NationStates Jolt Archive

Six times the capacity of DVD and Metal Gear Solid has already exceeded it (http://www.psu.com/Not-enough-space-on-Blu-ray-for-MGS4-News--a0002947-p0.php), forcing the online version to be on a separate disc...
In an interview with Famitsu, Kojima revealed that Guns of the Patriots did indeed suffer cuts in order to fit the game onto a Blu-ray disc. The disc used for MGS4 is of the 50GB kind, which is roughly six times the capacity of a regular DVD, and the game has been skimped down as to only include local audio tracks and forced Metal Gear Online to be shipped on a seperate disc because of the lack of space. Kojima's actual quote (translated from Famitsu) was: "There's not enough space. We always talked about where to cut and what to compress."
Games are expanding faster than the media can handle it. Unless the drives start being Terrabyte sized I don't see how downloading the games is much of an option. These next gen consoles have been a bit of a tough sell, well sort of, they are certainly more expensive than the last round. I bought two Playstations in a row as they came out and while I'm making more money now I can't even entertain the thought of buying this one. It's not like they can turn around and offer another yet more expensive version.

I know that many many many of you will use this as another reason to slag on consoles in favor of PCs, but using up 50 gigs on my harddrive for my non-linear editing program is a bit of a hassle. And the price of gaming computers is just as prohibitive to me anyway. And I just don't like it. It's not like I've never done it before, it doesn't do it for me. I like the simplicity and straight forwardness in console gaming.

But has console gaming out grown itself?

Or is this just another example of putting the focus in pretty pictures and losing the focus on game play being fun, like with the Wii?

Most games do not need a full BD disc. Not today, not next year, not in five years. There are exceptions though, mainly JRPGs that are filled to the brim with huge movie files.

So why are all PS3 games claiming to use 30 or 40 gigs, or even the full disc? Because if the space is there, there's no reason not to use it. You fill it with high resolution, high bitrate movies and uncompressed audio, every language the game is localized to on the same disc, but perhaps most importantly you duplicate resources for quicker loading. In an FPS, for example, you will need certain resources loaded for every level. If these resources and the rest of the map are in order on the disc it can all be read in one swoop without having to jump between different positions on the disc.

What I'm trying to say is that a DVD is fine for almost all games this generation, though you'll have to live with compressed resources and less video. And a BD disc will easily be enough for the generation after this, and again, for most games. There will always be the odd exception. Hopefully, the generation AFTER the next generation we can stop using slow discs and get both the size and the slow read/seek speed problems under control. I also keep hoping that procedural content will take off, as this would massively decrease the need for space.

I think I remember hearing someone say that you could theoretically get massive amounts of structure by using some kind of crystalline-type structure, but I don't know if that was grounded in science or not.

Whatever format arrives in the future will do to Blu-Ray what DVD did to LaserDisc.

Even with Blu-Ray beating HD-DVD, I see no reason to convert to this format when the next will come out sooner and put more distance between itself and it's predecessor than any previous format change.

That was Sean Connery in Zardoz.
http://www.utc.fr/~macret/cine/realisateurs/boorman/photos/zardoz4.jpg

Sean Connery? Well that's even better than science!

I think I remember hearing someone say that you could theoretically get massive amounts of structure by using some kind of crystalline-type structure, but I don't know if that was grounded in science or not.

That was Sean Connery in Zardoz.
http://www.utc.fr/~macret/cine/realisateurs/boorman/photos/zardoz4.jpg

I don't know why we need a blue dave anyway. My betamax still works just fine.

I think I remember hearing someone say that you could theoretically get massive amounts of structure by using some kind of crystalline-type structure, but I don't know if that was grounded in science or not.Having a third dimension to work with can be quite helpful. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D_optical_data_storage
We're not quite there yet, though.

Sean Connery? Well that's even better than science!

Yes, it' Schiensche :D

I don't know why we need a blue dave anyway. My betamax still works just fine.

No fooling, I'm about to work on a show that still films on beta...ah PBS...

No fooling, I'm about to work on a show that still films on beta...ah PBS...

Crickey.

They could probably upgrade to VHS from eBay for ten quid. :p

Crickey.

They could probably upgrade to VHS from eBay for ten quid. :pYou mean downgrade. IIRC, the Betamax is the better format in a technical sense. VHSs just allow longer lengths of video.

Perhaps they should be working on more efficient ways to store and access file structures instead.

