Certain Xbox 360 Titles May Fill 4 DVDs

MBCook writes "A Joystiq post says that certain 'highly anticipated' Xbox 360 titles will fill four discs-worth of content. From the post: 'From the high-res textures fit for an HDTV to the higher polygon counts befitting a next-gen console, the space available on standard DVDs is suddenly in increasingly short supply. [...] According to Game Informer, nearly every developer they talked to at X05 expressed difficulties fitting their launch titles onto a single disc. One unnamed yet highly anticipated game in particular is said to currently occupy a full four 9Gb DVDs.'" Relatedly, Microsoft has announced that mainland Asia should expect a March 2006 launch date for the 360 console.

Comments

A problem that's going to get worse too

[ChrisRijk]

Xbox 360 games are likely to get more detail and more complex over time, so being limited to 9GB per disk is going to become more and more of a problem.

Anyone want to bet Microsoft do an "updated" Xbox with higher capacity DVD and other tweaks...?

Meanwhile, PS3 developers get to use a whole Blu-Ray disc...

Re:A problem that's going to get worse too

[Anonymous Coward]

"Anyone want to bet Microsoft do an "updated" Xbox with higher capacity DVD and other tweaks...?"

A 360 with a new disc storage format that is incompatible with the existing installed base is effectively a brand new console from developer point of view. Even a company as clearly incompetent in the console space as Microsoft is wouldn't be as foolish to even consider trying something like a format switch.

The sad fact for 360 owners is they are going to get:

1) PS3 ports that were borderline potentially profitable will get canceled - each extra disc comes right out of a game's profits

2) Low quality artwork, sound, and movies that have been sampled down from the high quality PS3 versions to fit on a single 360 disc.

Microsoft is fucked on the disc space front.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

[xenocide2]

PC games have been using higher resolution for years and rarely need multiple DVDs. I haven't really paid attention to how the 360 compares to a PC, but if they're about on par, then something's amiss.

Of course, if the 360 boasts larger texture capabilities, or more polys, that's potentially more texture sizes and more geometry data to store. It's also possible that console games include more full motion video cutscenes than a PC game, which 360 owners would naturally prefer at HiDef resolutions.

Naturally there is a compression tradeoff between space and time. By now many ./ readers have likely seen the .kkreiger game that fits in like 96K. This is of course an extreme tradeoff while you wait for the game to recreate all its textures from high level combinations to bitmaps. But texture compression is nothing new and is often seen in 3d hardware. Again, I haven't dug into the 360, but I would imagine there's one or two texture compression options available and build into the hardware. Either the company isnt using them, or the compression isn't enough.

Re:Worst Console Ever

[RoadDoggFL]

MS got ass raped at E3? By pre-rendered videos and a god-awful controller? And MS made very few mistakes with the Xbox, reading Opening the Xbox by Dean Takahashi would offer insight into the thought that went into the console and the intentions of those who were instrumental in ensuring that the console not end up as a WebTV box on steroids (pretty much what the PS2 was pormised to be, the 360 ended up being, and the PS3 is going to be).

Sony seriously dropped the ball but luckily was able to build enough unwarranted hype around its PS2 that by the time people noticed that they weren't coming through on any of their promises, they'd sold millions of the things and good games were on the way. As a console, the PS2 isn't impressive at all. The Xbox was designed for developers, and MS went to great lengths to make sure it was what developers wanted and needed, and provided them with tools to create games for it. Sony? They were busy designing a machine that performed better on paper than in the real world.

I really don't agree with the direction MS and Sony are trying to take console gaming. Nintendo's not exactly right, but they're a lot closer than the other two. Since MS is trying to invade homes worldwide and Sony's trying to milk the industry for all it's worth before possibly destroying it and probably bailing out, they're naturally going for quick earnings rather than looking out for what's best for the market. The charm of console games is all but gone, I feel that the generations that follow will see even more pronounced "multimedia machines" that play games as almost a side-effect, then maybe a small company will release a dedicated gaming machine that turns some heads and grabs the attention of some developers so the process can start anew.

Re:PC Games?

[MindStalker]

I think the developers are being pushed to include HDTV quality cut scenes, an hour of HDTV will eat through an entire DVD even well compressed.