Great point! FMV's are what people talked about then as they do know. Because that is all that is known. Then games like metal gear solid, gran turismo, gta and many others pushed the boundaries with content instead of FMV's Which proves that use of the space for content will eventually come but at a pace in which developers choose. 

@johnsobas: I do realize. What did you want to tell me? =)

So one more time: I said Blu-Ray is important but you can still make games without it. It this such a bad statement? I know we´ll need Blu-Ray soon believe me.

 Edit: What you told me was clear to me johnsobas. It was even so clear I didn´t point it out. But it´s true at this time everything was about prerendered cut scenes and they were the reason people were so impressed by the PSX. As I said I really liked CD and I like Blu Ray today I just said you don´t "need" them - but not "need" in this way as Nintendo fans would say

Related Blu-Ray / Streaming comment from Ninja Theory:

"Several developers we contacted were eager to tell use why they thought Blu-ray was not only important, but imperative for the PS3 and Sony, and a genuine edge over Microsoft.

"Consider that games of the current generation have to use DVD5 or DVD9 for all of their content", points out Mike Ball, Co-founder and CTO of Ninja Theory, the studio behind the anticipated title Heavenly Sword. "So roughly the storage medium is 100 times larger than the main RAM of the unit. Although they could, it's rare that a current gen title would take the option of pressing on CD for example. Next generation machines have ~512MB RAM on board, so a DVD5 or DVD9 is only 10-20 times the size of main RAM."

"Why is the ratio important? Many games use streaming, so a single level can require many times the amount of data needed to fill the main RAM of the console." Mike goes on to point out that the quality of the content in the future is only increasing, and that the filesizes will follow."Don't forget the streaming audio too. Dialog may be translated to multiple languages especially if a title is for multiple territories. Some audio may be surround sound, so that will push up the size. It's also worth considering HD video especially if it's 1080p @ 60Hz at high quality."

Other developers have said that they value the improved data streaming that Blu-ray provides them, and the ability to create a game without worrying about distributing content between multiple disks. "With a single Blu-ray disk, you know that all the data will be there."

As what the topic says... No it's not, i would say that most important part of 7th generation of consoles is the Wii Remote. Need of Blu-Ray depends about which angle you look at the point. Sonys or M$s (lol). Looks like the idea in PS3 is to use stream video from BD for cut-scenes. Without a large amount of FMVs, it doesn't seem likely to me, that you would seriously need the BD (even more unlikely with Wii). But looking at that the ones, who say that they need the BD, are either somehow connected to Sony or working on some megabudget project. And the ones who say BD totally useless, are working for M$. Yes, propably game sizes go up in MBs in the future, but this eats the games profitability, so they can't be very large after all. Of course anyone could say that "i would be working on a project that doesn't fit on the BD, we need HVD:s, it's 3000 hrs epic adventure with 500 hrs of FMV". As someone stated about the PSN, it is a good channel for low bubget games (just like Virtual Console or XBLA as well), but the problem is that it reaches only a limited amount of potential customers (for example, XBL users 6M (?) out of potential 35M). This is now the same thing that you would say that downloading videos from internet makes the HD-video disc formats useless. I see a big problen in costs rising too up. You could say that it's bad only to the developers, but the biggest problem comes for the gamers. It will lead to more eyecandy with less gameplay. Interesting conversation about the FMVs during N64/PSX era. One thing hate the most is prerendered cut-scenes. Why? Because it makes a shitty feeling about the storyline, it's like the game would have 2 phases, the storyline is pushed forward by FMV and the game by, well, gameplay, with (at some cases even) shitty graphics, irrelevant to cut-scenes. Lets think about OoT, Lylat Wars or Super Mario 64 with FMV cut-scenes; playing them hadn't give you the same great feeling. Nintendo did not use prerendered cut-scenes with N64, not before N64 or after it. The real problem with developing for N64 was the code optimization, which took about 1/3 of the total time due the (too) small texture memory.

I think motion sensing in a very welcome addition. the Wii-mote is a fresh development and is  IMO great for single-hand games like Tennis, Bowling, Golf and light-gun / pointing uses. But I think for more complex games requiring both hands on the controller to push buttons and for more traditional games the Sixaxis is the better controller. Driving in Motorstorm using the Sixaxis as a steering wheel is fun, Super Ruba Dub and Fl0w IMO play great with the Sixaxis and future high profile games like Warhawk and Lair, the Sixaxis seems more suitable.

I hope some third party will someday release some kind of a Wii-mote type controller for the PS3, top graphics + innovative gameplay would be a great mix for me.

I think all controllers have their strenghts and weaknesses, driving games may be better played with a force feedback steering wheel, a strategy game may be better played with keyboard and mouse, arcade classics may be better played with an arcade stick and so on.

I think the Wii-mote form factor has both its strenghts as well as its weaknesses, like an ordinary remote having both hands on the controller feels clumsy to me, for this the Sixaxis feels more natural to me, it's easier to combine complex button combinations together with its motion sensing ability or holding the device with both hands.

time will show, but Mass effect developers said, that they barely fit on 1 dvd, and well, last csreens of game looks awfull.. some compression? =))

like Kojima said, he almost used 50GB BD, so will and FFXIII creators, games with real nextgen graphics takes a lot of place. :)

You're right, the N64 games used realtime rendered cutscenes because they actually had the horsepower to do it in realtime.  What do you think the FMV was being pre-rendered on?  SGI workstations.  Who made the graphics chip for the N64?  SGI.  That was funny for me as an N64 owner.  :)

The point of the above paragraph isn't to say Nintendo was superior to Sony, because that's not even remotely the topic of discussion.  The point is that there is more than one way to skin a cat.  If the only reason you need Blu-ray is because you want to use 1080p FMV, then do it in realtime instead.  Realtime, in-engine cutscenes provide better continuity with the rest of the game.  Even better, they're interactive!  If you're rendering a cutscene in realtime, you can change it in realtime based on the player's input.  I don't buy video games to watch them, that's what my DVD player is for.

Devs talking about streaming data and larger RAM storage have a point.  Devs talking about not enough space for video do not.

It used them because of the small storage the cartdridges had - 10 minutes prerendered cutscenes and the cartridge was full.

I don´t know could someone post some numbers how much storage one minute of prerendered scenes need? It´s a lot and it was to much for the N64 cards - that´s the one and only reason, believe it

But as I said: you don´t "need" Blu-Ray (it is not "necesary") but it is important to have cutscenes and more content, yes.

Read it again: I´m somewhere in the middle with my opinion wich seems to be bad cuz both Nintendofans and Sony fans try to argue with you... :p