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Blu-Ray Should Have Been Optional on PS3?
Ars Technica has a piece looking at reasons why Sony may have wanted to make the Blu-Ray player optional in their next-gen console. From the article: "By tying what is essentially a gaming device to a new optical disc format, Sony is hoping to kill two birds with one stone, but they're expecting consumers to pay for the stone as if it were a diamond. That is, in hoping that consumers will see the Blu-ray player as a good investment in the future, they're risking the fallout that comes when consumers realize that diamonds aren't investments at all. They're for show. And the way the PS3 is priced right now, bling appears to be the operative word. But bling sells, and when manufacturing costs come down, we can all look forward to this edition of Sony Style... at least so long as we're not satiated by a competing product."
I don't think this article is relevant.
... and possibly compiled differently to take advantage of the quality.
I was under the impression that Sony chose blu-ray because of the amount of data it can pack into a disc. The games are subsequently written and read by blu-ray technology making them capable of storing much more data on a disc. It was my understanding that having games that play in insane resolution (1080p) requires not only high processing but also high storage.
So if they sell "blu-ray disabled" PS3s, how would it play the high quality games? If you have the drive be incapable of playing movie discs, then your cost per console unit production is the same. How on earth would they make blu-ray optional? Just have PS2-technology drives on lower priced ones? You would have to have games for each version
It just doesn't make sense, you would have a great technology on a console yet lack the ability to use it for the device's main purpose--playing fscking video games.
That is what the PS3 is for, right? Playing video games. I don't really care if it can play vinyl records, for Christ's sake, I just want a game console that works and works well. We all remember how well the original PS2s played DVDs, right? Let's hope the blu-ray discs actually work in the first gen PS3 consoles.
My work here is dung.
and when manufacturing costs come down, we can all look forward to this edition of Sony Style
...which is obviously the way they're playing it.
Given the huge amount of anti-Sony hate when the price was announced, I did find myself wondering whether the main feeling was resentment from people who knew perfectly well they were going to buy the thing anyway.
There's no way I'd buy a Blu-Ray player if it wasn't in a PS3. In that sense, Sony may yet have made the right call.
And the way the PS3 is priced right now, bling appears to be the operative word.
Does this mean that I get a bunch of gold PS3 Emblems embedded in the good version, or does it come with an chain so I can wear it around my neck to impress my "boyz" and "hos"?
I was thinking of getting my PS3 lowered with a new set of shocks, a few flame decals, some neon lighting on the undercarriage, leather grips for the controller, and a new set of subwoofers.
If this signature is witty enough, maybe somebody will like me.
Yeah, but DVD was the sole digital video disc platform of the era, and it had been available for 3 years when the PS2 launched as well, so it wasn't extremely expensive first generation stuff, it was merely a nice worthwhile bonus on a console that didn't really add any cost to the console hardware costs.
BluRay is still not available, and Sony are practically launching BluRay with the PS3 given the delays in other players and media. They're hoping a first generation of a technology will not have problems (although I'm sure they've tested it enough) and that vast manufacturing runs will cut costs to far lower than typical first generation prices. Yet the benefit will only come in year 3 or 4 of the PS3's lifespan, when games start requiring the capacity, and BluRay has reached market acceptance, there's 1000s of movies available and people are desiring HD media to go with their new HDTV. It's an upfront risk that significantly reduces the attractiveness of the PS3 to the PS3's core market.
Oh, and Zonk in anti-Sony-PS3 post shocker.
Actually, I work for a large game developer and publisher and every single one of our Xbox 360 titles have filled up a dual layer DVD (around 8 gigs) - we sometimes have to cut come graphic or sound content out at the end to make it fit.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Blu-Ray should have been optional for very good reasons. Even the most advanced PC games to date have completely failed to exceed the capacity of a single layer of a DVD, only occasionally touching the second layer. Most games are still coming out on CD's! Even within the next six years this is unlikely to change, (apart from the move to DVD) with changes coming more incrementally and gradually as the technologies behind modern gaming solidify and standardize. There's less year to year revolution in game development these days, and there will be less as we move toward a given level of complexity.
