Sony claims Wii and Xbox 360 overpriced

sprinkles

KdjaCL wrote:

Well they could use BMP instead of tagra to fill out the discs, who knows?, its obvious what games engines we will be playing in 3 or 4 years.

Cheaply made ones so Source and Unreal 3.0 will be the engine of choice for most games companies and some crytek too.

If one 40 minute episode of a tv show is 350mb in SD and 700mb in HD 1080 when coded in xvid, why do we need blu ray for HD movies?

If a game say UT2003 can fit on a 3gb dvd and expand to 6gb when installed, why do we need blu ray?

Is it new and shiny and somehow better because it can hold more empty space?

kdjac

Words of wisdom...

I can't see the need for the extra capacity that the blu ray discs offer. Why cram a potenially dud media player into your console on the off chance that the media takes off and helps ships your units. It's a risk to say the least. They did the same with DVD but DVD had no competitor outside Japan (laserdisc) so the risk was very small

Royale with Cheese wrote:

but it doesn't hurt to have the blu ray drive included.

Hurts the pocket...

Stoichkov

All I'm saying is that you can't predict the future needs for space. Time and again the same arguement over space has taken place. A few years ago people would have said that hdds with hundreds of gigs of space on your pc would be totally unnecessary, yet now it is the norm.

Perhaps these new formats have come a generation too early.

As for the cost aspect, that's the trade off that companies have to make between old/present technology that is cheaper and new technology that has a greater element of future proofing but is more expensive.

As regards to the home entertainment media of choice, dvd will still be the king by the time the third xbox makes an appearance.

This is all completely off topic, so in response to the op and over pricing, its all down to an individuals perception of value. €250 for a wii for some is an absolute steal but for others it's more than they were willing to pay.

What may be value for money for you may not be value for money for another. There is no single definition of value in this respect, it's all a matter of means and taste.

flogen

Royale with Cheese wrote:

I also heard a while ago that all games will be region free (haven't really been keeping up to speed on ps3 updates, so I'm not sure if either of those are still true).

I think all Sony games will be region free, the rest can decide for themselves AFAIK...

Add the cost of a wireless network adapter and 1 years xbox live gold subscription and the price of the 360 comes to €540 or so (with more payments for xbox live to come),

I may be mistaken here (someone please correct me if I'm wrong), but Sony's online network is free to connect to (a la Xbox Live Silver) and possibly free to play on for Sony games, but it's at the disgression of the devs to charge you an individual price for access to their games online.. that means that you might be paying €20 a month/year to X amount of companies for X amount of games, which frankly is over complicating the process for me.
One point, I think devs can charge on top of XBL if they want to too, and I think it has happened for Final Fantasy whatever that launched with the 360.

kaisersose77

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYIic2odNqs&eurl=

MS are fecked as sony seem to think dual layer dvds dont exist :rolleyes:

calhob_ie

Could you not just put it on 2 DVD's instead of Blu Ray? Multiple hundred Euro's for the pleasure of not having to get up off your behind to change the DVD seems to be a bit optimistic.

Sony are being unrealistic in expecting Blu Ray to become the new standard when DVD has just achieved that. It wasn't long ago we were all still mucking about with VHS, DVD suceeded because it was a huge improvement over VHS for, once it had penetrated the market sufficiently, a relatively similar price point. Blu Ray provides no massive benefit over DVD and for that reason will not penetrate "Front rooms" sufficiently to bring the price point down.

projectmayhem

calhob_ie wrote:

Could you not just put it on 2 DVD's instead of Blu Ray? Multiple hundred Euro's for the pleasure of not having to get up off your behind to change the DVD seems to be a bit optimistic.

ok well the fact is you agree with sony that we need more capacity by the sheer suggestion that they use 2 DVD's.

now i'm not sure of the cost here, but 2 discs (including packaging etc.) is probably more expensive to manufacture then one (in the long run... obviously it's not the case initially).

