If recent Xbox 720 rumors are to be believed Microsoft's next console will support Blu-ray and finally catch up to its PlayStation counterpart.
Speculation has suggested that it also may not support the use of pre-owned games. We've think the ramifications of discarding used games would be pretty serious for the industry and deadly for a console pursuing that path if a rival decides against it. However, the trend towards digital distribution on the other hand might help in the long term.
Wester, like many forward-thinking minds, predicts the ongoing decline of boxed products and the rise of what he calls 'open' platforms like phones and PCs. This doesn't come as much of a surprise considering his company saw a record 97% of revenue from digital means in 2011.
It's a sentiment echoed by Obsidian man Chris Avellone, albeit in much stronger terms. "I hope digital distribution stabs the used game market in the heart," he remarked, explaining that it was so much easier to develop for a digital-only release; excuses for a buggy New Vegas release perhaps?
It would certainly alleviate the argument about used games being ditched somewhat, with the costs of boxing a game being cut hopefully leading to cheaper prices. However, long-established games retailers like HMV and GAME will suffer no end, and that's before you factor in the old fashioned people that just like having that game stacked on the shelf for access whenever.
Amidst claims in November of GTA V being exclusively digital, industry analyst Michael Pachter said there was 'ZERO probability', as "Rockstar in business to sell a lot of copies, and won't do anything that compromises that goal."
The big money is still clearly made in physical copies, Pachter believes. Besides, how many games have you seen developed with XBLA or PSN specifically in mind that offer the scope of GTA or Skyrim? It could be a death knell for the grand gaming experience if you have to download for a day to access it.
The question for you guys is, do you think the new generation of consoles should focus solely on digital downloads and ditch costly Blu-rays and other disc media?
Give us your opinions on digital distribution, and next-gen consoles in general in the comments below.
Comments
62 comments so far...
Noobsaibot on 29 Jan '12 said:
To video game hardware vendors:
I will never accept a console which does not play physical media and never, EVER accept a console with a distribution model like OnLive (unless it comes with a physical PC disc too). Hope this is definitive enough.
Signed,
Noobsaibot
The Fonz on 29 Jan '12 said:
No. Simple as that.
Jimmy Luxury on 29 Jan '12 said:
No, no and hell no. We need discs. Until we get the same infrastructure as South Korea, we must have disc based systems. And I for one like buying physical copies of games. When Sony brought out the PS3, they did so on a measely 60gb platform. How could they have imagined the additional storage needs of its users 5 years down the line? I would love to know how many people have a need to upgrade their HDD but don't for whatever reason. A BD can take up to 50gb, even a 1tb drive can only house about 9 games. Sure, not all games will be that big, but give it some time and that drive will full up really quickly. I'm gratefull the games I rarely play are stored off of the system and exist on a disc, safely packed away in a case. If they bring out install codes you must associate to your account, like PC games, i'm fine with that as I don't sell games. Having the option to install a regularly used game and not need the disc would be a great option, but I would like most games to be available as physical copies you can link to an account.
On a different note, wouldn't it be great if we had the option of physical or digital? I mean, you could take your HDD into a shop, buy a game, dock your HDD and get your game. This would be a good option for people with crummy BBand and you still get to go to an actual shop. Hi street retailers would still benefit from digital sales, you get a disc-less game, everyone wins except the CD manufatcuring industry.
Insert Brain on 29 Jan '12 said:
1. Not everyone who play console games have them connected to the internet (I know this to be true as i have a few friends where this is the case)
2. The base internet speed in the UK (although getting better) is still too low - Having to download all your games especially with a slow internet speed will take an age and be VERY frustrating, and with games only getting bigger it will only get worse.
3. Internal HDD size of the console - Unless the next consoles come with several Terabyte HDD your disc space will be gone VERY quickly, for you have to consider your downloading the entire game and then if you buy DLC thats more space gone. (This point would mainly affect people such as myself who have large game collections, for example i easily have 80+ games just for the 360 alone, and I wouldnt be inclined to delete a game to make space for another only to redownload the first game if i want to play it again).
So "Should Xbox 720 and PS4 ditch discs?"
No!
Imaduck on 29 Jan '12 said:
No thanks, at least with a disc there's SOMETHING I can own
Flamey UK on 29 Jan '12 said:
To nearly quote Jim Trott no, no, no, no, no...erm NO! What would happen to Backwards Compatibility with current gen titles?
alan666 on 29 Jan '12 said:
NO !
TallPaul1878 on 29 Jan '12 said:
Will the savings from dropping the disc drive be passed on to the consumer?? I very much doubt it. Consoles will still be pushing £300 at launch and with no competition for custom you can guarantee that Microsoft and Sony will hike the price of their games to £50 with no prospect of it dropping any time.
If they do drop the disc then I'll definitely wave good bye to console gaming and exclusively to PC.