Few games come close to a single layer of a DVD, and there's yet to be a serious challenger for dual-layer DVD capacity yet, certainly no notable games have shipped on multiple DVD's (A few might have, but I'm a big spending gamer, and I've yet to see one). Unless that's likely to change, Blu-Ray will not be of any tangible use to gamers, it's all about the movies. Xbox 360 has gained a signifigant cost economy by restraining itself to what is needed to provide the best gaming experience, and not trying to position itself in another market. Games might grow to fill that extra blu-ray space, but the only concievable way I can see that happening is by packing it full of cinematic tripe (So maybe Final Fantasy, since those games are always CGI-heavy). An awful lot of Xbox and PS2 games were actually capable of being shipped on CD media, instead of DVD. 1080p isnt even the reason behind it either, since due to various limitations it's been widely demonstrated that you can expect most games to run in 720p on both the 360 and PS3, 1080p is nice for small puzzle games, but it's not going to be the native mode of anything or even considered for the next three years, especially since single-digit percentages of the market can take advantage of it.
Blu-Ray is about controlling the next generation, and Sony only put it into the next generation machine on the basis that it will bolster the market position of a format that Sony gets royalties on. If you want to buy into that, then the price is worth it, because otherwise you've got a console that isnt substantially faster than Xbox 360, and any technical advantages will only be shown in the last stages of the console life cycles, where games will really push the hardware to the limits.
Sony isnt selling a console, and it isn't even pretending to this time. Removing Blu-Ray now would simply show that the Chinese factories were right, and that the jump to HD-DVD is all that's needed for the forseeable future. Japanese companies are keen on Blu-Ray since it's technical intricacies mean only they can produce it while the cloning companies struggle to catch up, skimming the market for a year or two.
Regards,
-Steve Gray
-Cobalt Software
Okay - lets pick a game which did come on DVD - say UT2k4 Special Edition. Right now on my hard disk with a few extra mods, the UT2k4 install is soaking up:
and then with the user files and extra levels:So thats 22Gb of data for an older game, albeit with extra mods and levels.
UT2k4 has some fancy shaders but it does not have bump mapping or gloss maps. The models have lower polygon counts than, say, Quake 4. The next gen engines will all be packing larger textures, more polygons and more shaders. That all requires more data space. In the lifetime of the PS3 (lets say five years) using 25-50Gb of disk space looks like it will be business as usual. Right now it's probably overkill - a 9Gb disk would hold pretty much anything but I suspect that within 18 months of the PS3 launch that there will be games packing 25Gb of data.
Cheers,
Toby Haynes
Anything I post is strictly my own thoughts and doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the opinions of IBM.
As someone who had a PS1, and now has a PS2, I'm not motivated to sink a bazillion dollars into a PS3. Nor am I likely to every buy one at this point.
I don't have an HDTV. I don't want Blu Ray. I'm a casual gamer and not willing to pay that much for a console.
My next purchase will probably be a current gen Nintendo, and just buy from their freaking huge library of availabel games.
Sony, IMO, has totally missed the boat with the price point/forced bundling with an as-yet unproved/unadopted standard -- especially if I was to buy an HDTV I'd be saddled with more Sony DRM crap.
Clearly, I don't speak for everyone. And a lot of people probably will buy PS3s, but they've completely lost the market segment that I fall into. Their expected price point is way outside of what I'd willing to pay for a toy.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
If there is going to be a need for Blu-Ray, it has to be standard. Addon hardware can't be relied on by game developers so, it is often ignored. I agree that Blu-Ray likely won't be fully utilized at launch, but it won't be long before we see games that won't fit on a DVD. As installed lots of the games I am playing, will not fit on a single layer of a DVD. We may not be filling Blu-Ray discs anytime soon, but the need for higher capacity comes when exceed the capacity of the DVD. An earlier reply to this story, says some Xbox360 titles are already hitting that limit.