second, games consoles have limited amounts of memory. ps3 will have a HDD, but i don't think sony aims to have users install games on it, so 1 DVD would need to load the engine or an incredible amount of assets into RAM... and there isn't a lot of that floating about inside a PS3, or even a 360.

and third, sony want blu-ray in everyone's house. they want to own a format. they tried and failed twice (betamax & UMD). using their #1 brand is their way of trying to force the markets to shift in their favour. it'll work for software, because they've got dell and the like supporting them. whether it'll work for movies is another thing altogether, and that's sony's ultimate aim i'd assume.

calhob_ie wrote:

Blu Ray provides no massive benefit over DVD and for that reason will not penetrate "Front rooms" sufficiently to bring the price point down.

blu-ray's advantage over DVD is capacity, and the whole "HD era" sh1te. but price-wise, i believe blu-ray movies are about the same as DVD's now (€25-30, discounting special editions and all). it's the players that are expensive, because of the blu-ray diode. but like all technology, their price will drop...

flogen

projectmayhem wrote:

ok well the fact is you agree with sony that we need more capacity by the sheer suggestion that they use 2 DVD's.

now i'm not sure of the cost here, but 2 discs (including packaging etc.) is probably more expensive to manufacture then one (in the long run... obviously it's not the case initially).

That could take a while, though... take the PC switch from CD to DVD; that only happened relatively recently. When I worked in Game in 03-04 there was literally only one or two games coming out on DVD (MGS Substance was one of the first I remember), with the likes of Splinter Cell 2 (I think it was 2) coming out on 4+ CD's because it worked out cheaper.
That's only shifted since last year, really.

and third, sony want blu-ray in everyone's house. they want to own a format. they tried and failed twice (betamax & UMD). using their #1 brand is their way of trying to force the markets to shift in their favour. it'll work for software, because they've got dell and the like supporting them. whether it'll work for movies is another thing altogether, and that's sony's ultimate aim i'd assume.

I'd count MD as another failed format; it's still around but you can't buy commercial music for it and has largely become an industry format.

blu-ray's advantage over DVD is capacity, and the whole "HD era" sh1te. but price-wise, i believe blu-ray movies are about the same as DVD's now (€25-30, discounting special editions and all). it's the players that are expensive, because of the blu-ray diode. but like all technology, their price will drop...

Going by Play.com prices and taking a new release (in this case Monster House), there's a e9 difference between the DVD and Blu-Ray versions, with no obvious difference between the two (besides one being in HD). It isn't listed as a HDDVD release, but I figure there'd be a similar price difference... Here's an example; Miami Vice. e7 difference between DVD and HD.
Of course there'll be differences in price between the existing and new formats; HD-DVD should theoretically be closer to DVD prices because production is similar (doesn't require as large a tech-shift)... that said not all price differences are based on production costs; studio's feel people will pay a premium for the movie, after all people aren't going to invest in a HDTV and high def movie player of some description and then buy the SD version, are they? The problem is most people will be reluctant to make the initial investment, not the latter one.

iarlaoha

flogen wrote:

I'd count MD as another failed format; it's still around but you can't buy commercial music for it and has largely become an industry format.

Please, don't insult the industry by calling it an industry format. MD uses that same ATRAC compression algorithm that Sony tried to take on MP3 with back in the early part of this century. Stupidly. MD only ever took off in three places, none of them industry - 1)Journalists doing interviews 2)Bootleggers - People recording gigs from the audience and 3) That brief moment where people wanted to make digital mixes for commuting, realised tapes were a dud, and CD Writers hadn't achieved full market penetration.

In my opinion, the only thing that Sony has really done right in the AV market WAS Betamax.

flogen

iarlaoha wrote:

Please, don't insult the industry by calling it an industry format. MD uses that same ATRAC compression algorithm that Sony tried to take on MP3 with back in the early part of this century. Stupidly. MD only ever took off in three places, none of them industry - 1)Journalists doing interviews 2)Bootleggers - People recording gigs from the audience and 3) That brief moment where people wanted to make digital mixes for commuting, realised tapes were a dud, and CD Writers hadn't achieved full market penetration.