I find that many gamers, developers, and publishers are forgetting that games are just that: games. When the world had the Atari 2600, you couldn't do much. There was a 2-4K limit on game size. That's right. Not gigabyte or even megabyte. 2-4 freak'n thousand bytes. No bigger. And that was for everything. Graphics. Controls. AI. Sound. Everything. What happened? Not being able to rely on fancy special effects, developers were forced to focus on one area: fun.

Nowadays, it's all graphics. Gamers expect millions of polygons, HD textures with no jaggies, more physics than a physics textbook, millions of npcs, each with unique complex AI, and hours upon hours of HD cutscenes. It's all graphics nowadays. Fun be damned.

I find this attitude appalling. Have people forgotten that unlike movies, games are games? In JRPGs, gameplay only serves to seperate cutscenes. I wonder why the developers even bother with JRPGs and just release a damn movie. They'll get their damn cutscenes without those pesky gameplay and fun annoyances.

Lucky I have my Nintendos. No hourlong cutscenes. Just a few 8, 16, and 64 bit games with difficulties ranging from challenging to pretty damn hardcore. You think you're hardcore for beating Call of Duty 4 on Veteran? Try Castlevania III. That game will kick your ass, hand it back to you, and freak'n rape you. And that's normal difficulty with the 10-lives cheat. Metroid will also kick your ass.

So why are all PS3 games claiming to use 30 or 40 gigs, or even the full disc? Because if the space is there, there's no reason not to use it.
That, games will always use the full capacity of the hardware no matter how much capacity there is to use.

So will users, my hard disk is always at least 80% full regardless of how big it is, if there is room for more stuff then throw in more stuff. Also after switching to broadband I started with more bandwidth hungry activities.

So will applications, development time is expensive, CPU time is cheap so just throw together something bloated and inefficient as quickly as possible. You could do most of the tasks you can do on a computer today on a computer a decade ago but modern applications that do the same tasks wouldn't run well on a decade old computer.

Nowadays, it's all graphics. Gamers expect millions of polygons, HD textures with no jaggies, more physics than a physics textbook, millions of npcs, each with unique complex AI, and hours upon hours of HD cutscenes. It's all graphics nowadays. Fun be damned.

Play Half-Life 2, an awesome Physics engine is a window to all kinds of fun. And what's wrong with AI that isn't stupid and predictable?

That said inaccurate physics is still fun when applied properly, and some of my favourite games have no AI at all.
http://www.tonychor.com/archive/lemmings.jpg

I find that many gamers, developers, and publishers are forgetting that games are just that: games. When the world had the Atari 2600, you couldn't do much. There was a 2-4K limit on game size. That's right. Not gigabyte or even megabyte. 2-4 freak'n thousand bytes. No bigger. And that was for everything. Graphics. Controls. AI. Sound. Everything. What happened? Not being able to rely on fancy special effects, developers were forced to focus on one area: fun.

Nowadays, it's all graphics. Gamers expect millions of polygons, HD textures with no jaggies, more physics than a physics textbook, millions of npcs, each with unique complex AI, and hours upon hours of HD cutscenes. It's all graphics nowadays. Fun be damned.

I find this attitude appalling. Have people forgotten that unlike movies, games are games? In JRPGs, gameplay only serves to seperate cutscenes. I wonder why the developers even bother with JRPGs and just release a damn movie. They'll get their damn cutscenes without those pesky gameplay and fun annoyances.

Lucky I have my Nintendos. No hourlong cutscenes. Just a few 8, 16, and 64 bit games with difficulties ranging from challenging to pretty damn hardcore. You think you're hardcore for beating Call of Duty 4 on Veteran? Try Castlevania III. That game will kick your ass, hand it back to you, and freak'n rape you. And that's normal difficulty with the 10-lives cheat. Metroid will also kick your ass.

That's where I think the Wii went in the right direction. Instead of needling over fractional advantages of hardware speeds or fancy formats, they instead looked for a way to make the machine more fun. Seems like a genius move. After avoiding Nintendo from pretty much the beginning I find myself more and more wanting that over anything.

I'm a die hard Gran Turismo fan, it is in fact the only reason I have a home system, but I'm tired of the biggest deal being the replays. I have the Speed Channel, dammit, if I wanted to see realistic looking cars on the track, I'd watch TV. How about designing the two player mode in a way that acknowledges I have friends? I could turn this into a rant about that, but the point is that even my go-to game is too caught up in polish and loses track (Ha! Puny!) of what I'm there to do, play.

