Likelyhood of the next xbox inculding a blu-ray drive?

[giantpotato]

Um, no. My point is not that games aren't going to get bigger, but that regardless of the size developers are still going to try and save space. Smaller files, lower polygons, etc all mean faster load times and smoother visuals. Again, I'd prefer the extra space to go to giving the game more content over doubling texture resolution. Sure, I download the texture packs for Skyrim and a ton of mods which up the visual quality. But my favorite mods are weapon, armor, wildlife additions, improvements to combat mechanics, etc. 6GB of content will always be better than 20GB of textures.

Everything is about money. Why would a developer waste resources (ie. employee's time) trying to save space, if they had the option not to? The only reason developers waste time doing that now is because they can't fit all the content they want to on a DVD.

[HawkMan]

Wikipedia:

However, holographic drives are projected to initially cost around US$15,000, and a single disc around US$120?180, although prices are expected to fall steadily.^[5] Since InPhase Technologies were unable to deliver their promised product, they ran out of funds, and went bankrupt in 2010. ^[6]

^{So nope :p}

There are HVD products on the market and has been for years . and the technology is there waiting for mass production. the only reason for the high price now is the severely limited production capacity. While I don't think we'll see HVD this gen, it would be nice, insane storage, combined with read speed BD can only dream of in it's dreams inside it's dreams. And I think MS could if they chose to use it get it at a decent price since they would have ordered millions of them. However they would end up in the same trap that sony did last gen. Excepnsive and risky, especially with the high chance of faults on new hardware like that, I don't think they want to do that one all over.

[Emn1ty]

Everything is about money. Why would a developer waste resources (ie. employee's time) trying to save space, if they had the option not to? The only reason developers waste time doing that now is because they can't fit all the content they want to on a DVD.

You are thinking backwards. Game designers and developers are always saving space. They are taught to save space from the beginning. Why make something take up more space than it needs to? Why waste resources on such things? I took the base courses for 3D modelling for games. Our first projects were literally directly from Bioware's documentation for Mass Effect and modelling extraneous props. The texture limit was 512x512 and poly's for each was no more than 1,100. Sure foreground objects are going to get up to hundreds of thousands of poly's in future games, but objects that are persistent and unimportant won't get much more than a couple thousand, and texture resolutions for such objects will be half that of foreground entities.

It actually ****ed us all off when we got a Media Arts teacher for one of the classes who would repeatedly give us 10k poly count limits and not care about the texture resolution. It's better to work within constraints. The more detail the more time it takes and the more money that's spent. Saving space actually saves time.

[Debus42]

I think if Microsoft were to inclue a Blu-Ray drive then they would kind of be admitting defeat to Sony. HD lost to Blu-Ray, and putting in a B-R drive would kind of be adding salt to the wound. Of course the mighty Bill Gates is probably going to put one in to carry on with this sudden 'Xbox as Entertainment hub' thing. It would frustrate me if they added one, as I bought my PS3 solely for it's B-R drive and few and far between exclusive games.

[FiB3R]

Shocking amount of ridiculous bull**** in this thread. :wacko:

[compl3x]

Games this gen of games do fine an a DVD or two. but for next gen, it's just not gonna cut it.

I honestly hope we don't have to go through another generation of games that require disc swapping. There wasn't much of it in this generation, ME3 had 2 discs and LA Noire had 3 (4 if you have the complete edition like me.)

It isn't a big deal, but it just feels so friggin' antiquated.

[HawkMan]

I think if Microsoft were to inclue a Blu-Ray drive then they would kind of be admitting defeat to Sony. HD lost to Blu-Ray, and putting in a B-R drive would kind of be adding salt to the wound. Of course the mighty Bill Gates is probably going to put one in to carry on with this sudden 'Xbox as Entertainment hub' thing. It would frustrate me if they added one, as I bought my PS3 solely for it's B-R drive and few and far between exclusive games.

except MS was never in the hd video war, they released a hddvd player, but even that was more toshiba and it didn't sell so they never pursued it. HDDVD lost, it was the better and cheaper "video" and format, but theycouldnt fight the bribes.

So by inlcuding a BD (not BR) drive they're not admitting defeat, they're just saying the next generation needs more space than last.

