Personally as a 360 owner the only worry I have for my 360 is that the dvd medium would not be enough for future games though I feel in the end having the hardrives will take care of this issue I ask does it really matter?

My cousin and I where having a discussion about how much great games like zelda, metroid, mario galaxy and SSB seem to have and use DVD.  Now I know the HD stuff requires more space but how much does it truly need?  I mean Mass Effect supposedly has tons of dialogue and is set to be 40+ hours of gameplay yet it fit in 1 DvD.  Would you sacrifice slightly lower HD textures in order to have extra features or gameplay?  I think this is sort of the point Bungie was trying to make with the lower resolution they used because as long as they can do everything they want to do gameplay wise it really doesn't matter a great deal.  Also I am curious to see how big those multiplatform games are compared to each other.  Are the PS3 versions much larger or about the same size?  Obviously the first and second party developers keep talking about how much more space they needed to make their games for the PS3 but has the same been true to multiplatform games?  How is cod4 or assassins creed fitting into a dvd vs blue-ray?  I know the PS3 has 7.1 audio vs 5.1 but does it really matter? If games focus on the gameplay, good frame rates and being fun does it really matter how much space it took up?    

In the end the PS3 has the best position since it does have the blue-ray disk but with the installed based well established for the Wii and 360 will it really matter?  Don't think we will truly know for a while. 

 Finally though that is my only concern as a 360 owner the fact that I been playing and will continue to play really good games for sometime I don't think it matters much for now.

Only time will tell.

Size always matters.

OT: It would depend on how much online content you plan on downloading. Me, if I had a 360 I would end up downloading movies, so yeah size would matter.

I believe it matters greatly. Its kind of like when FF7 came out, they could have picked nintendo's cartridges as the medium, but they found the disk to have more room, so they tossed in a bunch of Cutscenes and extra's etc etc. It was the vision Square wanted for the game and the disk's let them have the freedom to do so. I've heard people give excuses for disk space like "Well just cut out some of the CGI" or "Who needs 5.1 or 7.1" I mean alot of people can agree with it, but honestly why should you have to "cut" anything? In fact if I could pick up the same game on the 360 or PS3 the only diff. being 7.1 audio? Believe me I'm picking the later. If the creaters can put everything they want on the disk with no "Sacrifices" by all means I'm down for that.

That may be your opinion but what is more valuable, saving costs on audio encoding or catering to the 1% of the population that actually has 7.1 set up in their homes?

I've been running a very nice 5.1 system for years because it works for almost everything. I don't know a single person who has actually bothered to set up 7.1 or anyone who actually even plans to do it. Most people with the money have a wife who might not appreciate 152 speakers set up around a 60" TV. Mine bitched about the 6 speakers I already use.

There comes a point where features pass from functional to complete and utter overkill. 7.1 is one of those features unless you have a dedicated theatre room, which is why so few people run it.

Yeah, were a small minority of people ^_^ but the tech is on the rise, the longer the technology is out, the more widespread it becomes, in fact I saw a cheapo 7.1 audio surround for pc the other day at fry's for some 500 something dollars. In terms of here and now I can reason with you, theres not a huge demand for it, and as far as cost to encode with that audio its almost nothing, in fact most of the time I believe its encoded in 7.1 and just drowned out in noise displacement for 5.1 or lower. I could be wrong on that but I don't think its that important for the better output. So whereas it might not be important to you now, if you ever feel like upgrading to a better sound system, you know you'll be able to get the most out of your disk.

Disk space is as valuable as developers make it.  If all developers can do with it is uncompressed audio, I don't really care.  The sound quality is better, but it's not make or break better.  However, if that disk space can be translated into more content and a more robust game all-around, then it'll be worthwhile.

My point is that 7.1 is marginally better unless you really have a massive theatre setup. My 5.1 system ran me about $1500 in individual components and sounds better than almost any pre-packaged system you'll find, 5.1 or 7.1.

It's the same problem that HD-DVD and Blu-Ray are encountering; they're just not a big enough improvement over upscaled DVD to convince most people to buy into them, myself included. I don't care if players were $200; I still wouldn't touch either format even though I have a PS3.

Adding technology for technology's sake doesn't impress me much.

I imagine it might become an issue with games that use HD graphics, especially lots of FMV like many Japanese games. The Wii shouldn't have any trouble, seeing how a game as large as Twilight Princess fit on a Gamecube disc, and the 360 seems to be well off with games like Mass Effect, Halo 3 and Gears fitting on just one "last-gen" disc.

Of course if a competent developer starts working with a BR disc, and has a minimum of 50GB to work with, they'll definitely be able to pull off some features they couldn't do before. Equally sure is they'd have serious trouble ever slimming the game down to standard DVD size, which is why I expect to see quite a few game that 360-owners would like stay as de facto exclusive.

Still, it looks to me like the cost of developing jaw-dropping HD visuals is doing much more to prohibit the length of games than disc space ever will.

A part of me can definately agree with you guys, but when I stop to think about where the PS3 games are at now, and how quickly there getting bigger and bigger, hell the PS3 hasn't even been out for a full year, and theres a few games already using the space, wether or not its for features that interest you, its good to know devs are already stretching their legs.