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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."

12 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 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.

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

    Will this be compatible with all my PS2 games?

  3. 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.

      --
      I don't read replies by ACs.
  4. 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?

  5. 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.
    --
    Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
  6. 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.

    --
    Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
  7. 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.

  8. 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.