In my opinion, the only thing that Sony has really done right in the AV market WAS Betamax.

My impression was that the radio industry used MD quite a lot (although nowhere near as much in recent years with the growth in digital etc.)

My mistake so; in that case it's most certainly another failed format.

BlitzKrieg

the way I look at blu ray, the achieve success they need blu ray in the rental stores. Now the PS3 is in a good position to encourage sony and the film industry to do this.

but there is one thing, I have been screaming about it for a while, HD DVD is fully able right now to put both DVD and HD DVD formats onto the one disc, ok a little less space for the HD version, but its a position that makes it alot stronger then anything the PS3 can do.

Why?

Remember how DVD was advertised in almost every vhs cassette rented between 1997-2000. They can go one step further with this. Release only the dual versions of popular films, dont put out a dvd one, or a hd dvd one, put out just the dual into the rental chains, put a nice small comparison advert before the film that goes like this:

"If you are about to watch this movie on DVD you are going to experiance this...(see dvd clip of film.), If you are about to watch this film on HD-DVD, you are about to experiance....(BOOM! typical PR footage.) *Slogan here*

That will do much more for the next generation formats then any *cheap* player.

Course its a basterd thing to do, cause we all hate adverts on our dvds, but if you were thinking it in buisness terms and you could keep it short, its the best strategy.

Course Blu Ray can do dual aswell, but last I heard it still hadnt produced any, just prototypes. So to Microsoft etc, get your HD DVDS INTO THE BLOODY XTRA VISIONS NOW!

projectmayhem

flogen wrote:

That could take a while, though... take the PC switch from CD to DVD; that only happened relatively recently. When I worked in Game in 03-04 there was literally only one or two games coming out on DVD (MGS Substance was one of the first I remember), with the likes of Splinter Cell 2 (I think it was 2) coming out on 4+ CD's because it worked out cheaper.
That's only shifted since last year, really.

agree'd, but as i said, this time you have dell and HP sitting on the blu-ray board, so it could easily be "fast-tracked" into peoples homes, whether they want it or not!

flogen wrote:

My impression was that the radio industry used MD quite a lot

you're correct there. radio uses MD quite a bit, even today. it's starting to switch to fully digital though (even some labels distribute singles as uncompressed wav files online to radio stations). that's what you get a lot of singles getting "leaked" online very early

BlitzKrieg wrote:

Course Blu Ray can do dual aswell, but last I heard it still hadnt produced any, just prototypes. So to Microsoft etc, get your HD DVDS INTO THE BLOODY XTRA VISIONS NOW!

the issue with that is xtra-vision are reluctant to invest in anything that's not already "big". that's why you don't see 360 game rentals... because there just isn't enough 360's out there yet.

on top of that, retailers like power city and the major chains in america (best buy etc.) are latching onto blu-ray moreso then hd-dvd. this is because they get a higher markup on both players and movies. so expect to walk into power city looking for a hd-dvd player and being upsold a blu-ray player by a salesperson

BlitzKrieg

the issue with that is xtra-vision are reluctant to invest in anything that's not already "big". that's why you don't see 360 game rentals... because there just isn't enough 360's out there yet.

Dont know about that, xtra vision is owned by blockbuster right? They've pulled their xbox selection pretty much here in the UK and replaced them with 360 games. But the icing here, is that there is no real risk for xtra vision, HD DVDs which are dual layered work just aswell on normal dvd players (just not hd) as on HD players, urgo putting them out for rent runs no risk on scaring off customers as the product will work with their machines.