Mmmmgrolsch on 29 Jan '12 said:
Ditch discs and they can forget all about having my money that's for sure. Infact I'll even become a Nintendo primary gamer
Nanaki on 29 Jan '12 said:
As a huge collector of video games, I hate the idea of digital distribution. When it comes to that, I will probably buy a lot less. Rather than pay for an unfinished game (they can release when they want, and update as needed). Most likely sold in parts to squeeze more cash, and having the potential to be taken down whenever the publisher deems it non-profitable.
It also puts an end to lending games to friends, and word of mouth is quite a huge deciding factor for some people who buy games. Plus there's also the millions of people it will put out of work, ranging from staff in retail stores, to delivery and distribution workers. I only see negatives, and they are huge ones. The day we see digital only, is the day games are dead to me
JBoo on 29 Jan '12 said:
I only got a 40GB download a limit each month so if next Gen was all downloads only, i couldn't play a lot then(if games are going to be 50GB+ a go next Gen that is...hmm i couldn't even download 1 game then LOL if it was 50GB+) Go with 100GB+ Blu-rays next Gen(with faster read times etc etc) until we all get super fast internet speeds & unlimited GB a month...hmm (again) that will never happen in my life time i bet
sepewrath on 29 Jan '12 said:
Stab the used game market in the heart? Its rather easy for publishers to do that if they really feel the need to. If they simply convince people to keep games, retailers cant sell used games if people don't sell it to them first. What is their grand scheme to get people to keep games? Well in Obsidian's case, its waiting for the patch that will actually make the game playable. For everyone else, its the promise of a bill for more content, yeah that's a real compelling reason to keep your game, instead of trading it in for a new one
I have no interest in a digital future, like others have said, it would be very inconvenient for a lot of people. And I'm not big on buying things I don't own, I know people can get into their esoteric arguments about what we truly own. But I can take a game and drop it down a manhole or do the equivalent and give it to Gamestop
The fact that I can do whatever I want with what I bought is ownership, when you cant do anything outside of what the creator mandates, you don't own it. And that's digital distribution.
Laughlyn on 29 Jan '12 said:
Nope, not a chance in hell.
If the publishers want to benefit from pre-owned sales then take teh stores trading games to court for a piece of the profits and quit punishing consumers.
Also, UK broadband isnt good enough to enable a complete download service, 30-50gb of data on an average of 4-8mbps? no thanks. Folk will always prefer a physical version (look at the success of PSPgo) Wel ike bargains and having to buy from somehwere like PSN where a game is £50-£55 for a game i can get from gamestation for £7, no one would buy it. If a company goes full downlaod only i'll just not buy it, or hack it (liek my pspgo) getting sick of being f***ed over by games publishers, half teh games arn't worth teh £40 these days and then half arsed DLC maps which nowdays are just a way for the publisher to charge you another £20-£40, then if u get a 2nd hand version its £5-£10 for an online pass. well all i can say is if thi scrap carries on i'm just going the piracy route, pre-owned is apparently worse than piracy so i'm 'helping' them out
TheLastDodo on 29 Jan '12 said:
Gran Turismo 5: 20 GB
Uncharted: Drakes Fortune: 20.63 GB
Uncharted 2: 23 GB
MGS4: 33.2 GB
God of War 3: 40 GB
The above is how many GB's were utilised by PS3 exclusives on blu-ray.
Anyone fancy downloading 20-40 GB games as the norm next gen? Didn't think so.
In otherwords CVG: No, The next XBox and the next PS should not ditch discs.
Imaduck on 29 Jan '12 said:
So, now that a dedicated gaming site's question has come up with a resounding "HELL NO" result .... I assume (going by trends) that we can count on the next gen being disc free
HBK_nWo33 on 29 Jan '12 said:
No.
Music and books I am ok with going digital.
Films, TV and video games, no. Never going to be ok with that.
Far too big for British internet download speeds for a start, owning something physical for the high price we pay is also very important. As is the pricing point and having seen digitial download titles on PSN/Xbox Live, I would not have bought a single one this generation. Physical copies allow numerous places to compete over selling it, allowing price battles that we benefit from. Digital only will mean only buying from the console, where developers choose the price and us gamers get charged £50 for a game. No chance.
monty_79 on 29 Jan '12 said:
No. As already mentioned, the speeds in England are just not up to scratch and going about my 10GB limited is actually pretty expensive. Furthermore, much as the games industry is loathed to admit it, it actually needs the 2nd hand market as people simply cannot afford to buy many games at £40 a pop. 2nd, there is no way in hell that the publishers will pass the savings on to the consumer. Given that many of their games had an RRP of £50 (probably more like £53 if we include the download fees from the ISPs), paying that kind of money for something I am not able to trade is not good for me.
Whilst download only would be sweet for the publishers, every single other person is left out of pocket. I understand the point of online passes as the servers have to be maintained and patches and tweeks released, but for singleplayer it is the right of people to be able to purchase them 2nd hand. Every other industry in the world must adhear to these laws; I fail to see what makes the computer game publishers feel they are an exception, especially when factoring the expense of videogames.
STE MO on 29 Jan '12 said:
No this I like my porn on a disc thanks
damoxuk on 30 Jan '12 said:
Not for me no.
