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


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Games currently don't go over 32GB of space, but that isn't to say they never will. Especially if higher quality video/audio starts to be adopted. 4K maybe? Still the price of pressing discs is much, much cheaper. This seems to be a point you keep factoring out of the discussion. Price matters. Manufactures, especially when competing in the console market, want to keep them down and encourage sales to get people into their ecosystem. Someone has to pick up the costs if manufactures get extravagant with development. And you can get your bottom dollar it will be us, the consumer, who will do so.

In the link you provided, (provided these numbers are accurate) a BD DL (50 GB) was $0.09 per GB while SDHC (32GB) was $0.90 per GB! That is 10 times the cost per GB :| ! That is an insane increase. You do that over millions of units and it is a whole lotta mulah... For very little reward.

Lets see, we'll take 25GB and compare prices including other costs. If it cost $10, as the article suggests, to fit each produced disc/card and both are 25GB of data. It comes out to $12.25 per BR vs $32.50 (about a price difference of 1:3-ish rather than 1:10), again also as the article indicates. This comes with the added benefit of:

1. Ever device is already equipped with a method to read it.

2. The device that reads the media is cheaper (I can buy a multicard reader for $4.99, a Blu-Ray player is >= 10x that cost)

3. The media can be updated over time, meaning an error in your menu/subtitles can be fixed (instead of with a Blu-Ray disc you would have to repurchase the video to correct the issue).

4. Zero noise (in a cinematic/immersive environment this is priceless)

5. Faster loading times (for movies and games, allowing you to experience your purchase sooner)

And more that has all been mentioned in the article. Cost is the only thing holding media such as SD/Flash back. And there are many reasons to deal with that cost.

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Lets see, we'll take 25GB and compare prices including other costs. If it cost $10, as the article suggests, to fit each produced disc/card and both are 25GB of data. It comes out to $12.25 per BR ...

Do you really think it costs $12.25 to press a Blu-Ray disc? You can find Blu-Rays selling for $5. Do you really think companies take a loss of $7.25 for every one of those sold?

it cost ~$2.00 for the studios to press a disc 5 years ago when Blu-Ray first came out, I can guarantee you they cost pennies to produce now.

Edit: http://wesleytech.com/blu-ray-vs-hd-dvd-replication-costs-revealed/111/

Price from 5 years ago.

I received quotes on Blu-ray single layer (25GB) replication at plant #2 between $1.35-$1.45 USD per disc on runs of 25K or more. Blu-ray DL (50GB) was quoted between $2.15 ? $2.25 per disc on a 25,000 quantity run.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/tomcoughlin/2011/07/18/what-is-the-future-of-optical-disc-technology-and-who-will-use-it/

Price from 2 years ago

The actual cost of manufacturing today?s optical discs, even Blu-ray disks is less than $1.00,
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Do you read? I said labeling, boxes, etc. The stuff alongside the disk. I could easily see that stuff totaling beyond just a few cents or a dollar or two. Paper, plastic, ink all cost money. It may not be $10, it could be more or less. But again, I repeat that what I am talking about is not just the disc, but the price of producing the disc as well as packaging the disc (branding/etc included). Unless you expect discs to just be sitting by themselves on the shelf without a box, label or pamphlet to go with it.

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And those costs don't apply to a game on flash media?

Did I say that? I added $10 to both:

- Blu-Ray 25GB = $10 (Misc print and packaging costs) + $0.09 per GB = $12.25/disc

- SDHC 25GB = $10 (Misc print and packaging costs) + $0.90 per GB = $32.50/card

Did anyone actually read the article?

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I just read it then, you're quoting the 50GB Blu-Ray costs for the 25GB disks.

Then I'll just link the comparison chart and its description of the pricing differences.

Today, both 16GB and 32GB flash cards are readily available -- in fact these are the cheapest per-GB cards. Above and below this "sweet spot" range, the prices are higher, but these are useful sizes for high-definition video releases.