The only person at risk would be the film distributer who will have to take a hit in not charging the extra E7 for the HD dvd to the rental chain (so not to push the cost of rentals up any more).

etailers like power city and the major chains in america (best buy etc.) are latching onto blu-ray moreso then hd-dvd. this is because they get a higher markup on both players and movies. so expect to walk into power city looking for a hd-dvd player and being upsold a blu-ray player by a salesperson

Got a link for that? Last I heard HD DVD was the one outperforming due to simply getting off the mark quicker. But it could have changed in the last few weeks, perfer to see a link saying that though.

flogen

projectmayhem wrote:

agree'd, but as i said, this time you have dell and HP sitting on the blu-ray board, so it could easily be "fast-tracked" into peoples homes, whether they want it or not!

Not to disagree with you on this one, but from what I could see DVD-ROM's were standard a long time before games started to use DVD's over CD's... the point being that the actions of Dell and HP etc. doesn't really matter as long as the dev's see DVD as the more cost-effective option.

I do see your point though, with both Dell and HP topping the PC sales charts once they decide to include a next gen player as standard you know it'll be BR over HD (unless something major and unexpected happens before then)... it's all a matter of when that'll happen though.

projectmayhem

BlitzKrieg wrote:

Dont know about that, xtra vision is owned by blockbuster right? They've pulled their xbox selection pretty much here in the UK and replaced them with 360 games. But the icing here, is that there is no real risk for xtra vision, HD DVDs which are dual layered work just aswell on normal dvd players (just not hd) as on HD players, urgo putting them out for rent runs no risk on scaring off customers as the product will work with their machines.

yeah xtra-vision is owned by blockbuster. the thing is, the risk is financial. it'll cost them more to rent out hd-dvd's then it does to rent out standard dvd's right now... and the chances of anyone else along the chain taking that kind of hit (it would run into tens of millions if blockbuster did it as a whole), and that's all they care about

BlitzKrieg wrote:

Got a link for that? Last I heard HD DVD was the one outperforming due to simply getting off the mark quicker. But it could have changed in the last few weeks, perfer to see a link saying that though.

well right now HD-DVD is out-performing blu-ray by the simple fact that it's properly on shelves etc.

my information comes from the horses mouth btw. the horse, being one who sat in on the "what to do with the future" meeting a few months ago

flogen wrote:

Not to disagree with you on this one, but from what I could see DVD-ROM's were standard a long time before games started to use DVD's over CD's... the point being that the actions of Dell and HP etc. doesn't really matter as long as the dev's see DVD as the more cost-effective option.

well this time i think games have a much bigger say, especially after the way ps2 influenced the DVD market. also, i believe (but could be wrong here) Sony take a hit on the manufacturing of the discs right now, so devs can see it as a reliable and cost-effective means of distributing their wares.

flogen wrote:

I do see your point though, with both Dell and HP topping the PC sales charts once they decide to include a next gen player as standard you know it'll be BR over HD (unless something major and unexpected happens before then)... it's all a matter of when that'll happen though.

well right now a quick trip to the alienware site (owned by dell, sadly) means you can shove a nice blu-ray player inside your shiny new PC. PC World also have desktops by HP and sony with blu-ray drives in them. right now, i've yet to physically see a HD-DVD player or drive being sold...

but you bring up a key point, when will all this happen? at the end of the day, for me and you, it's just a waiting game to see who wins before we shell out the cash on a new player. the ps3 is fine, because the games are going to be blu-ray either way, and cost the same no matter what, but i likes my movies... and i'd like to be able to purchase a player to go with a new HDTV sometime in the relatively near future!

