360 discs big enough?

Stephen!

Was browsing the web and came across this discussion, seems interesting to me as these guys sound like they know what they're talking about.

http://forum.pcvsconsole.com/viewthread.php?tid=15934

To me it seems the general consencus is that yes, it will deffo be able to hold enoughf or next generation games.

Captain Chaos

Sure the 360 only has to last another 5 years or so, the PS3 has to hang in there for at least 10.

And if in that time 1 DVD is not enough just use more. Remember the days of multi CD games on the PS1/2 and the PC. It will be just like that with DVDs.

Stephen!

I do indeed, cant say i didnt like them.. FFVII was/is my favourite game ever. lol when i sold my ps2 and games i kept that, just incase i ever was able to play it!

Yeah, i think Sony are a generation ahead with the ps3, as most people that i know deffo dont have HDTV's and 5.1 surround sound at al, never mind to hook up a games console with

Captain Chaos

I wouldn't call the PS3 a generation ahead of the 360 at all. On paper the P3 seems more impressive but in the real world they are currently matched with a slight edge towards the 360 in cross platform games. They will squeeze more and more out of each console and I can see them being equals for at least another year.

Sony just picked what they think will be the future standard format will be and went with it because they had to with their long term design and business plan.

MS are just waiting to seee how the format war plays out and the winner will be in their next console in 5-6 years time which will be way ahead of the PS3. Then the PS4 will hit around 4-5 years later and MS will release their counterpart and we will be back to the situation we have today with two very closly matched consoles.

All viewed from my crystal ball:D.

kensutz

Both consoles have a life expectancy of 5-6 years which means the PS3 will not have to last 10 years. Both Microsoft & Sony will launch new consoles around the same time as each other just like this year and last. I don't know where you pulled this 10 year for the PS3 out of.

LookingFor

No.

And that'll only be more obvious over time.

Just in the last week or two we had the makers of PGR4 admitting that they've had to compromise the game because of DVD limitations. And now John Carmack is coming out talking about game data sizes close to 100GB, uncompressed, and how he won't be able to fit his next game on one DVD for 360.

Multiple discs are fine, if somewhat inconvenient, for linear games with little backtracking. But for open-world, non-linear games, or online multiplayer games, they're a pain in the ass.

Captain Chaos

Sony said themselves at E3 last years E3 '06, the PS3 will have a shelf life of 10 years just like the PS2 (well 7-8 for the PS2). So thats were I pulled it from, not made up at all. They went so far as to say do not expect the PS3's replacement for 8-10 years.

mcgovern

Captain Chaos wrote:

Sony said themselves at E3 last years E3 '06, the PS3 will have a shelf life of 10 years just like the PS2 (well 7-8 for the PS2). So thats were I pulled it from, not made up at all. They went so far as to say do not expect the PS3's replacement for 8-10 years.

Yes, they've said this a few times and used it as a reason why its so expensive.
Honestly though, if a new Xbox comes out in 5 years time, I can't see Sony not doing likewise.

LookingFor

I don't think they've said you won't see PS3's replacement for 8-10 years. They've said they plan for PS3 to have a 10-year lifespan in the same way they plan for PS2 to have that. PS2 is going on 8 years old now, and it's still alive and kicking. But PS3 is out. Ditto I'd expect PS4 in the 2011-2012 timeframe.

Sad Professor

LookingFor wrote:

Just in the last week or two we had the makers of PGR4 admitting that they've had to compromise the game because of DVD limitations.

Bizarre have since denied this, see here. The important bit:

"DVD size is absolutely not a factor that we consider when designing our games... and PGR4 is no exception. DVD9 gives us more than we need to create a fabulous experience for you guys. [...] We've never had to cut content to fit on the disc, and we probably never will."

On the other hand it's been revealed just today that the 360 version of Rage from id Software will require two DVDs. Link.

It'll be interesting to see how this issue will pan out but I don't think it's that big a deal. Multiple discs will only be a problem for sandbox games like GTA and even then there's the option of loading the extra data on to the hdd.

Captain Chaos

Sad Professor wrote:

Bizarre have since denied this, see here. The important bit:


On the other hand it's been revealed just today that the 360 version of Rage from id Software will require two DVDs. Link.

It'll be interesting to see how this issue will pan out but I don't think it's that big a deal. Multiple discs will only be a problem for sandbox games like GTA and even then there's the option of loading the extra data on to the hdd.

An interesting one from John Cormack of ID software.

John Carmack: You have to take advantage of what's on the table. Although it's interesting that almost all of the PS3 launch titles hardly used any Cells at all. We hired one of the best PS3 guys around who did the Edge Acceleration technology for Sony - he's on our team now so we've got some of the best PS3 experience here. In fact when we were doing all of the tech demos, we'd bring in the developers and they'd walk over and say, "it's running on the PS3!" (laughs) They'd sit there and stare at it for a while.
There's no doubt that with all of the platforms that we have running here PS3 is the most challenging to develop on. That's what I've been saying from the beginning. It's not that it was a boneheaded decision because they're a lot closer the fact that they can run like this [points to the 4 different gaming stations running Rage] - they're a lot closer than they've ever been before. It's a hell of a lot better than PS2 versus Xbox. But given the choice, we'd rather develop on the Xbox 360. The PS3 still does have in theory more power that could be extracted but it's not smart. We don't feel it's smart to head down that rat hole. In fact, the biggest thing we worry about right now is memory. Microsoft extracts 32 megs for their system stuff and Sony takes 96. That's a big deal because the PS3 is already partitioned memory where the 360 is 512 megs of unified and on the PS3 is 256 of video, 256 of memory minus 96 for their system...stuff. Stuff is not the first thing that came to my mind there. (laughs)
The PS3 is not the favorite platform but it's going to run the game just as good. To some degree there's going to be some lowest common denominator effect because we're going to be testing these every day on all of the platforms, and it's going to be "Dammit it's out of memory on the PS3 again, go crunch some things down" That's probably going to be the sore spot for all of this but because we're continuous builds on all of these we're going to be fighting these battles as we go rather than build these things out and go, "Oh my God we're so far away from running on there." Which is the situation where Enemy Territory is suffering with at a degree right now, and a lot of other people have that.

Sad Professor

Interesting alright, especially what he says about memory usage. From what I've read the ps3 development problems aren't really going to go away either, it'll get better certainly but the 360 will always be faster and easier to develop for. Seems like a big advantage for cross-platform games as developers will use the 360 as their lead SKU.

I don't have anything against the ps3 though. I hope it does well, competition is good for gamers.

LookingFor

Bizarre have since denied this, see here. The important bit:

Poor damage control. The guy who made that comment was quite clear, and none of the things they've talked about subsequently address the problem he raised re. disk space. He said the game won't have day and night time models because they can't fit the data on the disc, and that's still the case, the game still doesn't have that.

Re. Carmack - he said during his keynote that despite the 'pain and suffering' necessary to make it happen, memory issues etc. he expects the PS3 version of his engine to run at least as well, if not a little bit better than the 360 version. His problem is not the power of the system or its capabilities as such, just the effort required to tap it.