For comparison here's a table of sizes with typical compressed video times (Format is hh:mm) that can be stored in standard definition MPEG2 (i.e. DVD format with a bit-rate around 1.0 mbps) and 1080P VP8 or H264 format (typical for high-definition content, with a bit-rate around 20 mbps[2]):

XF843Rg.png

The entries in bold are of particular interest for releasing movies and/or video series. Although this chart suggests that we'd need SDHC-32 for most feature-length films, it's also possible to increase the compression slightly if cost is a major factor (to 18mbps (1:58) or 16mbps (2:13)) without having a serious effect on quality. Also, as it happens, none of the immediately forseeable Lib-Ray titles are over 1:46 (the longest would be Sita Sings the Blues at 1:21, Lunatics will probably be in two- or three-episode volumes below 1:30) -- and by the time the format catches on with a more mainstream market demanding longer formats (assuming it does), SDHC-32 may be as cheap as SDHC-16 is today.

Also this, which is of particular interest to those creating games:

Low Fixed Costs

Of course, in addition to patching already distributed media, the master currently in production could be patched to remain up to date. This is because, unlike pressed optical media, flash media are simply copied on a duplicator. Thus, there is no appreciable fixed setup cost to a printing run, and therefore no reason to make overly-long production runs (except for your own time in designing the release, of course).

Low fixed costs are particularly useful for high-risk low-volume markets like free-culture and independent film

This means not only can you make updates during the printing run, but you don't have to guarantee a large market in order to sell. Low fixed costs are particularly useful for high-risk low-volume markets like free-culture and independent film, where it may be desirable to print as few as 100 copies for sale at a time (or even to go with "print-on-demand"/"quantity one" production).

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Then I'll just link the comparison chart and its description of the pricing differences.

Also this, which is of particular interest to those creating games:

The chart you posted has nothing to do with pricing differences, it's a list of how much video you can fit on different media.

Frankly, the second quote you posted just shows how highly irrelevant that site is concerning video games. The site is about the costs of distributing some low-volume independent films. Video games are going to be manufactured in batches of hundreds of thousands, if not millions. And you know what, even if they completely screw up a batch of blu-rays, It would still be cheaper to throw them out and press another batch, than to use SD cards. Hell, they can screw up 20 batches in a row and it'll still be cheaper than using SD cards.

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Name a game to me, outside of DLC, that uses more than 32GB of space. You won't find one. Even MMO's don't break that size and they are notorious for being extremely large installs. And that's on PC. Take a look at the article I linked, it demonstrates that price differences for movies can be made up for in many ways, this would also include games. One particularly interesting thing is direct patching/updating of the media. You movies could, for example, get updated subtitles and during production these changes can easily be applied to the newer releases.

the Secret World, 36GB

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the Secret World, 36GB

It was not 36GB on release, iirc. Regardless, while it is cheaper to press a disc, its cheaper for the consumer to use an SD/Flash Drive. There is nothing to buy in almost every instance. Most televisions have USB drives now, and I'm sure there are some which even have SD slots. The cost of producing a Blu-Ray vs a 32GB drive may be 3:1 (much of which could be eliminated if production could be increased). Almost every single device (save for phones) is or can easily be equipped with SD readers or USB drives, bringing the initial cost of them down to near $0 for the consumer. Sure, it may be 3 times as expensive to print an SDHC game (which means game/movie prices will pop up about $20, or possibly even less depending on how the prices of the card drop based on increased production) but in return you will get significantly reduced loading/install times, smaller form factor hardware, significantly reduced noise from your console (even in comparison to your hard drives), a game that can once again store its own data within itself (which is extremely convenient, especially for anyone who's taken their game to their friend's console and had to download 5 updates, ofc I'm not necessarily saying save games should be on the card, but it could be an option to store them there as well).

I guess, imo, I'm willing to pay an additional $20 per game (and probably $50-$150 less for my console) to get the above benefits. Discs are fragile (not extremely so, but many games I have from the Original XBox days are starting to give out and have needed to be repurchased) and the players even more so (dust on the laser can ruin a player until you thoroughly clean it, and the player itself can fail easily).

I know long term the games would cost more, but the much more hassle-free experience of media cards would be worth it, at least to me.

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They will have to have a BD played in next Xbox for movies and at that point using flash memory just for games doesn't make any sense.