BlitzKrieg

yeah xtra-vision is owned by blockbuster. the thing is, the risk is financial. it'll cost them more to rent out hd-dvd's then it does to rent out standard dvd's right now... and the chances of anyone else along the chain taking that kind of hit (it would run into tens of millions if blockbuster did it as a whole), and that's all they care about

I already addressed that issue at the end of my point. If they want people to pick up the HD DVD the distributers will take the 7 euro hit on each hd dvd (that is to have 1 in the store, not per rent.) that is for rental. They can still charge any amount they wish for sales because it will only be in the rental section that the specific products would be restricted to hd dvd dual layer only.

well right now HD-DVD is out-performing blu-ray by the simple fact that it's properly on shelves etc.

my information comes from the horses mouth btw. the horse, being one who sat in on the "what to do with the future" meeting a few months ago

Well no offense but the horses mouth tends to be all over the place when it comes to next generation media. And that was a metting a *few* months ago, confidence in both blu ray and Sony has been hiccuping to the finish line in those last *few* months.


All i am trying to say is at the most moment in time, HD DVD is sitting on a perfect marketing policy which if they fail to jump on, they could very well give blu ray the space it needs.

Like you said, the product is on the shelves, they need to get it out there so it gets into the homes of not only the people who have already converted, but those who dont know and tempt them.

astrofool

Blu ray won't be used for software for a long time to come (if ever), and neither will HD-DVD, games only started shipping on DVD a year ago, and computer software will only start to ship on DVD in the next few months.

Dell and HP will have very little effect on the BR/HDDVD market, and will jump ship to whichever format wins anyway, the cost of a BR drive keeps them out of most Dell's bought anyway.

On the point of one disk being cheaper, Companies still prefer to ship on multiple CD's rather than DVD as it's cheaper to do so, and this is >5 years after DVD has been released, more than the lifetime of the PS3.

Anyway, the whole thing with being overpriced is perceived price, and Sony is trying to make out that the value of the PS3 is greater than the MS and Nintendo offerings, regardless of dollar cost, it's how they sell their TV's. As no one can compare apples to apples, it can't be proved or disproved.

skywalker

BlitzKrieg wrote:

the way I look at blu ray, the achieve success they need blu ray in the rental stores. Now the PS3 is in a good position to encourage sony and the film industry to do this.

but there is one thing, I have been screaming about it for a while, HD DVD is fully able right now to put both DVD and HD DVD formats onto the one disc, ok a little less space for the HD version, but its a position that makes it alot stronger then anything the PS3 can do.

Why?

Remember how DVD was advertised in almost every vhs cassette rented between 1997-2000. They can go one step further with this. Release only the dual versions of popular films, dont put out a dvd one, or a hd dvd one, put out just the dual into the rental chains, put a nice small comparison advert before the film that goes like this:

"If you are about to watch this movie on DVD you are going to experiance this...(see dvd clip of film.), If you are about to watch this film on HD-DVD, you are about to experiance....(BOOM! typical PR footage.) *Slogan here*

That will do much more for the next generation formats then any *cheap* player.

Course its a basterd thing to do, cause we all hate adverts on our dvds, but if you were thinking it in buisness terms and you could keep it short, its the best strategy.

Course Blu Ray can do dual aswell, but last I heard it still hadnt produced any, just prototypes. So to Microsoft etc, get your HD DVDS INTO THE BLOODY XTRA VISIONS NOW!

BlitzKrieg theres already a disc that can do that and also have a blu-ray layer.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/5364238.stm

Personally I can see things going exactly as you've said in terms of rentals etc. But Id imagine the discs will end up being hybrids. With layers for both next gen formats, & dvd.

thebman

There is a better technology than that. I can't find a link now (partly because I'm not going to look ) but anyway there is a crowd that have developed a player that plays both for the price of one essentially. It uses a second lens or something to change the player to a bluray player or removes it for HD-DVD or something similar.

They are releasing next year around June/July I think.

Giblet

KdjaCL wrote:

If one 40 minute episode of a tv show is 350mb in SD and 700mb in HD 1080 when coded in xvid, why do we need blu ray for HD movies?

I'm sure people would love macro blocking and artifacts on their new 52" 1080p TV.

KdjaCL wrote:

has anyone ever got a game that used the full 4gb off a normal DVD?

