At first, many industry journalists didn't quite acknowledge the impact the Blu-Ray format will have on video games; we only saw it from the high-definition and movie angle. Essentially, once Blu-Ray trounced HD-DVD, the PS3 became the only video game console that would support true high-definition movies.

But then, that 50GB space on Blu-Ray began to come into the limelight a little more. The naysayers would make fun of it, saying it was already "out-dated" when Konami and Kojima almost jammed it full with Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots. But we could always fire back, "yeah, how many DVDs would you need for a 360 version? 6?" Then, Sony said they used about 43 gigs of space for LittleBigPlanet (the one big reason why it'll never come to the Store, by the way), and just recently, people have noticed that Square-Enix's The Last Remnant is - perhaps not surprisingly - a multi-DVD game for the Xbox 360. It will eventually come to the PS3 and of course, it'll only take up one Blu-Ray disc, which has prompted further discussion regarding Final Fantasy XIII. We know it'll be headed to the 360 as well as the PS3, but how many DVDs will Square-Enix need...? The point is, as the generation progresses, developers will want to do more and more with any platform, and the PS3 already has the edge in terms of raw processing power. But it seems very much like Blu-Ray is going to play a major role in this advancement.

I'm not saying DVD will fall tomorrow - clearly, Blu-Ray has a long way to go before it becomes the choice of the majority - but for game devs, who seek to push the envelope all the time, Blu-Ray appears to offer far more than what amounts to an outdated format in this day and age.

When I get a ps3 that will be a big reason

If by x-factor you mean the factor that made PS3 sell below what it should have then yes. Blu-ray is something that is mostly unnecessary for gamers right now and it increased the PS3's price. The only examples of multi-dvd games on 360 are JRPG with a large amount of cutscenes. And last time I checked when I was playing Lost Oddyssey switching disks was the least of my worries (oh noes I have been playing for 15 hours and now I need to switch disks, dam my lack of blu-ray). You refer to mocking the 360's dvd capacity, well I recall people mocking the fact that out of 40 gigs of data on Heavenly Swords about 29 were uncompressed audio files which would make the difference only to people with several thousand dollars audio systems.
Bottom line: blu-ray is nice but not necessary yet. When PCs start using it then I will agree that it is becoming necessary since PCs tend to adopt all technologies first.

Not only that, current Blu-ray players are half the price of the PS3 so now that the format is taking off, PS3 will not be getting the benefit of this success but still paying the bill. Yes, if there is a gamer that wants to watch movies then the PS3 is a great choice but at least in my personal experience there is not a huge overlap between these two audiences. So once again PS3 was used to pave the way for the blu-ray but as a gamer I could care less, I would have rather had a cheaper/better system than a system that can play a video format I could care less about.

Seeing that 95% of the market is still DVD I have no idea where anyone can say that Blu-Ray will ever be the majority choice.

Blu-Ray reminds me of Beta. Beta was a superior format to VHS that no one switched over to because of the price.

I, for one, am an avid movie collector with over 1000 movies that are on DVD. I am not about to switch over to Blu-ray unless everyone loses their minds and goes out and buys them which in turn would make DVD's irrelevant.

YES

I agree 100% with Chemical. In my opinion blu-ray has hurt the PS3. The high cost of the blu-ray components is one reason, propbly the major reason why the PS3 is not continuing the sucess of the PS2. If Sony had waited till the end of the PS2's life cycle when blu-ray would cost less I believe the PS3 could have done better.

I think the PS3 has some major issues if Blu-ray is it's X-factor as opposed to deciding factor (I'm assuming X Factor is what draws people in and deciding factor is what makes them choose one alternative over another).

Oh wait, you're talking about storage capacity rather than as a movie format.

I'm going to say no. With HD gaming and the emphasis on ZOMG graphics these days, aside from being able to hold more video's/FMV's (i.e MGS4 and FF13), Blu-ray's advantages are basically nil. More storage is nothing without content to put in, and with most genre's barely pushing 12 hour single player experiences these days (development costs), 50gb's is just wasted space (which is what I hate about blu-ray movies, what's the point of charging me more if I get less content than the regular DVD counterparts).

The only genre that continuously shows Blu-ray's advantage is the RPG genre, but even then, anyone who's been an RPG fan for the past 10 years would know that some of the more famous ones came in multiple discs anyway.

Now this is just me, but if PS3 would have lacked Blu-ray I would not have picked one up so early. PS2 was and is still kicking out amazing games, and it would have more than curbed my gaming needs. Unlike most consumers I chose to never support DVD. Right now I only own 9 DVD's, and that is because they are my absolute favorite movies.

To me DVD was always a joke of a format. By the time DVD came out we already had TV's supporting High definition, and to me it made no sense to get DVD's because they always looked like crap. I have basically been all about theaters, and watching movies over dinner at other peoples houses for the last 6 years. When Blu-ray and HD-DVD came around I felt it was really time to go ahead and start investing in a video format. They were 1080p and 1080p was just barley getting started. To me Blu-ray is a logical move for the industry while DVD was just a we need new revinues from movie makers.

On the gaming side of things I really like the idea of Blu-ray when it comes to First Party Sony games. Anyone that denies the advantages of Blu-ray in Sony publishes PS3 games either has not fully experianced it, or does not want it to be true. The problem with Blu-ray being PS3 only is third parties will rarely if ever take advantage of it. Sure RPG's and other FMV happy games will need the space, and in that case multi disc's on 360 is no big deal. What would be a game breaker is if EA took Madden to the next level and went multi disc with it. This would be a point were DVD on 360 would start feeling really dated. Since we will never see this happen it really makes Blu-ray errelivent to third parties.

So at the end of the day I love the idea of Blu-ray on PS3 for movies, and the games that take advantage of it. The biggest problem is the games have been few and far in between. So far only Metal Gear Solid 4, and Uncharted have really shown what Bluray brings to gaming. Next year I think we will finally see just what a differance it makes. Infamous, Killzone 2, and Heavy Rain are going to pack 40+ Gigs into 10 - 15 hour experiances. These games will rely heavly on streaming, and useing multiple differant assets that would not be possible without that kind of space. At this point no 360 game will be able to match these titles unless it is spread across 5 - 6 discs. That would mean switches every 2 hours or so, and IMO from a gamers point of view, that is a lot of switching.

Video to DVD was a huge jump, DVD to Blu-ray is minor.

I always thought PS3's x-factor was that it was big black and shiny and bloody heavy (as far as consoles goes).