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For all those saying flash drives.... We are not there yet. MS will not take another jump on some new way to do media, especially after the failing of HDDVD.

It makes every sense to go with bluray. Not only for movies, but games too. It's already a good standard, holds plenty, and is basically scratch proof.

It's crazy to think that Bluray isn't going to be included, but then have faith that a even more less than used format for media will be. While flash drive games and media would be neat, it isn't going to happen anytime soon. And I don't see MS trying to push it forward when there is basically 0 presence of it being done by anyone already.

And the arguement of others already have bluray... well, others already had DVD players when the 360 came out, and that didn't stop them. It's called reaching out to the most people. They will pick a format which already has a strong holding in the market. Since DVD is now too old and obsolete, it will be bluray. Unless you think that somehow due to MS making it all be USB, it will force movie companies and such to change how they distribute movies..... which wouldn't happen.

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Games currently don't go over 32GB of space, but that isn't to say they never will. Especially if higher quality video/audio starts to be adopted. 4K maybe? Still the price of pressing discs is much, much cheaper. This seems to be a point you keep factoring out of the discussion. Price matters. Manufactures, especially when competing in the console market, want to keep them down and encourage sales to get people into their ecosystem. Someone has to pick up the costs if manufactures get extravagant with development. And you can get your bottom dollar it will be us, the consumer, who will do so.

In the link you provided, (provided these numbers are accurate) a BD DL (50 GB) was $0.09 per GB while SDHC (32GB) was $0.90 per GB! That is 10 times the cost per GB :| ! That is an insane increase. You do that over millions of units and it is a whole lotta mulah... For very little reward.

I think they'll start increasing in size drastically in the next gen. In the first Xbox games averaged around 2-3GB. Games on 360 are pushing the 8(ish)GB limit quite often, and indeed surpassing it with multiple disks, this is with subHD textures etc. On the next one we'll probably see native 1080 textures which will chew up space quickly.

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PS3 exclusives are huge.

Uncharted 3 - 47Gb

GT5 Spec II - 26Gb

Killzone 3 - 46Gb

MGS4 - 28Gb

All multiplatform games are gimped because of 360s small Dual Layer DVDs, they are no bigger than 8Gb for single disc games.

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PS3 exclusives are huge.

Uncharted 3 - 47Gb

GT5 Spec II - 26Gb

Killzone 3 - 46Gb

MGS4 - 28Gb

All multiplatform games are gimped because of 360s small Dual Layer DVDs, they are no bigger than 8Gb for single disc games.

Those are not actually real sizes of the games though, remember the PS3 can't really use more than a DVD size of games anyway due to the limited memory, it simply doesn't have the memory t fit high res texturess, models, animations, AI, Maps+++ in the memory.

textures are what takes the largest toll here as they are the ones that are biggest, can be least compressed and give the biggest quality loss. a lot of PS3 exclusives have for some reason taken to storing non pre compressed textures on the disk to inflate the disk size. this of course have a few drawbacks. BD is already slow to load, you just slowed it another 10 times. in addition you will end up with LOWER quality, as the PS3 will need to compress the texture as it puts it into memory, instead of the artist pre-compressing it and being able to check the quality before choosing another compression quality and setting to avoid artifacts.

So I wouldn't look at the disk size of current games particularly, the only exceptions are car games(even there the PS3 inflated the size a lot for no return when you compare to Forza, which had more quality on merely two DVD's) which loads smaller "levels" at a time, and long RPG's that allows disk switching anyway, though the reason for the size of these are usually JRPG's with a lot of very big pre-rendered FMV's, which usually are so mediocre in quality the console could render it better itself for a fraction of the space cost and with much smoother sequence change between action and FMV.

So no, the 360 didn't really gimp anything, it often had bigger and better texture quality than the PS3 games, since it could actually use them.

Either way we're talking next gen, and we'll most definitely see a high capacity storage medium on both consoles for high res textures and model data for display on 1080 screens

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...

To correct some misconceptions in your post:

1 - Uncompressed textures are not there to inflate disc sizes. They're there because they have the advantage of not having to be decompressed before being passed to the GPU, which costs precious CPU time. It helps performance.

