THe problem with compression, is you have to uncompress it. The more you compress, the more CPU time it takes to uncompress it. I personally call BS on the 100x lossless compression thing, I mean, if you have a solid color image, sure. But if you have a full color photo with lots of detail, you are not going to get 100x more then we get with traditional methods. YOu could get 100x better then a RAW format, but a JPG is close to that anyway.

Anyway, the problem is the HD. MS needs to get rid of the Arcade, and just sell systems with HD's. They should then offer the 20gig for a VERY low price, or the next game that would want to require a HD should come with a rebate for the smallest offering.

I am sure they are good at it, but nothing is free. If getting from 50x to 100x cost 6% cpu, and you want to stream content in your game, you just lost 6% cpu power for the game.

 That would be so great.  Hopefully it will in on the iPod also so Apple can call it a next generation videogame systsem.  Let's hope for the best.

EA 4 Life 

Wow, I love how people in here think you can just slap compressed data on a disc, throw it in a machine, and play the game smoothly. Just watch your computer try to uncompress 30-50 megs of data sometime, then take into consideration that your 360 would have to do that every few minutes just for GTA's radio stations, let alone everything else it has to load up.

Plus, where are they getting all of that memory from while you are in the middle of playing a game that already pushes the system's limits? Oh, and let's not forget Mafoo mentioning the lost CPU power. And it's not like the 360 has a HDD, so you can't work around the limitations of the CPU and RAM by installing anything.

Really, people, there may be a few games that can use insanely high compression techniques, but those games will not be nearly as impressive and/or action-packed as GTA4, let alone 5. And most games are already using a good deal of compression, thus limiting their potential to deliver the content at the highest quality level. Not using any compression at all is optimal, should you wish for your games to look and play and well as they possibly can.

I mean, really, did you guys want to have loadtimes comparable to early PSP games? 'Cause that's what you are going to get if every developer has to compress their data at 100:1. And that'd never fly in a game like GTA.

No response to this? 

meh, both versions will be good and pretty equal. Only the rabid fanboys will pretend to notice major differences.

Now for the more important part of this story, media size issues. I would really like to know how this is getting so big as to fill up a double sided, multi-layer DVD. I think that all games coming out now could easily fit on that much space, I don't see how they are almost filling it up. I think that since they use bluray on PS3 and that there are HDD's they are not being as concerned with space as they normally would have.

Oh well, guess we'll see what happens over the next few years.

MS made a bad move of using the DVD. If they used the HDDVD they could have had more support, kept the HDDVD format still alive and not compress the games like plywood. Even after getting so much support after three years they got to think of sometihng.

starcraft said: smbu2000 said: ultraslick said: starcraft said: By the sound of the DLC rumours, GTAIV: VC and GTAIV: SA will be exclusive and downloadable on the Xbox 360, whilst I expect GTAV for the Xbox3 and PS4. Really?? I hate that you keep repeating this nonsense If you keep saying it though maybe eventually you will actually start to believe yourself.   this is just my opinion that you are wrong and I do admit that there is an extremely remote possibility that GTA would completely change their entire formula and minimize the dev times of the equivilant of an entire other game down to just 3 months for "GTAIV VC" and then release it exclusively through DLC (as if that much data could be Downloaded) And You do realize that Vice city and san andreas were completely new games... right? Nevermind I take it back, there is ZERO chance. You're dreaming buddy. NO WAY in hell Not Now not ever. Nope. Its so ridiculous it actually is hard to refute it because I dont know where to begin. I mean did you play SA? Do you really think they are gonna release the equivilant of SA (which would be about 2 or 3 times the size of GTAIV) through DLC. Do you REALLY believe that? Well I guess somebody (ultraslick) failed to read the rest of the thread, am I right? As this was posted shortly after that comment... starcraft said: Torillian said: Ohhh...now the argument is that the DLC are the new games. Which is slightly unbelievable to say the least. The wink was meant to signify that that was a joke post. But on compression, Lionhead have said they can compress data to one hundredth of its original size without any noticeable quality loss, so I'm sure they won't have a problem getting it on a DVD9. What this IS probably about is trying to get Microsoft to allow the mandating of HDD's in games. Whist it wouldn't effect the whole "can this game be put on this system" argument, it would make developing easier for Rockstar.       Thats why I love you smbu2000, you've got my back. The funny thing is, ultraslick was absolutely wrong about the reasons he gave for why Rockstar wouldn't give the 360 exclusive dowloadable SA and VC equivelents. At the end of the day, the reason they wouldn't go this route is simply that the downloading industry isn't developed enough to sacrifice that level of revenue yet.

 I won't disagree with that.

I won't try to make my argument seem more concise than it was.

And no I did not read the rest of the post, and I still wont.

It just shows you how excited we all are for GTA 

OH NOEZ!!! As time passes, games get larger, and that's why we move on to larger storage mediums?!?!?! No way, because M$ decided to stay with DVD9, so games will NEVER be larger than that!

*Sticks fingers in ears* lalalalalalalalala I DON'T WANT TO HEAR THIS!!!

Back to reality:

This is totally possible and reasonable, when you think about it. As console generations progress, games get bigger, plain and simple. GoW2 was WAY bigger than Tekken Tag Tournament. Hell, Gran Turismo 4 (which came in the later years of the PS2's life) is bigger than Oblivion on 360. All you 360 fans who swear that a last generation medium is enough will have to come to grips at some point that it simply IS NOT ENOUGH. PS2 tried to go with those blue disc CDs, but games got to big, so they took advantage of the integrated DVD player, and made games on that medium.

If games don't get bigger as time passes, then why aren't we still using cartridges then?

Those using the compression argument...that only goes so far. As many have said, you also have to DECOMPRESS all those files, and that takes resources that normally help keep gameplay tolerable. A 50GB getting 1/2 compression won't fit DVD9, so that kind of compression is ruled. But then someone will pull out that so encoders can compress up to 100x....well, do you know how much of the CPU that would take to decompress all of that? Just imagine GTA with choppy framerates (a real crapfest, not just those alpha build "choppy framerates" from back in August) jaggies EVERYWHERE, audio lag, etc. and you'll realize that MAXIMUM COMPRESSION!!!!!!! is just not viable. Maybe M$ should have just put HD DVD in the system, so this wouldn't be a problem, or would that have messed up their plan to beat everyone to the market, which in turn resulted in the release a of shoddy product?