Play Half-Life 2, an awesome Physics engine is a window to all kinds of fun. And what's wrong with AI that isn't stupid and predictable?

That said inaccurate physics is still fun when applied properly, and some of my favourite games have no AI at all.
http://www.tonychor.com/archive/lemmings.jpg

Lemmings rules.

I find that many gamers, developers, and publishers are forgetting that games are just that: games. When the world had the Atari 2600, you couldn't do much. There was a 2-4K limit on game size. That's right. Not gigabyte or even megabyte. 2-4 freak'n thousand bytes. No bigger. And that was for everything. Graphics. Controls. AI. Sound. Everything. What happened? Not being able to rely on fancy special effects, developers were forced to focus on one area: fun.

Nowadays, it's all graphics. Gamers expect millions of polygons, HD textures with no jaggies, more physics than a physics textbook, millions of npcs, each with unique complex AI, and hours upon hours of HD cutscenes. It's all graphics nowadays. Fun be damned.

I find this attitude appalling. Have people forgotten that unlike movies, games are games? In JRPGs, gameplay only serves to seperate cutscenes. I wonder why the developers even bother with JRPGs and just release a damn movie. They'll get their damn cutscenes without those pesky gameplay and fun annoyances.

Lucky I have my Nintendos. No hourlong cutscenes. Just a few 8, 16, and 64 bit games with difficulties ranging from challenging to pretty damn hardcore. You think you're hardcore for beating Call of Duty 4 on Veteran? Try Castlevania III. That game will kick your ass, hand it back to you, and freak'n rape you. And that's normal difficulty with the 10-lives cheat. Metroid will also kick your ass.

The first Super Mario Bros was probably not more than a few hundred kilobytes, Super Mario 64 was several megabytes, Super Mario Sunshine was about 800 megabytes and Super Mario Galaxy 4.6 gigabytes. Along the way the graphics has improved tremendously, along with everything else in the game. The games even have cutscenes now.

Yes, some play the graphics and size game more than others, but you're plain kidding yourself if you think Nintendo isn't in on it too. If they were, they'd still be making games for the NES, games that nobody would buy. Actually, the only reason they're NOT doing it is that they just can't afford it. They don't have the resources of Sony and Microsoft. Remember that they tried to sell the N64 on its processing power, and how every Nintendo fanboy ranted about how the GameCube was more powerful than the PS2. But I guess times change.

It's also irritates me when people lump things like high resolution textures, physics and AI together and call it "graphics" and say that this is the only thing thas has changed since whatever console/platform they grew up with. They're not the same thing. Physics and better AI can both give you entirely new types of gameplay. As does graphics, for that matter. Super Mario 64 plays very differently from the old 2D versions, and it's made possible by faster processors, more storage space and what I guess you would call "graphics".

Game makers have missed the point. If I wanted to shoot real people with real guns, I would join the army or go hunting with dick chaney. Part of the fun of the old games was the bad graphics. The fun was challenging our skills and playing with or against our friends. A cut scene was the ghosts chasing pacman for 20 secs. I love playing Halo online. I don't play the story line offline. I'll wait for the movie to come out. Online is fun because of the interaction with other people not the graphics.:fluffle::mp5:

Game makers have missed the point.

Games that you don't like are made because they sell well. The game studios make popular games so that they can entertain as many as possible and make as much money as possible. I think they get the point, but I'm not so sure about you.

Game makers have missed the point. If I wanted to shoot real people with real guns, I would join the army or go hunting with dick chaney.

No, you've missed the point. They don't make ever-increasingly accurate FPS games because they think their customers actually want to go and shoot real people with real guns. They make them because they can sell them for a profit. Simple as that.

I know that many many many of you will use this as another reason to slag on consoles in favor of PCs, but using up 50 gigs on my harddrive for my non-linear editing program is a bit of a hassle. And the price of gaming computers is just as prohibitive to me anyway. And I just don't like it. It's not like I've never done it before, it doesn't do it for me. I like the simplicity and straight forwardness in console gaming.Depends on what games you play. Turn-based or Real-time Strategy games on consoles are a major hassle as well.

Game makers have missed the point. If I wanted to shoot real people with real guns, I would join the army or go hunting with dick chaney.

Other people however wouldn't feel particularly comfortable shooting real people.

