How important is storage capacity for today's games?

From Joystiq.com: "Remember the days when games had to fit on a few 1.4MB floppies or they were physically impractical? The extent to which those days are long gone was put into stark relief by a recent Eurogamer interview in which Sony worldwide studio head Phil Harrison said that some PS3 games were already nearing the 25GB capacity of current Blu-ray discs. In the same interview, Harrison said he expected PS3 games to fill newer 50GB-capacity discs by the end of next year. It's enough to make us wonder -- what's going in to all that space, and what are we as gamers getting out of it?

Historically, storage capacity has been an important factor in game design. Adding more space to early arcade, PC and console games meant adding more floppy discs or RAM chips, increasing the cost of production and reducing profit margins. This forced game designers to be resourceful, making the best of what they had with innovative graphical and programming tricks."

[PS360WII]

Now personally I won't care if a game spans accross another disc. In fact I'd be happy with it for it would mean more bang for my buck. But I don't see how they are saying that the blue-ray is going to be more expensive seeing that the games already seem to be 60 dollars just like the 360's. Movies are more money but that's at the hands of the studios. Dvd's are cheap as all get out now and everyones liking that except for the ones who sell them. I don't know there will be games that use the 25 gigs very well and there will be games that use 25 gigs and we ask why,how, and what where they thinking. However, you can say that with every console

[Retard]

He's right, any agreements?

Don't say digital distribution is the future until there’s a next-gen net or something... I'd be crazy to wait for a 50Gb game at 300kbs... Or have 5 DVDs...

I don't like Sony CV, or any of the VPS. They shoot there mouths off entirely too much...

I just can't deny the developers opinion.

Other then that I think I'll enjoy both my x360 and ps3!

[12Volt]

But Optical internet ISP's are around the corner, so we're about to experience a distribution renessaince once everybody gets it. Also, they'll rely on compression with us getting the files and "installing" them. It will be more like 35gigs...

[lalaland]

I've personally gone from 56kbps modem to 20mbit broadband connection in a 5 year period. There are a number of places around the world where it's possible to get up to 100mbit connections at a reasonable price -- and few places with 1000mbit even.

It might not be massmarket yet, but in 7 years time, my guess is 100mbit isn't unusual at all.

A 50GB title on a fast enough server and connection, would today take approximately 7 hours to download on my connection -- that's not too bad. But hardly any servers exists that can deliver a throughput like that.

[specialguest]

you're running at 20mbit broadband connection?!? damn! that puts my Comcast 6mbit connection to shame... how much do you pay monthly for that rate and who's your broadband provider?

[12Volt]

>> Historically, storage capacity has been an important factor in game design. Adding more space to early arcade, PC and console games meant adding more floppy discs or RAM chips, increasing the cost of production and reducing profit margins. This forced game designers to be resourceful, making the best of what they had with innovative graphical and programming tricks."

Who wrote this? Oh my god, who wrote this garbage?!

Historically? Do us all a favor Wiistiq and type "home computer" at wikipedia.org and go to class!

There are alot of reasons why space capacity will always increase:

1 - The quality of content increases, the need for higher capacity and cheaper mediums.

2 - The amount of content available is increasing leaps and bounds with the ultimate goal of complete digital immersion. Think virtual reality...

If the gaming community doesnt push through with higher capacity disk they are making a disservice to our digital future. What does it have to with games though??? Everything

Typical of Joystiq to talk about "Today" but only reference the past... juiceheads

[nambo]

I really don’t think PS3 games will utilize the extra storage Blu-Ray offers them to enhance game play or experience all that much in the near future. Sure they’ll use it, but with what? We know that RFOM contains all the regional games on one disk, but I haven’t seen anything else to warrant the 25GB, albeit I’ve only seen video footage of the game. Compression technology has come a long way, and will only get better. Maybe in 4 years games will start to require the extra storage, but by then the next generation of systems will be right around the corner. I don’t think any of the current gen systems have the horse power for virtual reality. But I guess time will tell.

[nstott]

Did anyone read the review on superman returns? The city is 80 square miles. The whole thing fits on 2 gigabytes. Oblivion was 16 square miles and used 5 gigabytes. The graphics of Superman return may or may not be on par with Oblivion, but the screenshots look impressive.

