The PS3's Blu_Ray drive reads at a sustained 72 Mbit/s (9MB/s), a little calculation indicates that (in theory) in just 46 minutes the entire content of a 25GB disc could be streamed! The PS3 drive is far from slow!

To quote myself from another forum, comments I made years ago:

"When available the Cell will be the result of over 2000 manyears of engineering. IMO doing this much R&D is fully justified, as Sony already sold over 190 million legacy PSX/PS2 units and Cells will be used for lots of other uses as well, such as HDTV and mainframe computers.

Note that Cell development will not stop with the PS3, 5.2 GHz versions have already been successfully tested in lab conditions. Ohter devices may come with more than just one Cell unit."

"It will probably take some time before developers manage to get the most out of this platform, as has for example also been the case with the classic Amiga chipsets. The early Amiga games don't compare well to the complex graphics used by for instance game like Elfmania or Lion Heart."

"I understand that games developers may not be too fond of the idea of having to learn new ways to write their software. But according to the article at least they do seem to believe that multithreaded software is the way forward.

Multithreading should not be confused with multitasking. Multithreading is the ability of an operating system to execute different parts of a program, called threads, simultaneously. The programmer must carefully design the program in such a way that all the threads can run at the same time without interfering with each other."

I think this may shed some light on my interests in the PS3 despite not being a more traditional Playstation gamer.

Nothing. Halo 3 is going to sell very very well, and this aspect of putting it on 2 discs is just the cost of doing business. Do you really think that it would be 1 disc? That is a tiny game.

And, no, Microsoft cannot put Halo 3 on HDVD, b/c nobody has bought the HDVD extension. Nobody buys HDVD players, therefore, if it was in the HDVD standard they *would* shoot themselves in the foot.

MikeB said: And that goes especially with the PS3, since the slow speed of its drive greatly limits how much it can load at one time The PS3's Blu_Ray drive reads at a sustained 72 Mbit/s (9MB/s), a little calculation indicates that (in theory) in just 46 minutes the entire content of a 25GB disc could be streamed! The PS3 drive is far from slow! To quote myself from another forum, comments I made years ago: "When available the Cell will be the result of over 2000 manyears of engineering. IMO doing this much R&D is fully justified, as Sony already sold over 190 million legacy PSX/PS2 units and Cells will be used for lots of other uses as well, such as HDTV and mainframe computers. Note that Cell development will not stop with the PS3, 5.2 GHz versions have already been successfully tested in lab conditions. Ohter devices may come with more than just one Cell unit." "It will probably take some time before developers manage to get the most out of this platform, as has for example also been the case with the classic Amiga chipsets. The early Amiga games don't compare well to the complex graphics used by for instance game like Elfmania or Lion Heart." "I understand that games developers may not be too fond of the idea of having to learn new ways to write their software. But according to the article at least they do seem to believe that multithreaded software is the way forward. Multithreading should not be confused with multitasking. Multithreading is the ability of an operating system to execute different parts of a program, called threads, simultaneously. The programmer must carefully design the program in such a way that all the threads can run at the same time without interfering with each other." I think this may shed some light on my interests in the PS3 despite not being a more traditional Playstation gamer.

 1. I didn't mean the total time to read. I meant in real time gaming, which refers to loading one level at a time. In that case, the slow speed of the PS3's drive is a factor.

 2. And since I'm just referring to the PS3, an other uses of the Cell and blu-ray drive are irrelevant, especially since I did mention that a more powerful system will show off the Cell and blu-ray better than the PS3. 

I don't understand what MikeB is trying to do here. Basically trying to explain why the space might be used on a very small percentage of the games, but would drive the price of the system up 200$.

Microsoft would have been even dumber than Sony if they included a blu-ray or HDDVD drive when they released 360 in 05. We've already seen what has happened to Sony when they released it a year later.

You haven't given any really good examples, you seem to be shaky on what kind of point you even want to make. Is it about disk space, or power of the PS3? Blu-ray does little to nothing in terms of better graphics, and saying that motorstorm or resistance can't fit on a DVD is rediculous. I realize that they say that resistance is 23 gigs, but 360 has many games that are bigger, and a good share that have better graphics.

Just because a game takes up a whole DVD or blu-ray doesn't mean the programmers couldnt' have done it in less space, there is just no need.

To quote myself:

Why I used Elfmania as an example:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=wBBiM9I80Mw (Be amazed by the power of hardware from the 80s!)