Tons of games use both layers, most new Xbox 360 games, Games like Gran Turismo were over 6GB (9GB inflated, but that was dummy data most likely). Lots of movies as well.

Also a game that would use 1920x1080 assets + bump maps + extra shaders would be massive, Much bigger than UT2003...

projectmayhem

BlitzKrieg wrote:

If they want people to pick up the HD DVD the distributers will take the 7 euro hit on each hd dvd (that is to have 1 in the store, not per rent.) that is for rental. They can still charge any amount they wish for sales because it will only be in the rental section that the specific products would be restricted to hd dvd dual layer only.

that's the thing, distributers usually work on a very thin line between profit and failure. they wont take a hit on any formats. it would have to come from toshiba itself, and so far they've done very little to promote HD-DVD as a viable replacement for DVD... partially because they don't have the bottomless pit of money Sony seems to have

BlitzKrieg wrote:

Well no offense but the horses mouth tends to be all over the place when it comes to next generation media. And that was a metting a *few* months ago, confidence in both blu ray and Sony has been hiccuping to the finish line in those last *few* months.

granted, but the horse has been having meetings with Sony themselves to prioritise the Blu-Ray players and displays (so when you walk into a shop you're greeted by a fancy ad on a 60" "next gen" Sony Bravia playing spiderman in 1080p)...

BlitzKrieg wrote:

Like you said, the product is on the shelves, they need to get it out there so it gets into the homes of not only the people who have already converted, but those who dont know and tempt them.

exactly, it's out there but the penetration is dismal, because people don't know what to think. on the other hand, HD-TV's are selling very well, and the market leader in HD-TV units currently is Sony, despite being more expensive then everyone else.

astrofool wrote:

games only started shipping on DVD a year ago, and computer software will only start to ship on DVD in the next few months.

no, games only started shipping on DVD exclusively a year or so ago. 2/3 years ago the option to buy DVD was there. and this is, of course, excluding the console market which was nearly 100% DVD based. it was only in the first year of PS2 that devs were sketchy on DVD

astrofool wrote:

Dell and HP will have very little effect on the BR/HDDVD market, and will jump ship to whichever format wins anyway, the cost of a BR drive keeps them out of most Dell's bought anyway.

dell and HP are on the blu-ray board. if blu-ray does well, they do well. it's in their best interests to push blu-ray over hd-dvd...

BlitzKrieg

BlitzKrieg theres already a disc that can do that and also have a blu-ray layer.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/5364238.stm

Personally I can see things going exactly as you've said in terms of rentals etc. But Id imagine the discs will end up being hybrids. With layers for both next gen formats, & dvd.

SOLD!

I fully support this endevour, simply because it will end:

A) the stupid high def war, leaving it only to the industry to choose whats best for it in both price and quality.

It will shut up the stupid PS3 is for blu ray portion of the debate and leave this unholy next generation battle down to what matters...The bloody games!

here is a better technology than that. I can't find a link now (partly because I'm not going to look ) but anyway there is a crowd that have developed a player that plays both for the price of one essentially. It uses a second lens or something to change the player to a bluray player or removes it for HD-DVD or something similar.

Thats even better, I can picture HD DvD being used for the first round rental release with no real extras, and then a suped up blu ray with a nastier price tag but meatier content being offed as the special editions.

art

KdjaCL wrote:

Blu-ray


Why do people go on about Blu Ray and HD DVD , has anyone ever got a game that used the full 4gb off a normal DVD?

DVDs can hold 9gb yet noone ever made a game to fit on it, why do people expect that having blu ray support will some how make bigger or better games, and as for movies HD can be Xvided with no loss of quality

So why do people care for Blu ray?


kdjac

I read an interview with a PS3 developer the other day and they were discussing this - basically, one of the current release titles (I forget the name, the one called something like "resistance") is currently 21GB in size and expects to launch at around 25Gb in size. The developer was stating that once people got used to the PS3, the capacity available on Blue Ray would become better exploited and, essentially, be worth it. His opinion was that Blue Ray was far more important for game development than for Movies and such.