[Debus42]

except MS was never in the hd video war, they released a hddvd player, but even that was more toshiba and it didn't sell so they never pursued it. HDDVD lost, it was the better and cheaper "video" and format, but theycouldnt fight the bribes.

So by inlcuding a BD (not BR) drive they're not admitting defeat, they're just saying the next generation needs more space than last.

Oh I agree that they're going to need one in order to compete with whatever else is coming with next-gen, it's just going to annoy me a bit because it will make my PS3 seem worthless (to me, that is). Then again, if the rumours are anything to go by it might not have a disk drive at all, which I think is a massive mistake on their part, but that's for another discussion.

[George P Global Moderator]

I think those rumors of a xbox without a optical drive are probably half right and half wrong, if not 100% wrong. With Xbox Live adding more and more media content streaming services I could totally see them release a version of the next gen system without a drive but smaller and quieter just to be used as a media device by people and not so much for big hardcore games. This works depending on price of course.

Then you can have the full console with a drive, BD or w/e, and that'll be for the hardcore gamers and not the casuals who are fine with smaller XBLA titles etc.

[Haggis Veteran]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/gamesblog/2012/apr/03/xbox-720-durango-rumours

[HawkMan]

I think those rumors of a xbox without a optical drive are probably half right and half wrong, if not 100% wrong. With Xbox Live adding more and more media content streaming services I could totally see them release a version of the next gen system without a drive but smaller and quieter just to be used as a media device by people and not so much for big hardcore games. This works depending on price of course.

Then you can have the full console with a drive, BD or w/e, and that'll be for the hardcore gamers and not the casuals who are fine with smaller XBLA titles etc.

Well there has for a long time been rumors that there will be two next gen xboxes, one set top boks that probably won't have a media drive and can stream from online services and play arcade games and use the other xbox online services and tv services. And one core gamer devices that will be the actual next gen xbox that will probably have a BD drive and built in kinect and all the other goodies. actually I believe both of them was going to have built in kinect though.

[TheLegendOfMart]

You are thinking backwards. Game designers and developers are always saving space. They are taught to save space from the beginning. Why make something take up more space than it needs to? Why waste resources on such things? I took the base courses for 3D modelling for games. Our first projects were literally directly from Bioware's documentation for Mass Effect and modelling extraneous props. The texture limit was 512x512 and poly's for each was no more than 1,100. Sure foreground objects are going to get up to hundreds of thousands of poly's in future games, but objects that are persistent and unimportant won't get much more than a couple thousand, and texture resolutions for such objects will be half that of foreground entities.

It actually ****ed us all off when we got a Media Arts teacher for one of the classes who would repeatedly give us 10k poly count limits and not care about the texture resolution. It's better to work within constraints. The more detail the more time it takes and the more money that's spent. Saving space actually saves time.

Yes and why did the restrict textures and polys?

Space and performance, next gen will have the horsepower for 1080p 30fps with loads of effects, it doesnt make sense to constrict the space requirements. If they do then we have another generation of ugly looking third party games because they cant take advantage of the extra space of the PS4 Blu-Ray disc.

[Debus42]

The subject of having Kinect built in to the consoles is interesting, but that seems like it's going to be forced on gamers who might not want it. It's a good technological move if they do it, but i think that's a long way off if the reception to Kinect so far is anything to go by. Motion control is still hotly debated, and I remain in the sceptical camp.

[Emn1ty]

Yes and why did the restrict textures and polys?

Space and performance, next gen will have the horsepower for 1080p 30fps with loads of effects, it doesnt make sense to constrict the space requirements. If they do then we have another generation of ugly looking third party games because they cant take advantage of the extra space of the PS4 Blu-Ray disc.

You will also be limited by the hardware beyond the physical media. And it doesn't matter what you say, developers will save space in any way they can if it means improving performance without sacrificing visual quality. Less information means faster load times, smoother gameplay and quicker downloads. It has more benefits beyond just saving space on physical media.

[TheLegendOfMart]

Yes I know it doesn't make sense to have uncompressed textures, etc... as they all have to fit in GPU memory, but it also doesn't make sense to restrict the size of the media 'just because' developers compress things anyway.

Having a 25-50Gb Blu-Ray disc, assuming they put a fast enough drive in it, makes far more sense.

[BajiRav]

Yes and why did the restrict textures and polys?

