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Blue-ray 'Not a Burden' For Sony
Via Opposable Thumbs, an article at GamePro in which Phil Harrison clarifies that Blue-ray on the PS3 is a 'game design' decision. From the article: "Once we had that storage capacity on Blu-ray Disc, adding the movie playback functionality was extremely cost-effective, [the cost] is actually non-existent. So games like Resistance which, as a launch title, is up to 20-something gigabytes already. And that's day one -- think about four years, six years from now. We'll be pushing the 50 gigabyte limit with dual-layer Blu-ray very quickly. So we absolutely need it as game designers, and in that regard, the consumer is getting the movie functionality effectively for free." I probably would have had a follow-up question there, but that's where the interview ends. So what do you think? Which came first for Sony: Blue-ray as new movie media, or Blu-ray as answer to design challenges?
That's one of the great things about San Andreas compared to Vice City, and that wasn't even swapping disks - just waiting for the other side to load. San Andreas' landscape is HUGE - just imaging what they could fit on a Blu-Ray disk. Since they have simultaneous releases for XBox and PS3 for GTA4, I hope they don't cripple their landscape to fit it on a DVD for future games. It probably won't be a problem for GTA4, but once they start really exploiting the capabilities of the machines (like the difference between GTA3, GTA:VC and GTA:SA), they'll have a lot more room to play with Blu-Ray. Maybe they'll even go back to being Sony exclusive.