Retr0gamer

Thats probably due to two reasons:

1) Cut scenes in HD taking up much more space.

2) Using uncompressed textures and sound so that there is less of a performance hit.

Those two things can really add a lot to the size of a game.

tba

Its a tale of two camps, similar to the introduction of cd's. In one corner you have a resurgance of the interactive movie games filling up the disk, in the other you have those stripping the game down to the metal.

The move will go either procedural and small/difficult or custom and large/expensive.. its a tough choice.

However my money in on procedural as it can still be run on the simple systems like the PSP and DS.

BlitzKrieg

there was something on kotaku last night that Ridge Racer needs to install 5 gigs worth of information onto your ps3 harddrive to keep loading times down.

If its true then either there is something seriously wrong with the blue ray as a console format, or there is something seriously wrong with namco getting to grips with the ps3 technology.

projectmayhem

BlitzKrieg wrote:

there was something on kotaku last night that Ridge Racer needs to install 5 gigs worth of information onto your ps3 harddrive to keep loading times down.

If its true then either there is something seriously wrong with the blue ray as a console format, or there is something seriously wrong with namco getting to grips with the ps3 technology.

it's namco, or just ridge racer itself. they had massive issues with it resetting ps3 machines at TGS. my guess is that they were loading the information for loading into RAM on start-up, and ended up overloading it (hence re-starting). so instead they're loading stuff onto the HDD instead.

BlitzKrieg

Oh dear...


it seems Genji also has an option to speed up loading times via installation.

But this time it isnt compulsary, only a option and the damage doesnt seem so bad (15 seconds without installation, 5 seconds with installation.)

but it is a bad precedent to be setting.


Course there is nothing saying the ridge racer one is compulsary either...but it doesnt seem optional either.

link:http://www.kotaku.com/gaming/playstation-3/ridge-racer-7-takes-5gb-of-hard-drive-space-211402.php

the positive side of it all:

The installation of games (such as Genji and RR7) has been officially announced as OPTIONAL and can be removed/reinstalled as you please. The installation cuts average load times from 15 seconds to 4 seconds and should take about 3 minutes to install.

Also worth mentioning, is that Sony has stated that the PS3 can be upgraded with ANY 2.5" SATA hard drive. You do not have to purchase a Sony-branded HDD. The OS is stored in firmware, so you can just swap drives.

koneko

I did read before that the Blu-Ray drive is pretty slow though. They said it read discs slower than the 360's DVD drive.

So I'd say this is optional, to stop really slow load times.

Retr0gamer

15 seconds is quite a long loading time. Sony could also be adding this option to extend the longevity of the more than likely dodgy blu-ray laser.

LookingFor

koneko wrote:

I did read before that the Blu-Ray drive is pretty slow though. They said it read discs slower than the 360's DVD drive.

It's a fairly complicated matter. The comparison is difficult as dvd speeds can vary even from brand x to brand y. Seek times are another issue with loading, which could be significantly better on Blu-ray if a developer uses the capacity to reduce that (with more data replication).

I saw a video of someone going through the process of setting up a multiplayer game in Resistance, loading off a Bluray disc, and it was actually surprisingly fast, much faster than some PC FPS games I play, so I'm not too worried. This really comes down to the developer more than anything else. Technically Gamecube had the slowest disc drive last gen, but it also had some of the fastest load times.

As for the installation of game data, it's totally optional (for RR7 too - it requires 5GB IF you choose to install). And as an option, it's only a good thing. 15 seconds for Genji's load from Bluray ain't that bad either, seems fairly average (assuming that's the load time for a level, and not frequent loading). It's probably not very efficient in terms of the HDD space tradeoff, i.e. it's probably "the lazy option" for a developer, and they could probably do better with more effort, but the results are seemingly very good.