I don't like the price of the PS3, but I am wondering if the hardware is the reason for the higher price. With the release of the Xbox360, we saw that the market was willing to pay a large premium for the hardware, due to limited supplies. I actually think the PS3 pricing is to keep demand more in line with supply and reap the extra revenue that MS missed out to the E-Bay sellers.
When Microsoft makes HD-DVD optional - it's a mistake.
When Sony includes it - it's a mistake.
This goes into the column - damned when do - damned when don't.
$60 vs. $50 dollars, DVD is the obvious choice at retail.
What on earth are you talking about?
If DVDs mean $50 games and blurays mean $60 games, then Microsoft must be really ripping us off, because every XBox 360 game is on a DVD and every XBox 360 game is $60.
A few ideas... Most install disks ship with assets compressed. Console games likely would more closely reflect the size of an installed game. My WoW install, with the additional patched in content was in the 3-4 GB range. My EQ2 install from awhile back was 4-5 GB. Oblivion I think is around 4 GB. So it isn't a far stretch to see DVDs being filled. Especially since I am sure PC game designers probably are actually trying to keep installed size down. On the Console side of things, you know exactly how much storage capacity you can use.
The major technical reason PC games can get away with using CDs instead of DVDs is that they're installed onto the hard drive before play and thus can take advantage of heavy, CPU-intensive compression. The decompression happens only once and PC games don't have to stream data off the removable disc(s) later on down the road. Theoretically, most PC games could run on a system with a 1x speed CD-ROM if the rest of the system (CPU, graphics, etc.) is up-to-date. It would just mean waiting an extra couple of hours for the initial installation. :)
That said, compression routines and disc speeds continue to improve, so, in a way, there's more effective space available on an Xbox 360 DVD-ROM than there was on an Xbox disc or a PS2 disc.
I have no doubt that Blu-Ray will offer more to developers like Square and others who really like to do games with long, involved FMV cutscenes. But, to my way of thinking, that isn't worth the much higher cost of the PS3. I'll get one eventually, but it's at least $200 [less] down the line.
Per this ArsTechinca article http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/hardware/PS 3-gamble.ars original X360 games are only using 3.2GB. What game exactly are you working on that takes 8 gigs? Even Oblivion fits on a single DVD.
So the question is, will the "HD Future" come in time to save the PS3 (2007-2008). Or will it arrive just in time for the "Next-Next Generation" (2009-2010)?
Spell cheek you've failed me four the last thyme!
If you can't spend 700-800 dollars on electronics then you need to get a better job.
This is a tech site, we all are overpayed pro's. If this was a site for factory workers and cleaners I could understand but not software engineers and other techies. This ain't a place for minimum wage workers.
Are you serious? I won't be getting a PS3 because I can't afford one, I would just have to save up for it. I won't be getting one because the competition is much cheaper and I can get much more bang for my buck.
That isn't even my big problem with your statement. Slashdot isn't all about overpaid engineers, many of us are not at that stage of our careers and/or are in different lines of work. One can be a geek and only make 30-40k a year. To most people 700-800 bucks is alot of money. To most slashdotters 700-800 bucks is alot of money.
Some of us are poor college CS students, some of us are people struggling to find a job out of college, some of us are at help desk jobs looking for better opportunities, and some of us are high school math teachers who enjoy what we do but aren't paid all that well. Not to mention having a good job but saving for college funds every month because you have 2 little rugrats who are going to need an education someday.
In a way I'm kinda glad Sony has gone the way they have. A year ago I thought I might end up buying 2 systems at near the same time. Now I can just be excited about spending $300 at the end of the year for a game system instead of still wondering what I am going to buy and how much it will end up costing.