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Forums - Gaming Discussion - Optical drives need to be kicked to the curb! Flash is the next-gen future.

heruamon on 15 December 2008

I just love it when people throw out numbers...kinda like...You'll never need mor ethan 640 kb...or maybe many of you are simply too young to remember that...or that the PC was never going to appeal to the masses. Flash memory is the future, and looking at how the cost has shrunk in the last 3 years, WITHOUT a major catalyst, I can see it being a viable median for the future. It's small and compact, and uses less power, generates less heat, and is cooler to tote around (okay...no scientific data for this one).



"...You can't kill ideas with a sword, and you can't sink belief structures with a broadside. You defeat them by making them change..."

- From By Schism Rent Asunder

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NJ5 on 15 December 2008
heruamon said:
I just love it when people throw out numbers...kinda like...You'll never need mor ethan 640 kb...or maybe many of you are simply too young to remember that...or that the PC was never going to appeal to the masses. Flash memory is the future, and looking at how the cost has shrunk in the last 3 years, WITHOUT a major catalyst, I can see it being a viable median for the future. It's small and compact, and uses less power, generates less heat, and is cooler to tote around (okay...no scientific data for this one).

It's just not very clear to me that the costs will be low enough for the next generation.

 



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Squilliam on 15 December 2008
NJ5 said:
heruamon said:
I just love it when people throw out numbers...kinda like...You'll never need mor ethan 640 kb...or maybe many of you are simply too young to remember that...or that the PC was never going to appeal to the masses. Flash memory is the future, and looking at how the cost has shrunk in the last 3 years, WITHOUT a major catalyst, I can see it being a viable median for the future. It's small and compact, and uses less power, generates less heat, and is cooler to tote around (okay...no scientific data for this one).

It's just not very clear to me that the costs will be low enough for the next generation.

 

You've been saying how the hardware costs on the PS3 won't scale well with time due to proprietary technology. The costs are high enough this generation really.

You have:

  • Optical Drive $20-40 at launch.
  • HDD $30-40 at launch.
  • Extra memory, motherboard complexity $10
  • Packaging also cannot scale as well, as an optical drive must always be fitted
  • Total: $60-90 in fixed costs which will hardly drop for the lifetime of the console.

 

 

 

 



Tease.

heruamon on 15 December 2008
NJ5 said:
heruamon said:
I just love it when people throw out numbers...kinda like...You'll never need mor ethan 640 kb...or maybe many of you are simply too young to remember that...or that the PC was never going to appeal to the masses. Flash memory is the future, and looking at how the cost has shrunk in the last 3 years, WITHOUT a major catalyst, I can see it being a viable median for the future. It's small and compact, and uses less power, generates less heat, and is cooler to tote around (okay...no scientific data for this one).

It's just not very clear to me that the costs will be low enough for the next generation.

 

 

 

That's the beauty of USB...I think 32GB sticks will be feasible by 2011 for mass usage, and by 2013-ish, the 64 will be readily feasible.  Best Buy has a portable 320GB HDD for $99...HOLY SH!T...that was like $300-400 2 years ago...I jsut go a 120GB 2 months ago for $79, and I'm kicking myself in the rear at this point.  I think in 2 year, I think M$ can use the sales data from this generation to do some CBA for flash producers.  With multiple games selling over 5 million copies, the demand for flash drives could be pretty strong, thus driving down the price on volume buys.  The HUGE advantage is the saving on licensing cost, over the LTD of the console.  Just imagine that just like production cost being decreased, so will the cost for the median used to publish the games, whereas the licensing cost would remain constant.  Now, perhaps with this bully stick, nintendo and M$ can low ball sony, since some cash is better than nothing at all.



"...You can't kill ideas with a sword, and you can't sink belief structures with a broadside. You defeat them by making them change..."

- From By Schism Rent Asunder

hotrodx on 15 December 2008

Still, if the consoles do switch to solid-state drives, how do you handle backward compatibility? A PS4 without PS3 BC? A next gen XBox without 360 BC? A next get Ninty console without Wii BC? I don't think people will take it nicely if you offer BC by purchasing an external device.


On using smaller game sizes... well I can think of some possible techniques:

1. Remove FMV and use real-time cutscenes (mentioned above)
2. Procedural textures and geometry (mentioned above)

Possible problems with above:

1. The audio for cutscenes and in-game. You can compress it, but at the cost of fidelity.
2. Artist / Programmer division of labor. You'd probably need artists cum programmers to make full use of procedural methods. The current status quo just requires the artists to use with Max/Maya/XSI and Photoshop to create game assets.



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CDiablo on 15 December 2008

I wouldnt be suprised if one of the next gen consoles use flash.



Getting an XBOX One for me is like being in a bad relationship but staying together because we have kids. XBone we have 20000+ achievement points, 2+ years of XBL Gold and 20000+ MS points. I think its best we stay together if only for the MS points.

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-Jim Sterling

.jayderyu on 15 December 2008

The rate of advanceing technology will favour solid state medium in the future. Just not next generation. Originally data was stored on punch cards, then magnetic strip, future is now moving towards flash. Though in the end flash may not be the one to do it.

Perosonally I have believed for 20 years that man made crystal storage will be the future. each cyrstal(square, circle..) will have thousands of layers. Where each layer can be be set to refelctive or not. depending on the light colour bounced back will determine the data value. Since this wil be read with lasers it will be fast. Of course i'm refering to non motion based storage. Now we have research into holographic prism storage technology. :)

In the mean time we will have flash disk drives replace our HDD and eventually have PRISM storage to replace large scale HDD data storage.



Squilliam: On Vgcharts its a commonly accepted practice to twist the bounds of plausibility in order to support your argument or agenda so I think its pretty cool that this gives me the precedent to say whatever I damn well please.

akuma587 on 15 December 2008

Flash memory is still way to expensive. Maybe two generations from now.



We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers…Also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls.  The only thing that really worried me was the ether.  There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge. –Raoul Duke

It is hard to shed anything but crocodile tears over White House speechwriter Patrick Buchanan's tragic analysis of the Nixon debacle. "It's like Sisyphus," he said. "We rolled the rock all the way up the mountain...and it rolled right back down on us...."  Neither Sisyphus nor the commander of the Light Brigade nor Pat Buchanan had the time or any real inclination to question what they were doing...a martyr, to the bitter end, to a "flawed" cause and a narrow, atavistic concept of conservative politics that has done more damage to itself and the country in less than six years than its liberal enemies could have done in two or three decades. -Hunter S. Thompson

heruamon on 15 December 2008

2 years ago, it cost $99 for the 2gb xD card, and today you can get it for $29...in 2 years...??? And it's even cheaper for sd cards. The same goes for memory sticks...they are now cheaper than dirt for pretty huge ones. Time will tell how cost can be reduced, but I expect it to be dirt cheap in 2 years.



"...You can't kill ideas with a sword, and you can't sink belief structures with a broadside. You defeat them by making them change..."

- From By Schism Rent Asunder

Khuutra on 15 December 2008
hotrodx said:

Still, if the consoles do switch to solid-state drives, how do you handle backward compatibility? A PS4 without PS3 BC? A next gen XBox without 360 BC? A next get Ninty console without Wii BC? I don't think people will take it nicely if you offer BC by purchasing an external device.

If I were to bet money - and I don't - it woul work like this:

If Nintendo decides to go with flash drives in the next Wii, it will be in addition to a disc drive for the sake of full backwards compatibility. It will take at least another generation after that (maybe two) before they willingly abandon hardware backwards compatibility with the current console for the sake of digital downloads.

Long-term yes, it is more expensive for the consumer, but it's still a pretty neat idea.