Is Blu-Ray Really Necessary For Gaming?

[Gnizmo]

The exclusives on the PS3, however, will need them. If you want gaming to stay at this level and your satisfied, then no, Blu-ray isnt need. If you want gaming to progress into something more it will be. Better graphics, better AI, and larger games will need more space. It's just common sense. Games this large will take a lot longer to make, but once development is perfected on the PS3 in 2 years or so, I think we can expect to have a massive 150 hour RPG game with dialogue like Mass Effect, graphics like Uncharted or Gears of War, and side missions galore.

The problem is such games just cost too much to develop right now. The time it would take to develop a RPG with that length would be ridiculous. This jacks up the dvelopment cost a ton, and that is before they have to raise their audio and visual budget to meet the HD standards. For established franchises this is not so bad. If you know a game can sell 10 million on a 30 million install base, you can develop your heart out until you reach the point where profits would be too low.

For an untested IP though, even from a large studio, the risk is too large. Look at Lair. The game had a huge budget, but sales have not matched the cost thus far. You can't take a big risk on a game that you don't know will sell well and expect to make money everytime. This forces the smaller studios and new IPs to look cheap and unpolished by comparison. While it won't kill the new/small game buisness, it will certainly hurt them.

In time the above concern will vanish without a doubt. The artistic costs of a game will fall and you can spend more time just developing the game itself. Eventually the extra space will be nothing but a nice extra for any game developer that can afford the dev kit. That day is still a long way off though. Until that happens I think Bluray will simply be a way to avoid compressing some audio sounds, and maybe a few extra shiny visuals that don't help gameplay in any direct way.

The short version, eventually yes it will be required but currently it is just extra space.