2 - Saying that PS3 games can't use more than a ~9GB of data is ridiculous. Any development house worth their salt can write a half decent streaming engine that will allow the PS3 to chew through as much data it you can fit on the disc.

3 - Let's not forget the massive audio and video content banks in most games. Textures aren't the only things taking up space, and again uncompressed audio can help with performance.

4 - You'll be hard pressed to find any 360 exclusive which can match the texture quality and visual fidelity of top end PS3 titles.

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PS3 exclusives are huge.

Uncharted 3 - 47Gb

GT5 Spec II - 26Gb

Killzone 3 - 46Gb

MGS4 - 28Gb

All multiplatform games are gimped because of 360s small Dual Layer DVDs, they are no bigger than 8Gb for single disc games.

If that was true then why do most Multiplatform games not even approach the 8GB limit? The PS3 isnt that much different in power from the Xbox, the only advantage a Blu-Ray disk gives is more of the game. But with the PS3 you're gimped by the Drives slow loading speed.

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To correct some misconceptions in your post:

1 - Uncompressed textures are not there to inflate disc sizes. They're there because they have the advantage of not having to be decompressed before being passed to the GPU, which costs precious CPU time. It helps performance.

2 - Saying that PS3 games can't use more than a ~9GB of data is ridiculous. Any development house worth their salt can write a half decent streaming engine that will allow the PS3 to chew through as much data it you can fit on the disc.

3 - Let's not forget the massive audio and video content banks in most games. Textures aren't the only things taking up space, and again uncompressed audio can help with performance.

4 - You'll be hard pressed to find any 360 exclusive which can match the texture quality and visual fidelity of top end PS3 titles.

1: One problem with that. GPU's today and for the last, oh... 8-10 years or so, have supported and used compressed textures in memory, either they compress them as they get put in memory, or you pre compress them before loading in memory, so the artist has control of the quality of the textures. for the 360 this is I believe done using the direct x compressed texture format. I have myself made DX comrpessed textures for game models I've done.

And seriously... uncompressed textures in the 256 MB memory on the PS3... yeah.. that'll be enough to fit the textures of one character in a triple A game :)

2: sure they can use streaming textures. that's how they can get whatever textures they have in there in in there in the first place. It also results in LOD popping. I also specifically said there are games who make use of more. however the PS3 has very limited texture space available in memory. especially if you suggest they're going to put high res textures in there uncompressed. :) imagine the texture popping. it's make the hated ME popping a minor LOD glitch.

3. Audio outside of musics is generally mono sounds in games, and uncompressed or compressed ir in fact irrelevant here. while uncompressed will use less CPU. compressed audio today is so efficient to decompress, especially the formats used in video games which are created more for efficiency than size that it's rather irrelevant, especially compared to the fact that uncompressed will also take 10 times as long to read from the disk, AND use CPU to actually read from the disk. Essentially there'll be no noticeable difference, well outside of slower loading.

4. Really, Halo 3 at release, Halo Reach at release and Halo 4 now. Also the GoW games at release. one of them is highly colorful and the other is very brown ish for artistic purposes though.

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I remember one of the early PS3 games made a big deal about including uncompressed audio on disk (and how only blu-ray could make that happen), so storing uncompressed textures as a made up benefit of blu-ray I can easily imagine.

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This comes with the added benefit of:

1. Ever device is already equipped with a method to read it.

2. The device that reads the media is cheaper (I can buy a multicard reader for $4.99, a Blu-Ray player is >= 10x that cost)

3. The media can be updated over time, meaning an error in your menu/subtitles can be fixed (instead of with a Blu-Ray disc you would have to repurchase the video to correct the issue).

4. Zero noise (in a cinematic/immersive environment this is priceless)

5. Faster loading times (for movies and games, allowing you to experience your purchase sooner)

And more that has all been mentioned in the article. Cost is the only thing holding media such as SD/Flash back. And there are many reasons to deal with that cost.

What do you mean every device is already equipped?

Your're comparing consumer prices and manufacturing costs. They are not the same thing.

I've watched 100+ Blu-Rays and I've never came across a buggy menu.