If only Amiga 500 games looked like this at launch! But sadly it took lots of time for Amiga games to show how much more powerful the Amiga was as a gaming platform in comparison to other platform of its time, like for example the NES...

The guys posting here want to see results NOW! I am saying wait for christmas 2007 for some milestones! Is that really too long?

@ johnsobas

The combination is important, I am sorry if it's not obvious what point I am trying to make as for me it looks clear, but I have a different background with computing technology.

The NES wouldn't benefit much from GBs of storage as it's not powerful enough. But you look at the PS3's memory, its enormous bandwidth, its enormous processing power, etc Blu-Ray fits in very well, DVDs seem far more suitable for non high definition less powerful devices like the PS2 and Nintendo Wii, at least IMO if I look at the overall system specifications.

MikeB said: To quote myself: "It will probably take some time before developers manage to get the most out of this platform, as has for example also been the case with the classic Amiga chipsets. The early Amiga games don't compare well to the complex graphics used by for instance game like Elfmania or Lion Heart." Why I used Elfmania as an example: http://youtube.com/watch?v=wBBiM9I80Mw (Be amazed by the power of hardware from the 80s!) If only Amiga 500 games looked like this at launch! But sadly it took lots of time for Amiga games to show how much more powerful the Amiga was as a gaming platform in comparison to other platform of its time, like for example the NES... The guys posting here want to see results NOW! I am saying wait for christmas 2007 for some milestones! Is that really too long?

 We are not discussing whether a game will look better as the developers catch on to the system. ANY system can do that (compare Chrono Trigger to FFIV, and both use the same optional chips for SNES carts, so they use the same specs). The discussion is whether it is a bad thing for the 360 to use DVD9.

 And I did not type I wanted to see something "now". I typed I want to see something "current". That does not mean show me a game now. It means stick to the 360 and PS3's abilities if you want to prove DVD9 is bad for the system.

 If that is not your post, STOP POSTING ON THIS THREAD. 

MikeB said: @ johnsobas Is it about disk space, or power of the PS3? The combination is important, I am sorry if it's not obvious what point I am trying to make as for me it looks clear, but I have a different background with computing technology. The NES wouldn't benefit much from GBs of storage as it's not powerful enough. But you look at the PS3's memory, its enormous bandwidth, its enormous processing power, etc Blu-Ray fits in very well, DVDs seem far more suitable for non high definition less powerful devices like the PS2 and Nintendo Wii, at least IMO if I look at the overall system specifications.

 The thing is that the 360 has just about everything the PS3 has, except for blu-ray and the Cell. The other thing is that 3D graphics don't just advance in terms of detail. Have you heard of compression? It means that as detail advances, the resource needs don't advance as fast, since it means the details can fit into smaller and smaller amounts.

 For example, look up S3TC, and keep in mind that BOTH the 360 and PS3 have it, and that also affects textures sizes on the disc, as well as on the RAM.

mrstickball said: What Im not understanding is how people think that MGS4, FFXIII, et all are going to take up anywhere near 50gb of space. I don't believe, over 5 years, you can go from an average game taking up around 3-6gb per game, as it is now, to 40-50gb in 2012. That'd be more than any other increase in storage size since the transition from cartridge to CDs, which were about 20x higher in capacity. If R:FoM can take up 15-16gb uncompressed, with no attempt at making the game smaller, how can games take up 5x that? I admit, in 2012, I am sure that the 9gb will start getting pretty tight, and BR looks good, but the fact is, in 2012, Blu-Ray will be antiquated with vastly superior storage solutions such as HVD. At that point, MS or even Nintendo can switch to HVD solutions, and offer something at a cheap price, and end up holding 1~3TB of storage.

 MGS 4 is going to take a lot of space because of the audio and different language tracks more than anything...

@ LordTheNightKnight

Games use more of the system resources in course of time, be that memory, storage, processing power, etc. That's the point.

Developers will make storage related sacrifices, they will try to fit content on single layer DVDs as the reading speed significantly degrades with dual layer discs, they will try to keep everything on one disc, so possible extras like 7.1 surround audio will be left out, content won't make it into the final retail version and rather be offered as downloadable content, etc.

GTA IV will probably have become an even better game if the XBox 360 had more storage and a default harddrive for caching, and of course this hurts the PS3 version as well, as it's a multi-platform game and sacrifices will be made based on the system offering the lowest specs, if it had to be on the Wii as well, the game probably wouldn't turn out to be much more technically impressive than a PS2 game.