256 replies to this topic 1 votes

[oliver182]

threetonesun, on 12 June 2012 - 13:52, said:

There are services which stream at 1080p, which is good enough for most people. I think the "it must be of ultimate visual quality, 20.1 channel audio" crowd is pretty small these days.

streaming 1080p<Bluray 1080p , there's a difference in video quality

[pickypg]

ndoggfromhell, on 12 June 2012 - 17:12, said:

I've often thought they should just use thumbdrives for the games. Make it a proprietary connector, game has to be inserted to load even if installed to HD. It only needs to be Read Only flash... not rewritable. I'm sure the cost is more than physical disc media... but should have a higher storage capacity.

I've always wondered about that myself, but I suspect that the costs must be too high. A Blu-ray is less than a few dollars, while a 16 GB flash drive still lingers around $10 at consumer facing prices. Stacking that up to a capacity necessary for hi-res textures of the next generation games, and I think we would watch the publisher lose all of its profits as webdev511 suggested. The nice perks of it is that read speed would almost certainly be improved, and publishers could buy the smallest size necessary to fit the game, but I think that cost must be too high to make it all feasible.

[GP007]

It will either be a Bluray drive that can play movies as well or it will be some form of blue laser drive that will only be used for games and NOT support BD movies, which is still an option in the end. As for it NOT having some type of blue laser, and thus larger optical disc format that is needed for future games I'd say that's not possible. Going back to some type of Flash media/card would be great of course because it would crush the already growing loading times, but price is the issue in the end.

I think it'd be interesting if the next xbox had support for playing games on HD, optical (default) and even flash card/memory stick. Think about it, game devs could release their "limited edition" version of games, which already come with an insane price tag imo, on a flash card etc.

[HSoft]

Given the business model I could actually see Microsoft coming out with 2 versions of the console, one without a Blu Ray drive that would have to connect to the internet for game downloads etc. (a cheaper version of the console) and one with a blu ray drive (they would be nuts to ignore the potential loss of revenue due to people not having a good enough internet connection) which would be priced higher to account for the extra hardware involved. I don't think we're quite at the point yet of download only.

[threetonesun]

oliver182, on 12 June 2012 - 17:25, said:

streaming 1080p<Bluray 1080p , there's a difference in video quality

There is, but most people don't care, and most people who do already own a Blu-ray player.

[Enron]

It'll use cartridges, like Super Nintendo, except they'll come in 1GB through 64GB sizes. No Blue Ray, sorry.

[MorganX]

BDXL with no movie playback.

[MorganX]

The thing is, 4GB of flash is sooooooo cheap now, throw in USB 3.0 and why use optical?

[giantpotato]

MorganX, on 12 June 2012 - 17:55, said:

The thing is, 4GB of flash is sooooooo cheap now, throw in USB 3.0 and why use optical?

Because games won't fit on a 4GB flash drive, not to mention a 4GB flash drive is 100X more expensive than a pressed single layer DVD.

[+Vice]

Outside of a few choice countries internet speed is still very slow. Especially in south america, Australia and in many places in the US. For these reasons Microsoft won't abandon optical media so that discussion isn't even worth having right now. The question about DVD vs Bluray comes down to what the developers want. If enough game developers tell Microsoft they need more than 9GB of storage then Microsoft will have to put a Bluray reader in the next XBOX. Personally I don't see it happening I think they will stick with DVD and supplement it with a heavy focus on digital distribution.

We will see what happens. Another thing to consider is that some game shops won't carry a console that doesn't have some media for them to sell and you also need to think about piracy. A lot less people have Bluray writers and the writeable discs are still kinda pricey so Microsoft may feel it's better to go Bluray to cover both these bases.

[Audioboxer]

Very likely, developers won't be happy if MS stick to DVD.

MS will get some flak if they don't support BD movies as well, look at how hard they're pushing the 360 as your all in one media stop now.

[episode]

Crisps, on 12 June 2012 - 13:41, said:

Blu-ray is just as dead as DVD.

Digital / Cloud is the way forward.

Not when you're talking games that are anywhere from 30-50gigs and you have ISPs that cap their monthly service at 250GB or less.

[King Mustard]

Crisps, on 12 June 2012 - 13:41, said:

Blu-ray is just as dead as DVD.

Digital / Cloud is the way forward.

Downloading 10-40+ GB on a massive majority of Internet connections sucks balls.

[AdamLC]

I think games will be digital download tbh.

They could also have the option of going into a game store and plugging a flash drive into a console or vending machine and buying a game that way?

[webdev511]

Audioboxer, on 12 June 2012 - 19:24, said:

Very likely, developers won't be happy if MS stick to DVD.

MS will get some flak if they don't support BD movies as well, look at how hard they're pushing the 360 as your all in one media stop now.

That might be valid, but one must remember that Windows 8 isn't going to include MPEG-2 or MPEG-4 decoders which apparently cuts $10-$15 off the price of windows. Granted if Xbox Next is going to be an entertainment hub, the decoders are going to be in there and someone's going to have to pay for them. That said even fully featured Blu-ray players are under $100, so maybe that's a factor in the decision?

IMHO if there's an optical drive, it will be both red and blue laser, but probably not have Blu-ray video playback in it. No video played via 1080p streaming isn't going to have the bit rate to compete with 1080p + lossless audio off of Blu-ray, but it is good enough for most rentals (provided you have the bandwidth).

Flash WILL be the future, but prices are still to high for that to be the case today. I wouldn't be surprised to see Xbox Next have a USB 3 and/or an SDXC slot, but for future use.