Face it, Blu-Ray is needed

[GamerCon]

http://www.gamespot.com/pages/forums/show_msgs.php?topic_id=25597117&page=0

Did any of you anti-ps3 types ever think that maybe, just MAYBE, Sony thinks that Blu-Ray WILL be needed for proper gaming storage this gen, and that they're not just trying to screw everyone over?

Sure they wanted to push their next-gen video format, and the ps3 gave them the perfect means to do so, but it DOES still help with gaming, and they knew that, which is why they figured they'd get away with sticking a BR drive in the ps3.

So, who can we look to for an answer for the great question, "Is Blu-Ray needed this generation?"

....the devs, and the devs have spoken. Blu-Ray IS needed. To quote various developers that have developed for many platforms:

Mark Rein, VP of Epic Games, the developers of Gears of War, Unreal Tournament, and many other games, had this to say about Blu-Ray in an interview with computerandvideogames.com:

Mark Rein wrote:

Unreal Tournament was 6GB compressed. Next Generation games are going to be 20GB plus, and how we're going to fit them on DVD9's I don't know, they'll probably be a few of them. On the PS3, we're going to be using the majority of the space on those Blu-ray disks.

Julian Eggebrecht, of Factor 5, who are the developers of the great Star Wars Rogue Squardon games, andw who are currently developing their first title on a PLayStation platform, Lair, has this to say when questioned by IGN about the advantages of Blu-Ray:

Julian Eggebrecht wrote:

The single level at TGS alone takes up 4 Gigabytes of data. We are using every ounce of that due to streaming of our textures. Sure you could chop them all down to tiny sizes and we would fit, but then again, it would not be the same game. In addition to all the textures and geometry, we also do have video on the disc, and all of that is in native 1080p resolution. Thanks to Blu-Ray we don't need to worry about that and can still fit the whole game on a single disk.

Brian Hastings, chief creative officer of Insomniac Games, the developers of the Ratchet & Clank series and Resistance: Fall of Man, had this to say about Blu-Ray in his blog "10 Reasons Why PS3 Will Win This Console Generation". This also explains why Gears of War's singleplayer was so short and the game had so few multiplayer maps. Maps take up space people! Read it here:

Brian Hastings wrote:

If you ever hear someone say "Blu-Ray isn't needed for this generation," rest assured they don't make games for a living. At Insomniac, we were filling up DVDs on the PS2, as were most of the developers in the industry. We compressed the level data, we compressed the mpeg movies, we compressed the audio, and it was still a struggle to get it to fit in 6 gigs. Now we've got 16 times as much system RAM, so the level data is 16 times bigger. And the average disc space of games only gets bigger over a console's lifespan. As games get bigger, more advanced and more complex, they necessarily take up more space. If developers were filling up DVDs last generation, there are clearly going to be some sacrifices made to fit current generation games in the same amount of space.

Granted, some really great Xbox 360 games have squeezed onto a DVD9. Gears of War is a beautiful game and shows off the highest resolution textures of anything yet released, partly because of the Unreal Engine's ability to stream textures. This means that you can have much higher resolution textures than you could normally fit in your 512 MB of RAM. It also means that you're going to chew up more disc space for each level. With streamed textures, streamed geometry and streamed audio, even with compression, you can quickly approach 1 GB of data per level. That inherently limits you to a maximum of about 7 levels, and that's without multiplayer levels or mpeg cutscenes.

Sometimes people ask us, "If Resistance takes 14 gigabytes, why doesn't it look better than Gears?" Well, for one, Resistance didn't support texture streaming, so we had to make choices about where we spent our high-res textures. Resistance also had 30 single-player chapters, six multiplayer maps, uncompressed audio streaming, and high-definition mpegs. That all added up to a lot of space on the disc. Starting with Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools of Destruction we are supporting texture streaming, which will make the worlds look even better, and will also consume even more space on disc.

There's no question that you can always cut more levels, compress the audio more, compress the textures more, down-res the mpeg movies, and eventually get any game to fit on a DVD. But you paid for a high-def experience, right? You want the highest resolution, best audio, most cinematic experience a developer can offer, right? That's why Blu-Ray is important for games, and why it will become more important each year of this hardware cycle.

Also, Casey Hudson, the project director overseeing Mass Effect, has said that the game originally would've never been able to fit on a sinlgle DVD9, but that through heavy optimization, they managed to fit the game on one disc. How much of that time could've been spent working on the game itself, rather than working on how much space the game takes up? How much did they cut from the game to get it on one disc? How big will Mass Effect 2 be? Here's the quote:

Joystiq interview with Casey Hudson wrote:

During a Q&A update, project director Casey Hudson confirmed that Mass Effect "is a monstrous game. In fact, there was a time -- not too long ago -- when we pretty much scoffed at the idea of fitting onto one disc. But, there's an art to optimizing the data that goes on a disc"; Mass Effect will fit onto a single disc -- "but just barely."