I like the simplicity and straight forwardness in console gaming.

and me

Or is this just another example of putting the focus in pretty pictures and losing the focus on game play being fun, like with the Wii?

i think you hit the nail on the head there. i've certainly had more fun with my Wii than i have on my 360 or my PC (which i have played the odd game on lately)... apart from lego star wars on 360 of course

I don't see what the big deal is. If games outgrow media then we'll just have more media.

Anybody remember the early 90s when you could by a game that came on 5 3.5" floppies? *cough*X-Wing*cough*Falcon 3.0*cough*

When I first got a GameCube I got Resident Evil to go with it, and since the GameCube used those little 3.5" DVDs it took two disks to hold the game. No problem. I got halfway through the game and had to switch to disk II.

I, for one, think it's cool. More game power!

Play Half-Life 2, an awesome Physics engine is a window to all kinds of fun. And what's wrong with AI that isn't stupid and predictable?

That said inaccurate physics is still fun when applied properly, and some of my favourite games have no AI at all.
http://www.tonychor.com/archive/lemmings.jpg

Lemmings pwns.

I "wasted" so many late nights as a kid on that Amiga playing Lemmings it's not funny.

Lemmings pwns.

I "wasted" so many late nights as a kid on that Amiga playing Lemmings it's not funny.

Lemmings (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VREbKlzJ4eQ)

Lemmings pwns.

I "wasted" so many late nights as a kid on that Amiga playing Lemmings it's not funny.

I enjoyed having the lemmings blow up en masse too much to ever get anywhere.

"Oh no!" POPOPOPOPOPOPOPOP!

Six times the capacity of DVD and Metal Gear Solid has already exceeded it, forcing the online version to be on a separate disc...

Games are expanding faster than the media can handle it. Unless the drives start being Terrabyte sized I don't see how downloading the games is much of an option.

I know that many many many of you will use this as another reason to slag on consoles in favor of PCs, but using up 50 gigs on my harddrive for my non-linear editing program is a bit of a hassle. And the price of gaming computers is just as prohibitive to me anyway.

Or is this just another example of putting the focus in pretty pictures and losing the focus on game play being fun, like with the Wii? I would never want to buy a 50 Gig Game. No f*cking way

even if they would give it for free, I would not even try to install it.. I would give it away, or use it as coaster.

I would never want to buy a 50 Gig Game. No f*cking way

even if they would give it for free, I would not even try to install it.. I would give it away, or use it as coaster.

It's for a console. The PS3 to be exact. There is no installation with console games. Get your facts right OD.

I would never want to buy a 50 Gig Game. No f*cking way

even if they would give it for free, I would not even try to install it.. I would give it away, or use it as coaster.

Why?

Probably because a game that big is probably sloppily put together and has hours of unnecesary cutscenes that all too often hinder gameplay by needlessly breaking it up into chunks seperated by a story not very many care about.

Half the reason why people follow the MGS series is because they care about the story.


And the poster might be such a big PC gamer and/or console n00b that he or she might not know that console games don't have to be stored on a harddrive, though the latter fact might not apply nowadays with our harddrives and HD doohickies.

The Op spoke solely about the content of the disk itself, not HDD store size.

Why?

Probably because a game that big is probably sloppily put together and has hours of unnecesary cutscenes that all too often hinder gameplay by needlessly breaking it up into chunks seperated by a story not very many care about. And the poster might be such a big PC gamer and/or console n00b that he or she might not know that console games don't have to be stored on a harddrive, though the latter fact might not apply nowadays with our harddrives and HD doohickies.

That's usually a good sign when games require more than 1 disk. I can't think of any lousy games that required more than one cd. (Okay, maybe with the exception of Star Ocean 3, which was less than mediocre in my opinion)

Still, I don't see why they just can't make games on multiple cd's and raise the cost by a little bit. If the game is good then it'll probably sell and make up for the extra production cost.

It's for a console. The PS3 to be exact. There is no installation with console games. Get your facts right OD.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/images/2008/20080206.jpg

How is it a bad thing that it's on two discs, you get more game that way...

I'm tired of short games that I can beat in a week (Crackdown, Assassin's Creed and Stranglehold come to mind), I NEED a really long epic game I can get engrossed in...

Lemmings pwns.

I "wasted" so many late nights as a kid on that Amiga playing Lemmings it's not funny.

