What will USB 3.0 mean for gaming...

[heruamon]

Stever89 said:

Jereel Hunter said:
I can't conceivably see the next gen relying exclusively on these because even if the prices tumble, they won't cost the next-to-nothing to make that DVDs do. However, I can absolutely see the next versions of consoles supporting games that come on them. Benefits I see include:

1) Using them for larger games. When these flash drives are holding 200+gb, games that could eventually take even more than 1 blu-ray may become more viable on these.

2) Using them for anthologies. 1 of these could include all of a small developers products from an era. Or all of a franchise's games. While a single disc is more cost effective for the foreseeable future, the chance to get 12 games on 1 flash drive(for say, the price of 2 games) may be very appealing.

3) Stay seated! It's easy to give a console a couple more USB slots. How handy would it be in the next generation to leave your favorite multiplayer game plugged in all the time? I'm playing Mass Effect 3, when a friend of mine logs on and invites me to a game of Halo:5. No need to get up, it's already in another USB slot, I'm good to go.

4) Data stored on console AND disk. I have my saved games at home, and if I bring it to a friends, I not only have the saves, but it can reupdate my console at home when I get there. Keeping these synched would give so much flexibility for far less effort than memory cards ever were.

5) DLC - Download 2gb of extra maps and levels? Stores it on the disc! Bring it to a friend's house, and it's all there. This also gives a great motivator for episodic content. Release a game with massive amounts of DLC coming knowing that your users will definately have the space to DL it. The console would also be naturally prepared for someone to DL games right to their own flash card. This would reduce the need for big HDDs, as well as allow users to purchase DLed games that can still be brought to a friend's house.

6) Space - it would take only a tiny space to store an entire games collection. Heck, a console could even have a little game storage area right on it for flash disks. Either way, your entire games collection could practically fit into your hand.

I really like the sound of a lot of those, especially 3 and 6. You can easily fit 5 or 6 if not more USB drives into a DVD case that most games come in.

I'm not a big fan of digital download, because I fear losing everything to a hard drive crash (though I do back everything up). I also hate the DRM that comes with many downloaded programs, movies, music, etc. Never again will I buy anything with DRM (I lost half of my music collection because they shut down the DRM servers, so when my computer crashed I couldn't get my songs back), and burning them to disks defeats the whole point of downloading them in the first place, not that I really mind having disks, but they do take up a good deal of space.

I would imagine a good way to do it would be to allow you either download games right to these devices (I'm talking on both consoles and PC), sort of like these things would replace your hard drive (on consoles especially). For those that still don't have high speed internet in 2012 (heh, I know I won't. :(  ), stores will be equipped with a download service station where you can bring a USB drive and download the game, and I suppose eventually actual DVD/BRD will be phased out as this becomes the new standard. Then you wouldn't need one USB drive per game, you could have one (or more if one runs out of space) that holds all of them.

The question is - how big will these things be when they are released? 100 gigs? How about when the next generation of consoles comes around (late 2012 I would guess)?

I'm just excited for USB 3.0 because it still takes too long to back up all my data... 70 seconds for 25 gigs? Yes please!

 

At that peed, you could watch a movie directly off the device, and the same goes for games....playing them straight off the device.