And here's a quote from Hideo Kojima, in reference to the fact that MGS4 is pushing the limits of a single-layered BD-rom, which holds 25gb of data, in comparison to a dual-layered BD-rom which can hold 50 gb of data. This is due to his heavy use of uncompressed audio and other fancy things. After all, this is the "HD Era":

Hideo Kojima wrote:

Blu-Ray is to small for Metal Gear Solid 4.

And my final developer quote, is the controversial quote from David Jaffe, the director of the Twisted Metal and God of War series, that he made during "The Bonus Round" on Gametrailers.com. He said that he personally would've left Blu-Ray out of the ps3, in an effort to make it cheaper, get it to market sooner, and garner more sales. However, he also says that doing this most likely would screw him over inthe long run, as the storage space of Blu-Ray would most likely be needed:

David Jaffe wrote:

This will bite me in the ass in four years, because it was probably a smart decision, but I probably would have taken the Blu-ray out and sold it for less money.

Also, it seems that Itagaki, the lead developer of Team Ninja, is also quite discontent with the use of DVD in the 360. In an interview with Famitsu, he said that just the Dead or Alive 4 TRAILER would take 2gb of space in high definition, so think about how much space even a tiny cutscene between every level in a game could take up. Here's some of what he said:

Itagaki wrote:

The screen resolution for Xbox 360 games will be in high definition, so the pre-rendered movies are going to be pretty large. If we encoded the Dead or Alive 4 trailer from E3 in high definition in a quality acceptable to us, it will easily be about 2GB. [...] With DOA4, we'll be using the disc's capacity to its full extent. We started development on DOA4 pretty early, and we didn't know what disc format the Xbox 360 was going to adopt. So when we learned about it, we were really knocked out.

So, can anybody find a dev quote that says that Blu-Ray just isn't needed?

 

[Shiftfallout]

BRAVO!

Another freedom fighter has joined the ranks, the few... the proud.. and the $#%&ing logical!

Good post. Rep for you, and maybe a message :wink:

 

[Haz]

What's happening now is paving the way for the future of commodity technology. The battle between Blu-Ray and HD-DVD will determine the standard for the future. I agree that Blu-Ray does benefit the games industry, more so that it will the Film industry.

However, Sony have never really been successful in new storage medium..... Betamax......MiniDisc.......

Time will tell.

 

[Squall7]

It all depends on what you want to do with it. Sure, there's a bigger storage space needed if you're going to up everything from resolution of graphics (as in resolution in texture mappings) and "uncompressed" sound.

But then, we still have visually pleasant titles coming out on the 360 and Wii. Sure, they may not be as photorealistic, but then that's more about style than it is about needing more space.

Also noted that most of those developers usually went for hyper-realism anyway. People like Nintendo don't. It's all choice about what kind of game you'd like.

But developers may feel more creative freedom admittidly, but whether it's "needed" to make games, or simply needed to help the hyper-realistic is a different question. Also how the market reacts is another factor. If the market doesn't particularly care about the extra space, buying games indescriminately of size, (say for example, buying an 360 version of a game instead of buying the PS3 version, simply because it's cheaper), then that will show that the market isn't ready for it yet.

All in all, I feel that storage size is just one aspect of gaming, and that point heavily depends on how well a developer could utilise the storage space, whether they will put in "uncompressed sound", and realstic texture mappings and such, or if they will ultimately focus on the gameplay experience. Not that it's an either/or deal, but focusing on one aspect may begin to happen.

 

[captainff]

Did Super Mario World have blu-ray?

Good data storage does not necessarily make a good game.

 

[Celestial]

Well done GamerCon! Looks like we got 2 very clever people able to defend the Ps3 now

Good storange date doesn't make the game good, but better storage could make the game longer, making it more enjoyable and can add more features to a game... Like Spiderman 3 for example, you were able to play as Goblin in the Ps3 version

 

[GamerCon]

Did Super Mario World have blu-ray?

Good data storage does not necessarily make a good game.

I didnt know Blu-Ray was even out when Super Mario World was made.

However, Sony have never really been successful in new storage medium..... Betamax......MiniDisc.......

They did however utilize DVD's for games, making the jump from CD's and also making DVD a must format for last gen games.

It all depends on what you want to do with it. Sure, there's a bigger storage space needed if you're going to up everything from resolution of graphics (as in resolution in texture mappings) and "uncompressed" sound.

But then, we still have visually pleasant titles coming out on the 360 and Wii. Sure, they may not be as photorealistic, but then that's more about style than it is about needing more space.

They can make good looking games but at a cost. Mass Effect doesnt look as good as it did a few months ago due to the fact they had to lower textures. If they wanted it to look good in the first place they would need a bigger disc or multiple ones. So if one Blu-Ray cost the same as one DVD9 then if they had to use two DVD9's instead of one Blu-Ray, would it start to cost more?

Gears of War also looked good but suffered in game play. It ended up having few levels and a short story.

"Sometimes people ask us, "If Resistance takes 14 gigabytes, why doesn't it look better than Gears?" Well, for one, Resistance didn't support texture streaming, so we had to make choices about where we spent our high-res textures. Resistance also had 30 single-player chapters, six multiplayer maps, uncompressed audio streaming, and high-definition mpegs. That all added up to a lot of space on the disc. Starting with Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools of Destruction we are supporting texture streaming, which will make the worlds look even better, and will also consume even more space on disc."

