Future of Physical Media in consoles - end of disks?

[DonFerrari]

Pemalite said:

DPsx7 said:

They aren't records. How do you 'stamp' a disc?

The concept is exactly the same as a record.
There are "pits" in the plastic layer just like a record.

The difference is how those "pits" are sent back to the hardware... A record uses a pin that is dragged over the pits... A CD/DVD/Blu-Ray uses a laser that bounces of a reflective metal layer.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_Disc_manufacturing

And I quote: "In addition, CD burners write data sequentially, while a CD pressing plant forms the entire disk in one physical stamping operation, similar to record pressing."

Feel free to look at the manufacturing process on Youtube for a more visualized reference point.

We could oversimplify this and say that a CD/DVD/BD is stamped just as you would a plastic injection on a plant. You do a lot of work to have the mold (or the master in this case) but then you can do million of copies for penny on the cost.

DPsx7 said:

DonFerrari said:

Not gonna happen outside of perhaps Nintendo. Most 9th gen games will be over 30Gb. And sure I prefer to have physical as well and I'm fine with cheap BD.

Why? I'm looking through what I have installed. The only big ones are the games that keep adding over time (as you'd expect). DLC comes after the fact so we just need to look at the base game. Granted I have a big backlog so I've yet to try RDR2, FF7R, or whatever. A 64gb card is only slightly less than what a disc holds I think.

Shadow1980 said:

What? They did? Dammit! Why didn't anyone tell me?

Yeah couple months ago. I wasn't expecting it but when it showed up in their newsletter I was on that so fast... The original was a bitch, never finished when I was younger but completed it eventually. Honestly between them, Special Reserve Games, Signature Edition Games, Super Rare Games, Iam8bit, or even Playasia with their UK releases a surprising amount of digital games eventually come to disc.

Pemalite said:

The concept is exactly the same as a record.
There are "pits" in the plastic layer just like a record.

The difference is how those "pits" are sent back to the hardware... A record uses a pin that is dragged over the pits... A CD/DVD/Blu-Ray uses a laser that bounces of a reflective metal layer.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_Disc_manufacturing

And I quote: "In addition, CD burners write data sequentially, while a CD pressing plant forms the entire disk in one physical stamping operation, similar to record pressing."

Feel free to look at the manufacturing process on Youtube for a more visualized reference point.

Enh, mostly the same. Still 'burned' with a laser just done all at once unlike traditional burning at home. Whatever, it's all good.

It sure depends on the game you'll play. AC for example are all over 50Gb if I'm not wrong, CoD the same, most Sony 1st party also.

On the size itself a regular BD is 25 Gb (so a 32Gb stick would cover and still have space for DLCs that perhaps you could download and install on it), a dual layer BD is 50Gb (and gen 8 that was the limit the console accepted, so a 64Gb stick would cover, but it is plenty more expensive than a 16Gb stick, while dual layer BD additional cost is minimal) with some games coming with 2 dual layer BDs such as you listed FF7R and TLO2 so it would be 100Gb and a 128Gb stick is very costly compared to 2 dual layer BDs.

Next gen Sony and MS have a UHD driver so I guess it will be able to read even more layers so possibly a 100Gb game could be in a single disc and would be the standard.

WolfpackN64 said:

DonFerrari said:

PS5 SSD speed is 4.5Gb and over 9Gb when counting compression.

So the BD transfering 72MB won't really cover that need.

My post was not concerning the raw performance alone, but when you need that performance. No game is going to need to stream the maximum amount of data via the PS5's SSD at all times (unless it's horribly optimised).

The games for PS5 will be made to use the SSD speed, so you wouldn't be able to use a stick with 10% that speed and only need to install small parts. If you read or watch Sony presentation you'll see that.