Current Rumor: XBOX 360 will not use HD-DVD technology as basis for games...

I dunno if it's just me, but I feel another crash coming sooner or later...

 

Why? Its not like a film where you are changing every 40 minutes. If a game lasts 20hrs with 4 disks (unlikely I feel), then that would be 5hrs per disk. If you can't be bothered to change disks once every 5 hrs, then you're lazier than me

While its not a very efficient method of data transfer, as a lot of data will be duplicated I Guess, It really isnt that much effort on the users part

 

well it's not like sony is pushing blu-ray only for videogames...they are just using it as a way to get it out to the public. They want it to take off like the DVD did when it was put into the ps2. If people aready own a blu-ray player by default, they'd probably be more inclined to buy movies in that format.

I still think conflicting formats like this will suck. I just want to buy dvd's without worrying if I have the player for it. You can easily see Sony releasing their movies only on their format.

 

I really don't expect either HD-DVD or Blu Ray to take off. Too soon after DVD, and frankly Hard disks and downloads are the way things are going. DVD-A and SACD died a death because people don't want higher quality, they want convenience (i.e. iPod/MP3 Player).

 

Yeah, newer game consoles with disc changers would be cool. :thumbsup:

I kinda hate the whole UMD thing. I just wish Sony had kept a normal PSP that could play CD sized discs instead of inventing a whole new media when there are already dozens out there...

 

to me, microsoft i fucking themselves with their past position. Microsoft claimed high and loud that power was the only thing to look for on video game machines. Their biggest edge over the ps2 was this point, so they hyped it and inflated the importance of it alot. Alot of people buyed the xbox because of this. And now, alot of people who thought the xbox was ''THE thing'' start looking at the ps3, and not the xbox360.

Now, Add the fact that they claimed that graphics where really important, and the fact that they want compagnies to do super high rez textures and Super high everything to utilise the xbox360 power, and compete with the ps3, but that on a Dvd...

Blue-Ray seems way too big, but HD seemed just perfect, even better than what you would ever need.

i think you shouldn't need to do dual layered discs to fit everything in. No games should ever need more than the storage medium give you.

 

That's why (I know everyone must've already heard this from me) Sega needs to come back in the picture! :icon_bigg

I mean c'mon, 3 new home consoles?! You could take a child to the local game store and have them basically do an "[size=-1]Eeenie Meenie Miney Moe."[/size]

 

Though not quite as drastic, Microsoft has put themselves in the same position that Sega did with the Dreamcast and DVD. Think about it. If Sony's Biu-Ray format becomes the standardized format (which I believe it will) and developers start to take full advantage of the memory capacity or at least more than a standard DVD than Microsoft could be in trouble. Developers might not want to take the time to port to the 360. It's true they could split the games into multiple discs but they could have done that with the Dreamcast and I don't recall that happening.

Another thing which ASSEMbler brought up is the piracy issue. While Blu-Ray will undoubtedly be cracked eventually, DVD can be cracked right out of the gate. With the rising costs to make a game developers may be less likely to release their top tier games on an easily pirated system. It wouldn't be hard to imagine many developers delaying their high cost games for a year so they can recoup their costs before releasing on a more easily pirated console. This also parallels Sega and the Dreamcast to a degree

Finally if there is a bright spot to Microsoft not supporting HD-DVD on the 360 it's that it will less likely prolong a format war. Oddly enough though is that this is also to Sony's benefit.

 

I agree.
Dreamcast is a horrible offender in that regard.
At least the Xbox version of SHenmue II was all on one disc.

 

I don't know what some of you are moaning about. Is it such a big deal to change a disc after about 5 hours + of gaming? Hell no ! Dual layer DVDs are easily big enough and even if they aren't games can just come on two DVDs. Remember whenthey said games would explode in to never ending fantasies with the coming of CDROM over cartridge. Did games change that much? Bollocks they did. The discs where mostly filled up with CD audio not extra graphics, levels and so on. It's the same thing here with DVD Vs DVD-HD and so on. Even if games did come on DVD-HD I highly doubt even 20 % of games would make use of the space.

Yakumo

 

The problem i have with disk swapping is the added complexity of the game design. I remember one of the Myst games where you would have to swap disks 3 or four times in a 10 min window because you would have to keep backtracking to the other disks.

It's just one more design chalange that microsoft has thrown at the developers. Now you have to micromanage 6 processor cores, handle cashing out of ram with or without a hard drive, now make it in 1080i, add live support, and if you can't fit it in 9 gig, make sure you build the story so you won't have to go back and forth between disks. I'd much rather not have the storage size dictate the story of my games. Remember what Miamoto said about ZeldaDD? When he put it on the cart, he had to keep cutting story elements to make it fit. It's the perfect example of the media storage capacity dictating the plot.

 

Nope. I've burned as little as 30kb to a dvd, and it worked fine.

Err...A handheld that could accept full size discs wouldn't exactly be my idea of 'portable'.