As you can see Resistance, not better in graphics but much longer game play and higher quality audio.

Its really easy from a cosumers point of veiw to say "I dont need that" but when the game developers are saying "We need this, or something bigger" I dont think you can argue with them unless you also make games.

Well done GamerCon! Looks like we got 2 very clever people able to defend the Ps3 now

Good storange date doesn't make the game good, but better storage could make the game longer, making it more enjoyable and can add more features to a game... Like Spiderman 3 for example, you were able to play as Goblin in the Ps3 version

Thanks Cel and yes, they added Goblin plus the Sixaxis to control him but i heard it sucked. Oh well, they tried right?

There's no question that you can always cut more levels, compress the audio more, compress the textures more, down-res the mpeg movies, and eventually get any game to fit on a DVD. But you paid for a high-def experience, right? You want the highest resolution, best audio, most cinematic experience a developer can offer, right? That's why Blu-Ray is important for games, and why it will become more important each year of this hardware cycle.

A game dev said that. Its a good sign when they want to do the best they can to give you your moneys worth.

I might still be waiting for that message Shift.:lol:

 

[Celestial]

Well yea it did suck... but it was the same as the 360 version but with more features, showing that Blu-ray can hold more... Right? I think?

 

[captainff]

I didnt know Blu-Ray was even out when Super Mario World was made.

My point precisely........ Having a massive storage capacity does not automatically guarantee a great game. Many old games are great even though they could fit 10 times over onto a regular DVD.

I am not anti-PS3, modern games or big storage capacity. I just think that good games are good games, and bad games are bad games, irrespective of the disk space they take up.

 

[E7ernal]

What's happening now is paving the way for the future of commodity technology. The battle between Blu-Ray and HD-DVD will determine the standard for the future. I agree that Blu-Ray does benefit the games industry, more so that it will the Film industry.

However, Sony have never really been successful in new storage medium..... Betamax......MiniDisc.......

Time will tell.

Sony have probably learned from their mistakes though.
I mean, Minidisk was just inconveniant for use (and I got tired of lugging around a bag full of them for long journeys).
I wasn't around when Betamax popped up but i'm guessing it was overpriced compared to VHS. Luckily ATM Blue-Ray and HD-DVD aren't competing too much in terms of price so if BD gets enough support early on they'll be able to afford a price-drop.

 

[GamerCon]

Well yea it did suck... but it was the same as the 360 version but with more features, showing that Blu-ray can hold more... Right? I think?

Yea pal, it did show it could hold more. I really doubt that wouldve fit on the 360 version or they would have. Also GRAW 2 went to PS3 and got some additional gameplay:

Key Differences

* Six Axis features:Controller features used for Mitchell & Cross-com control
* SP: Drive the supports (drone, M.U.LE) with the Six Axis functionality
* SP/MP : Change Mitchell stances with the Six Axis
* SP : change the Rules of Engagement with the Six Axis
Consistency increased between SP & MP: Scope, Movement, Aiming…
* PS3 specifics adaptation of controls: Menus, Shoot button…
* 14 additional maps resulting in a total of 32 MP maps!!!

Multiplayer Additional Information

* 32 new adversarial multiplayer maps up to 16 players, an expanded arsenal of multinational weapons, character customization options, new optimizing re-spawn system, new female operatives and hundreds of new game mode options are available.
* 2 new coop modes, “Evasion” and “Exfiltration”, to vary the game experience in multiplayer.
* 6 missions co-op campaign with a fully immersive experience and storyline. Featuring open-ended play that rewards teamwork as you play with up to sixteen players.

So as you can see, it does make the games better.

 

[GamerCon]

My point precisely........ Having a massive storage capacity does not automatically guarantee a great game. Many old games are great even though they could fit 10 times over onto a regular DVD.

I am not anti-PS3, modern games or big storage capacity. I just think that good games are good games, and bad games are bad games, irrespective of the disk space they take up.

When you make a game let me know cause real game developers are saying they need more space and they are the ones making good games. Hideo is complaining about the BD cause its to small. I couls listen to you about how space doesnt matter and say you make a presuasive argument, but you dont. Since game devs are saying space matters, im going to say your full of crap and so will they.

 

[jledesma]

I do believe more space can be a clean advantage. Unfortunately it is a double edge weapon. It can also mean that developers can get lazy and stop optimizing their codes just because they have tons of space to waste and lots of horsepower on the console.

I remember when an OS (say Windows) could be installed in less than 10 megs of HD and could run with less than a meg on ram. Today you need 4 gigs of HD and 1 gig of ram to do the same you could do with window 3.11 why? well because machines have bigger drives, more ram and a whole lot more processing power. So instead of optimizing codes to the max now they simple let "first draft" codes go into production.

Let's hope this time around developers realize the potential of the new storage capabilites and see it as a privilege to have it, not a right.

 

[Samus101]

I'm not going to say the PS3 stinks, but I say you should just build a good comp. :thumbsup:

 

[WII60]

people think to much of the future, live the present.