck(at first), but hell, in a pinch...

    And PS. Yes, there are exceptions... But for the normal person, this *would work*.

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  14. Re:54GB by prell · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I was thinking: if you divide the amount of RAM available to the PS2 by the capacity of dual-layer DVDs, you get about 0.034. If you multiply 54 GB by 0.0034, you get ~183.60 MB. As impressive as 54 GB on a single disc sounds, it makes sense from a "scaling"/being-able-to-take-advantage-of perspective. Of course, if you consider the maximum size advertised in this article, which is 200 GB, you get 680.0 MB. What are the odds that the PS3 will have 512 MB of ram? 384?

  15. but DVDs suck ... by Heisenbug · · Score: 4, Interesting

    My title is wrong, but it's true that in my experience DVDs could benefit a lot from better error correction. I can't think of the last video tape I rented that had significant playback problems, but I can think of the last 5 DVDs that did. I would love to see a movie encoded on something like Blooray that has a full-on four way backup of the data, so it has to be scratched in exactly the wrong four places at once before it'll skip. I'm sure there are cleverer ways to make error checking more efficient, but you get the idea -- like the grandparent, I hope like hell they'll throw more data at this problem, because right now DVDs strike me as anything but permanent under normal use.