[12Volt]

What don't you agree with exactly?

That "Today" games can run on DVD's, what about next year? and two years from now? 3 years? what about a 7 year console life span? Can you confidently say that we will be alright with DVD formats?

The same thing was said with the DVD, Video Discs were getting hot until DVD came out with 10X times the storage capacity...

[BIadestarX]

@12Volt "What don't you agree with exactly?" with what "nstott" said? Di he say something that bothered you? I don't see anything wrong with what he said, except he is stating a fact. For some strange reason these huge games, "Oblivion, superman" fit fine on DVD9 and still have extra room, which is why people question the need for having to pay extra to play games. Notice: no ones argues that more room is required for Movies only for games. The good thing is that time will tell. Soon the PS3 will be out, and we will be able to see if space was not enough. If the space is not enough I can see people having lots of problems over the fact they have to deal with 2 DVD intead of 1.

[nstott]

The trend in media storage is to fit more on less space. Hence the invention of vc-1 to replace mpeg2, mp3 to replace wav, procedural synthesis and other techniques replacing developers current methods.
I think that fitting a game with an 80 square mile city on it into 2 gigabytes speaks volumes for the compression techniques they are using. Obviously DVD-9 is going to be enough for the next 7 plus years. Why? because it will be the dominant media type for 3 of the 4 major gaming platforms, so it will have to be enough.
Plus why would developers want to put three times as many levels/maps/time/levels in a game and charge the same price as another developer who only puts in a third as much. I wouldn't and I doubt they would, but what I would do is break it into 3 games and charge $60 for each game and triple my revenue. Each new version could be bigger more detailed and take advantage of the latest advances in programming techniques or hardware in case of the pc. This is better for the consumer and developers.
Blu-ray is cool because all regions will be on one disc and you can put a bunch of extra stuff in there. May be hour long movies that set the story for the game. That would be cool. Plus, A lot of people will like playing the different regions. When disc manufacturing costs come down than it will be cheaper because you won't have to estimate the demand for a game by region and won't be stuck with excess inventory for a specific region.

[12Volt]

My apologies, I know what he said, and I didnt argue with what he said, I just was curios why he disagreed... but what you say is true, but eventually we will need larger space. As I said everyone doubted we need dvd space but look how far we've come with that.

Plus now that I think about Edistribution, if lets say 30 gigs can't be downloaded faster than you can go to the game store and buy it, be back home to pop it open, (not to mention servers will lag with other people downloading) whats the point?

[OC_MurphysLaw]

Look...over time new media (read Larger capacity) will always be needed as tech and inovation occurs. Present day... i.e. right now...DVD-9 is more than fine. Two years from now...my guess is DVD-9 will be stretched to its capacity regularly and the need for new formats (insert Blu-ray or HD-DVD) will be sought after ESPECIALLY if the PC community on a whole has made the switch. The transition will occur its really just a question of when. Now? Not really, next year...probably not, two years...probably.

[FKN Unbelievable]

If you have to span that motherfuker over 5 discs i could care less.(That being a Single player game.)Long as the Content on the motherfuker is sound i'm ok.

A little while ago it was never about storage capacity but since the PS3 and Xbox 360 is About equal in strength people need a To debate about the one thing PS3 can do the best and that's Store Data. Since it the only thing that it can do right Fanboys tend to over abuse this Feature or Ability. I bet No matter what when people see the Quality Between games We'll see where that Data Comes in at.

Instead of a Album with 20 songs and 5 is Good
I'll take 13 song album where 11 is good anyday.

[Arkham]

Here, have a free period: .

[Capt CHAOS]

As long as I'm not FORCED to watch all that damn CGI, I for one will just skip it..

[Tut]

The whole thing about more storage space is security.

With Blu-Ray people are buying security so that if the worst should happen and everyone is forced to move up storage space in disks then they are already prepared to do that.

The one thing I don't get is why people are upset at this addition. Yeah, it delayed the machine and added some value as well but it shouldn't be that big of an issue. It will be more polished when it does actually release, so there is a gain for me at least. I think most people will enjoy the ability to play Blu-Ray movies from their PS3 as well. It saves from having to buy a stand-alone, can be easily moved, and centralizes things to one piece of machinery.