Noise is negligible. I have 3 blu-ray players (2 PS#s, 1 Home Threatre) and you wouldn't even know they are on.

Loading times for movies? Again negligible. Once I hit play it is mere seconds to see the movie. However, copyright warnings slow everything down.

You say cost is the only thing as if it is some trivial point. But I think there are plenty of other reasons to turn down the idea of media on SD.

You want to ditch a perfectly good format (Blu-Ray), move to a much more expensive media, which have no particular benefits and have us all incur the pricing increase. Madness.

------------

I have about 30 blu-rays, about 60 PS3 games, and about 35 360 games, I can't imagine having 100+ small SD cards around. Seems like they would be easily lost and broken. I'm anxious about losing or breaking my dozen or so DS/3DS/Vita cards.

Frankly, the second quote you posted just shows how highly irrelevant that site is concerning video games. The site is about the costs of distributing some low-volume independent films. Video games are going to be manufactured in batches of hundreds of thousands, if not millions. And you know what, even if they completely screw up a batch of blu-rays, It would still be cheaper to throw them out and press another batch, than to use SD cards. Hell, they can screw up 20 batches in a row and it'll still be cheaper than using SD cards.

Thank you. This is the point I was about to make. The person in that article is talking about smaller volumes. He doesn't like BR because of DRM so he is looking for alternatives.

I'm not sure a blu-ray is even needed. I like the way things are right now just fine.

You won't when your games come spanned across 4 discs and you have to keep swapping them. 1995 here we come!

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What do you mean every device is already equipped?

What has SD card slots?

- Cameras

- Computers

- Media Centers

What has USB Drives?

- TV's

- Consoles

- Computers

- Media Centers

- etc.

That's what I mean by "already equipped". Why should we even use a player when your television is perfectly capable to play video itself?

Regardless, The only reason the 360 will even have a Blu-Ray player has absolutely nothing to do with games, but HD movies. If Microsoft has another way to deliver HD movies to the console (or just decides to go forgo Blu-Ray movies and stick with streamingin this or the next console) then I see little reason at all for them to include Blu-Ray drives. You can whine and moan about 4k (which won't be in the next generation) and having boat loads of audio/video (which many games today use in-game cutscenes to cut down on video) but rarely do games hit higher than a standard dual layer DVD on release and when they do then I'm sure we can deal with multiple discs. I don't think Blu-Ray will solve any problems for games, in fact it solves only one problem. Capacity.

In regards to your comment on "negligeable" load times for movies. Using a player we bought but a year ago, it still takes upwards of 30s for the player to load the disc. That's BEFORE any copyright warnings pop up. My PS3 takes a similar if not more time to load up games that aren't installed to the drive, and installing them takes longer than most PC game installs.

The primary positive point of Blu-Ray's is marred by many steps backwards in terms of performance. Both the discs and the players are slower than DVD's, not to mention more expensive. You can hail them as the end-all-be-all of disc media but from my experience the only positive they've brought to the format is capacity, and perhaps durability.

You won't when your games come spanned across 4 discs and you have to keep swapping them. 1995 here we come!

To be fair, when it comes to installing games to the console you eliminate that problem. At least its faster to install a DVD than a Blu-Ray iirc

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why ? if you already have a BD player why would you need another one, and because it's the focus doesn't mean it has to do it all. besides I'd wager a lot more people watch HD movies and series over streaming services now than BD. and if you're bringing up countries that don't have the bandwidth for it, these are the same places where DVD still reigns far above BD.

I bought a PS3 last time because of BD and I'll do it again if that feature is still missing as I have invested in the format. I'm a PC gamer so the console is there primarily for media. While streaming is ok for casual viewing, I prefer a more premium experince. Its really as simple as that.

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I think it will have bd but I also think MS will make a stronger push for GoD this time around for those who have the connections to use it. I also think that at some point in the future we'll get away from optical media and probably back to a flash card type system. Optical will end up running into a size limit while games keep getting bigger in size. After that there is also the massive difference in performance between the two. When we start trying to play games with even bigger sizes opticals slower read speeds will end up being a problem I think. Who wants even longer and longer load times as games get bigger and bigger?

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