Space and performance, next gen will have the horsepower for 1080p 30fps with loads of effects, it doesnt make sense to constrict the space requirements. If they do then we have another generation of ugly looking third party games because they cant take advantage of the extra space of the PS4 Blu-Ray disc.

If the next-gen consoles are supposed to last at least 5 years i.e. 2018+, I think they will be targeting 4K and not just HD. On the other hand, I am completely talking out of my rear and I have no idea how soon industry is leading towards 4K.

[Xilo]

People who believe everything will be download only in the near future need to wake up and stop smoking the ganja.

[Alladaskill17]

Blu-ray is just as dead as DVD.

Digital / Cloud is the way forward.

Not trolling, and way off topic, but Apple would agree with you. (see App store, and the 'next gen' MacBook Pro, no optical drive at all).

[George P Global Moderator]

If the next-gen consoles are supposed to last at least 5 years i.e. 2018+, I think they will be targeting 4K and not just HD. On the other hand, I am completely talking out of my rear and I have no idea how soon industry is leading towards 4K.

I bet the industry would love to move to 4k as soon as it can, so they can try and sell you a new line of TVs again and so on. Honestly though I think 4k is quite a ways off from becoming main stream like 1080p is now. I think 1080p is more than enough for the majority of people out there, there would have to be a very very good reason to get yet another new tv a few years after you just got one for 4k.

Heck, 4k might come into it's own in the last year or 2 of the next gen systems life cycles for all we know. I think games will aim for 720p to cover everyone, even next gen, and if the TV can do 1080p then the game will run at 1080p.

[George P Global Moderator]

Not trolling, and way off topic, but Apple would agree with you. (see App store, and the 'next gen' MacBook Pro, no optical drive at all).

I have to question just how "pro" the new MacBook Pro is without a optical drive of some type. I dunno, I guess maybe if you want to install apps not on the app store you'll have to move them to USB first.

[BajiRav]

Not trolling, and way off topic, but Apple would agree with you. (see App store, and the 'next gen' MacBook Pro, no optical drive at all).

It still has a memory card slot? but then most Mac "apps" won't be in tens of GBs.

[TheLegendOfMart]

If the next-gen consoles are supposed to last at least 5 years i.e. 2018+, I think they will be targeting 4K and not just HD. On the other hand, I am completely talking out of my rear and I have no idea how soon industry is leading towards 4K.

Very doubtful, you cant realistically do 4K gaming on a PC with multiple graphics cards in SLI/Crossfire, consoles will probably have a custom mid-range graphics card in by time they come to release, I think the best they can hope for is 1080p 30fps.

[BajiRav]

Very doubtful, you cant realistically do 4K gaming on a PC with multiple graphics cards in SLI/Crossfire, consoles will probably have a custom mid-range graphics card in by time they come to release, I think the best they can hope for is 1080p 30fps.

Didn't Xbox 360 have a more powerful GPU (not to mention some DX10 features) at launch? It quickly got overshadowed but at launch it was better than or comparable to top of the line. Don't quote me though. :/

[compl3x]

Yes I know it doesn't make sense to have uncompressed textures, etc... as they all have to fit in GPU memory, but it also doesn't make sense to restrict the size of the media 'just because' developers compress things anyway.

Having a 25-50Gb Blu-Ray disc, assuming they put a fast enough drive in it, makes far more sense.

Agreed. Games are being spanned on DVDs in the generation. I imagine being conservative when developing for consoles is a necessity, but the idea you would intentionally restrict your media in order to enforce devs to be conservative when creating games seems entirely backward. Especially when a large capacity media exists to give them all the space they might or will need.

[Emn1ty]

Agreed. Games are being spanned on DVDs in the generation. I imagine being conservative when developing for consoles is a necessity, but the idea you would intentionally restrict your media in order to enforce devs to be conservative when creating games seems entirely backward. Especially when a large capacity media exists to give them all the space they might or will need.

Who ever said anything about restricting them? If the media is not a Blu-Ray disc (which has a fixed size) but flash memory then it really becomes up to the Developer/Publisher where they want to be at. They can make a 8GB game, 16GB game, 32GB game, so on and so forth and only buy media that suits that size. With a Blu-Ray they'll feel obligated to fill the 25/50gb in order to sell their game seeing as its become a new fad to measure a game based on how much space it takes up on disc/on your drive. I also don't see flash drives going away anywhere near as fast as optical media will.