Allow me to bring back some memories then. (http://ocrmirror.org/Lemmings_DABOMB_OC_ReMix.mp3)

http://www.penny-arcade.com/images/2008/20080206.jpg

Damn, beat me to it. Apparently it's becoming an annoying habit of Capcom's, an optional install to cut down on load times would be a great feature, but on consoles making it mandatory crosses a line.

Allow me to bring back some memories then. (http://ocrmirror.org/Lemmings_DABOMB_OC_ReMix.mp3)



Damn, beat me to it. Apparently it's becoming an annoying habit of Capcom's, an optional install to cut down on load times would be a great feature, but on consoles making it mandatory crosses a line.

And I thought a minute and a half software update for high-profile game on the Wii were unbearable.

Hopefully North America won't have the update problems with Super Smash Bros. Brawl like japan had.

Hopefully North America won't have the update problems with Super Smash Bros. Brawl like japan had.

I hope you do, I want to see Nintendo of America in a fix, because so far this generation the total difference between big Wii game release dates in the US and Australia is over 1700 days... and I'm pissed off.

I hope you do, I want to see Nintendo of America in a fix, because so far this generation the total difference between big Wii game release dates in the US and Australia is over 1700 days... and I'm pissed off.

Four years? I'm fair sure the Wii hasn't been out that long. Well four years and eight months and twenty-eight days.

Six times the capacity of DVD and Metal Gear Solid has already exceeded it (http://www.psu.com/Not-enough-space-on-Blu-ray-for-MGS4-News--a0002947-p0.php), forcing the online version to be on a separate disc...

Games are expanding faster than the media can handle it. Unless the drives start being Terrabyte sized I don't see how downloading the games is much of an option. These next gen consoles have been a bit of a tough sell, well sort of, they are certainly more expensive than the last round. I bought two Playstations in a row as they came out and while I'm making more money now I can't even entertain the thought of buying this one. It's not like they can turn around and offer another yet more expensive version.

I know that many many many of you will use this as another reason to slag on consoles in favor of PCs, but using up 50 gigs on my harddrive for my non-linear editing program is a bit of a hassle. And the price of gaming computers is just as prohibitive to me anyway. And I just don't like it. It's not like I've never done it before, it doesn't do it for me. I like the simplicity and straight forwardness in console gaming.

But has console gaming out grown itself?

Or is this just another example of putting the focus in pretty pictures and losing the focus on game play being fun, like with the Wii?
I dont think hard drive space will be a significant limitation ... the transferable media maybe with how long in the tooth the technology historically has to get before changing. But with Hard drive space growing as it is Terabyte drives are easy to obtain now with no close limits on that

Depending on how they use the technology the increase in hard drive space could be accessible to current gen consoles much less next gen.

I also want to make a note that the theoretical max of blu-ray technology is 200 gigs not the current 50 so there is some room to grow at least with the media.

What's sad is I'm the OP of this thread and the discussion went over my head fairly quickly. There was a time when I kept up with all the console stuff back when I had a ton of friends that worked in video game stores but now I barely know whats going on. And somehow even though I'm making more money than I ever have (these last two months being a huge and aggravating exception), I somehow can't buy a new system much less any games.

Might have something to do with the prices getting higher and having to pay full retail...

What's sad is I'm the OP of this thread and the discussion went over my head fairly quickly. There was a time when I kept up with all the console stuff back when I had a ton of friends that worked in video game stores but now I barely know whats going on. And somehow even though I'm making more money than I ever have (these last two months being a huge and aggravating exception), I somehow can't buy a new system much less any games.

Might have something to do with the prices getting higher and having to pay full retail...

To be fair I know some of the stats of the consoles because of interest and know the technology based on how it is relevant to the computer world ... I do not own any current or last gen consoles whatsoever :)

Having a third dimension to work with can be quite helpful. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D_optical_data_storage
We're not quite there yet, though.

I think they're selling these for like 20 grand
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holographic_memory

Four years? I'm fair sure the Wii hasn't been out that long. Well four years and eight months and twenty-eight days.

That's because they're withholding multiple games on any one day.

By the way the Wii's been out about 460-something days now...

I despise optical media of all kinds. CD's sucked for access speed, reliability and physical handling. DVD was as bad or worse. Blu-Ray will suck exactly like laser disk, CD, DVD and all the writable optical variants did. They all just sucked.

If it's on hard-disk, you probably have it. If it's on optical media, you're just hoping. Until you have it copied to HD.

The entire field of optical storage has been hopelessly corrupted by media interests (prominently among them, Sony) who really don't want you making durable copies of ANYTHING.