Can the 360 or any console really handle more than one disc, I don't know about the ps3 but the 360 goes to the dashboard when you press the eject button so...

blue dragon says hi

If you have an RPG with an expansive real-time full scale world map that needs more than 8.5 gigs, then splitting discs won't work too well.

In FF7-FF9, the world map was duplicated across all CDs, and then unique cutscenes were put on each individual disc.

But the GTA IV developers were running into size constraint. It would be annoying to change discs each time you wander to a different part of the city.

So yeah, I think Blu-ray will be eventually needed. I think in a Nomura interview, he mentioned of bringing back the flyable airships back in to FFXIII / FFVXIII, like the pre PS2 era. I'm hoping to do some airship flying with the six-axis.

so what the hell does that have to do with the DVD size...TROLL!!!

I honestly don't understand what the issue is about.

Perhaps some of you are too young to remember this, but once upon a time, there were no DVDs. There weren't CDs, even. Yet, developers were brave and enterprising individuals who despite the lack of a suitable storage medium, continued creating games that grew increasingly larger in size.

These games were stored on floppies. 1.44MB each. Some games took perhaps 2-3 floppies. Others considerably more (If I recall correctly, Return to Zork took up 23 floppies; Windows 3.1 took up 13 floppies I believe).

If you wanted to play a game that required 23 floppies, you had two options:

• Don't play it

• Swap 23 floppies for the install, and play it

Swapping can be a pain, I admit - that's not the issue here. The issue is many of you make it like swapping is such a bad thing when in fact it's been around forever - and we lived with it and still played the games we wanted.

The Playstation game Parasite Eve was released on two CDs. Half Life came in two flavors - a DVD version, or a 5 CD version. Don't tell me that if MGS4 was released on 2 Blu-ray discs, or in five DVDs you wouldn't be interested in it. I know if I let 23 floppies bother me back then, I would have missed out on one of the best point-and-click adventure games of all time.

 I totally agree that disk swapping can be a pain. However, I see you're talking about installing games. I think that's a bit different since you really only have to install that once. Yes, 5 disks (cd's) of installing F.E.A.R is a freaken pain in the butt, but once you do that it's over and you only have to use one disk to play the game until you have to re/uninstall it. 

Kind of related, I'm assuming you ment Half-Life 2 in your post, but I thought that the retail version only came in CD, but I'm not 100% sure on that as I went the downloadable way and had to wade through a crapload of 'pre-loads' (forgot how many there were). 

QFT!

It's as if no one here even remembers the relatively recent PlayStation days of two to four disc games.

Installing games is certainly different from swapping while playing. However, I don't see it as a major stumbling block as long as you are not asked to constantly swap discs. Additionally, with hard drives (Xbox WILL get around to it, it's inevitable!) parts of the game can be "installed" on the hard drive to mitigate the swapping.

However, my point was more along the lines of (as with some multi-disc PS/PS2 games): If MGS4 came in multiple discs, would I pass on it if I wanted to play that game? Certainly not. I am willing to put up with the minor aggravation if in exchange the game provides me with hours of fun. I wouldn't let 10 seconds here or there ruin hours of entertainment!

Actually, this happens all the time with VCDs (and with some longer movies, with DVDs as well) and VCDs are still selling all over Asia. Again, it might just be me, but I don't see the issue.

Half-Life 2 came in two retail versions - the 5 CDs and 1 DVD version; having said that, the DVD version may just be the Asian retail box. 

What kind of reasoning is that? The extra content would have already been in the one-disc version, right? What difference does it make if the extra content is in a separate disc, apart from the miniscule 15-cent manufacturing cost?