The other major thing that I don't get is if the games cost the same as a final product should it matter that we are using another format? For me, that answer is no. If I was shoveling out a ridiculous amount to get it then yeah I would be skeptical about it. But I am not.

Besides, if you don't want what the PS3 offers then don't buy one. If you don't want a Blu-Ray player, don't buy one. It is as simple as that.

Just my two cents.

[drewdrakes]

I get 389.3 kilobytes per second, so id be good with downloading it to hard drive. And i wont buy a blu-ray, player, so dont you worry. I saw a unit at Best Buy running, it looked like complete bullplop, worse then a DVD. Yes it was on an HDTV, there was a tonne of artifacting, and random pink boxes (not pixels, large boxes) would randomly show up at the centre of the screen, anyone have an explanation for that?

[Tut]

Your Best Buy sucks? Only explanation I have. Both high definition formats are spectacular looking, not just Blu-Ray or HD-DVD. It looks wonderful on my plasma TV and it was only $2k, far less expensive than the demo ones.

Seriously, your Best Buy techs must not be that great. HD-DVD and Blu-Ray are noticeably different than standard DVD.

[drewdrakes]

Ya id have to agree. It was really bad, and i didnt think that samsung would release a blu-ray player that isnt quality, look at their TV's, effin amazing.

[videl]

this discussion is bs! more capacity is better, even if the xbox fanboy deny this. why do we need new cpus ? the programmers could optimice their code and there would not be so much need for a better cpu. we could all stick with our old tv, but we buy new tvs, because they are better, new things are the most time better, and blue ray is no exception, in two years noone want to think anymore about the times in wich games had only 7 gigs, only xbox fanboys which will deny everything good about the ps3, will play lame games on their xbox360, but wait in two years there will be a xbox720 and you can guess that it will not have a dvd drive.

[drewdrakes]

HAha i laugh at your silly analysis. The old technology was tapped out, DVD hasnt been tapped out yet, by games. Oh World of Warcraft...only 6GB, as opposed to 9GB. Spore? Crysis? Both are predicted at 6GB. So the largest known games, with the exception of the PS3 games, fit on DVD. Oh, unfortunately, most of the PS3 games (the ports) wont even be bigger then a DVD, so they dont need (or want) to take advantage of the space.

[satanslilh3lp3r]

whatever developers use the extra space for (if they use it at all) can't possibly be bad. it'll probably be a mix of HD cutscenes, graphical improvements, and more and bigger levels or something. how could the extra space be bad?

[Tut]

I have to wonder if they save a good amount of time from not having to worry about compression and being able to focus on producing more. I don't know how that process works so I can't really say but if that is the case then it allows them more time for actual development. More time for development means more time discovering new technologies and implementing them in games to make them higher quality.

I think most people are worried or skeptical about additional disk space being useful because they haven't seen it in action yet at all. I think once they see what can be done with it then it will put any speculation to rest, whether it is bad or good.

We'll see.

[snewell]

Here's my thoughts

With regarding to down loading games
Assuming each compressed game is 35gig and it uncompress to 300gig. Where do the Xbox360 core owners save that data?
Where do the 60gig HD (ps3) save that data?
Assuming you have a HD. Would you have to transfer the 35 gig file to a PC, extract and save to a DVD?....multiple DVD's?

With regards to PC games not exceeding the capacity of a DVD. Lets remember that when you install the game the files are extracted to the HD, and in general those extracted files will be larger than the space available on the DVD.
For the XBOX this would not be an option due to the core version.

In my opinion. PS3 has the advantage here due to the HD being standard.

[drewdrakes]

It would take 10 years to make a game that takes up that much space, and no one would put in the time. All that work would be useless. Games arent even going to be 10 gigs for a while, so i doubt downloading will be a problem in this time. Also, streaming is your best friend, these consoles are powerhouses, with the ability to play games and download at the same time, depending on how CPU demanding the game is. Also, why would you want to move "a HD" to your PC? I dont think thats english. Also, why games are moved over to the harddrive on the PC, when installed, is so that they run faster, do you have any idea how slow a PC game would be if it used the disc fully? Come back with a firm grasp of english, and some valid arguments.

[FKN Unbelievable]

Church.