I think its about time sony ends up failing to keep themselfs at #1 position in the industry, like all other game console manufacturers before them after two generations. Besides its well known that sony is a mess internaly atm, and that they are loosing ground in almost every industry they support (music, movies, etc.). Their products, at least hardware, isn't selling like it used to. The ps3 is their trump card, and they are taking alot of major financial risks on it (inclusion of blue-ray disc drives not being the least of them).

As for piracy, i've never felt it was a problem the way most people do. In some ways I think its good for a console to have it even, as many people will get the system that otherwise may not have. Even if they pirate games, they will more then likly purchase some as well (other then the 'hard-core' pirates that is). Although to tell the truth im more interested in Revolution piracy, as im certan that alot of great games from the NES, SNES, and N64 days which the system can play won't be made available otherwise, and being that it looks like the emulators are set to be built into the hardware, unlike fan attempts, emulation should be perfect.

And on the issue of multi disc games: Whats the big deal? The 32bit era had this problem all the time and alot of people thought of it as a good thing (makes it seem like your getting more bang for your buck). Heck, Devil May Cry 2 was put on two discs just because Capcom thought it would be neat. Even if your one of the people that was opposed to switching discs, you should look at it from microsofts perspective:

Is HD-DVD a proven format? No.
Would it cost alot more for it to be included in the console? Yes.
If so, would we still turn a profit on the 360 based on our current pricing if it was included? No.
Should we make the dvd drive upgradeable then, and why? No, because console upgrades have hystroricly failed.
What about if Sony realy does use blue-ray? The drive is too expensive, the media would up production costs, possibly carying over to consumer costs, in which case they mygrate to our system and its cheaper games.

 

Mmm.. i dunno, i have a really intense feeling that Sony will loose it's leader place in this gen. Will Microsoft or Nintendo remplace it? i dunno. But i think that nintendo will be more respected in this next gen, because of their uniqueness. 3 consoles with the same concept on the same market? One will be left behind for sure. But on the next gen, it's not 3 consoles with the same concept anymore. You had no real reason to do develop a game for the Gamecube and gamecube only, But it isn't the case with the revo.

 

You might be surprised by Nintendo...

 

I see a 16 bit esque fight.
2 winners (snes/genesis) and one also ran (TG16). The question is who gets which place. I expect nintendo won't be the TG16 however

 

I would argue it is really too early to tell... Though I am sure PlayStation will remain first in Europe and very likely Japan, so actually first overall.

It all depends on factors, like HD penetration, line-up, pricing, developer support, image, wether or not Blu-Ray/HD-DVD breaks through, marketing, budgets, economical evolution, Sony doing good as a company or just SCE making a decent profit, ... But I do agree on the fact that Sony will lose more marketshare to Microsoft, while I see Nintendo gaining shares as well, but not only from Sony.

PlayStation will be in danger if Sony as a whole continues to do bad on the market (if CELL fails, music/movie segments shrink even more, electronics fail even more,...)

 

that's what i think too. I think too many people underestimate nintendo because of the 64/128 era. The Old monkey might return in the middle of the war field when everyone thought he was buried a long time ago. Or he might not. But it think no one really think about it. Like if it couldn't be realistic.

 

I think the limited storage capacity may encourage developers to be a bit more creative. When CDs first came out, DevCo's shat themselves over this new amount of storage. It had to be filled somehow: and FMV was the answer. Give developers more storage than they need, and they either go off-on-one with mental game concepts that simply can't be realised, or they give us NightTrap.

Now if you limit that storage, they have to be more creative with the overall game concept, which may lead to more 'direction' in games. Hopefully it'll inject a bit more innovation instead of companies deciding to slap a massive persistent infinate-poly-engine RPG on a disk, that'll take a million hours to complete, a million years to program and still be shit.

I do think where M$ have fallen down is the whole HDD issue. I've already read reports of a game being limited by this because the required environments can't be streamed off the DVD quick enough, and not everyone has a HDD to cache the information to. Silly M$. I really don't see the point in two versions of the machine - a crap version, and a superduper backwards-compatable best version. Especially when the version that's being pushed is the HDD version. Add to that the inevitable update on PS3 release that has a HD-DVD drive and you're gonna start confusing more people. The general public want a box that plays games, they don't want to worry if it has a HDD or plays HD-DVD movies.

It doesn't really help that the general public don't all have HD TVs. Most X360 customers will still be using normal CRT tellys for this next generation and most people have only just got into Broadband. It's certainly a way to scare off potential customers. Sony made gaming cool - pop a disk in the Playstation and play your mates at FIFA. The most technical thing most people had to worry about was messing around with Mem card saves. When you have to start worrying about BB, HDDs and the difference between DVD/HD-DVD/Blueray that brings it all back closer to geekdom, and that's not cool. Which either scares of the 'casual gamer' or they think 'bollocks to this' and go home and play on their PS2/Xbox because it works and they know what they're doing.