There's no evidence that if(when) it goes entirely digital that we will see price drops. In fact it may go the other way, take out retailer competition on the high street and online and your left with one avenue to by the game be it PSN or Live.
Another problem with Digital downloads is quite simply they have zero value, you buy the game, play the game then what?
With retail games you can sell it to fund new games or if like me your a collector you can store it neatly on racks
But with digital once it's finished you either delete it or it sit's there wasting space on your HDD.
Many people ok not that many people don;t have internet connections or more specifically connections for there consoles. That's lost customers there.
The average speed of the UK or US connections is teadily rising but what use is higher speed's when ISP's are starting to impose more monthly caps or fair use policies.
Imagine the uproar from people not in the know that there net connections are stopped/throttled etc just by downloading a few games?
Not to mention ISP's themselves having to impose higher prices to cope with the massively increased download usage.
Besides why does it have to be purely digital? Just make sure all retail games are available digital only just like Sony is doing with Vita and for a lower price and you got all bases covered - simples.
Oh and i'll leave you with this some games may be 20-40gb now but next gen will be FULL 1080p gaming with higher detailed textures and that means yep even bigger file sizes so you will start to see some games over 50gb - possibly meaning 2 Blu-Rays or next gen uses 100gb blu-ray drive.
Soviet1918 on 30 Jan '12 said:
NO it's as simple as that.
Madbrit2K5 on 30 Jan '12 said:
Not a chance in hell
horngreen on 30 Jan '12 said:
The market will decide and those who think they'll always get a disc for display or whatever ancient belief they have will fall in line. I'd have no problem with going digital but I doubt the price would drop. These companies will NEVER pass the savings onto us. It's $60 a game and it will never come down from that. If they want to kill the used market then stop selling old games in the digital version for $25 more than a used physical copy cost.
NGP on 30 Jan '12 said:
Clearly a lot of people are clinging to their hard copies. Would be nice to have a choice; those of us only downloading to get a smaller version of the consoles with no optical disc drive for less money. Fortunately we do have choices and I already do a lot of my gaming on Windows PC / Steam platform which has thousands of games to download on demand. In the last couple of years I've only bought a couple of PC games on DVD format, but more than a hundred as digital downloads.
deane on 30 Jan '12 said:
The day they get rid of discs is the day i find a new hobby.
snake2011 on 30 Jan '12 said:
NO NO NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Baldr on 30 Jan '12 said:
Of course they are still going to use disc, but here the kicker... Studios(Publishers) will no longer release disc copies, they will want to be digital only. It will be a couple smaller studios at first, then the larger ones will follow. Most of the bigger titles will be discs, but that may change to where it is all online.
Sorry, but that is the future. You go all the way kicking and screaming, but the sooner you adapt, the happier you will be.
cmr333 on 30 Jan '12 said:
Yeah, the average download speed for UK is 5mb.
Data Ghost on 30 Jan '12 said:
Exactly, the majority of the UK has pathetic broadband speeds unless you are lucky enough to be with a cable provider such as Virgin Media. Most people in the UK cant stream a youtube video without it stuttering and buffering like an idiot.
Seeing as its unlikely that cable will ever cover the whole of the UK we are stuck with naff broadband through ancient telephone wires. Not quite the all digital dream that these companies try and suggest is it?
Bazza316 on 30 Jan '12 said:
If they ever ditch discs for games consoles then they can go do what the Rock used to say to people:
You can take your next gen console, Shine it up real nice, tie a nice big bow round it, turn that S.O.B sideways and STICK IT STRAIGHT UP YOUR CANDY ASSES!!!!!!!!!!!!
slimify d on 30 Jan '12 said:
also signed Slimify D
flyfletch on 30 Jan '12 said:
Seriously? 40GB? I dont know who your with, but either ditch them or upgrade to an unlimited package, thats nuts! Im with virgin Media, have unlimited downloads and 100mb broadband, but even BT offer unlimited packages, think the fair usage policy is 300 GB, compared to 40GB, its unlimited lol
Anyway, to main main point, no way it will happen with the new Gen coming out, neither Sony nor Microsoft are that soft in the head! they know consumers dont have the broadband capable of handling digital only, and not only that, consumers just are not ready for it even if they did have the bandwidth! People need to get used to the idea, and trust it before it will work, just ask Onlive, who would have you thinking they are hugely successful, but most people i know use it for demos lol (including me)
WHERESMYMONKEY on 30 Jan '12 said:
I personally don't have a problem with it. But if there is one lesson that the industry must of learned from the psp go it's that to not have some kind of pysical media with a device is retail suicide. If shops can't make any money off the thing they won't stock it. Hardware is notorious for being sold at tiny margins and the money is all made on games and more importantly trade ins.
If the retailers can't make cash on the consoles themselves or as a platform they simply either won't stock them or will not promote them at all.
If they do go digital only i can see nintendo laughing all the way to the bank agani as retailers will promote the wii u over the competition and consumers mostly won't touch them (720, ps4) because of the lack of pysical media.
AJ42 on 30 Jan '12 said:
Yes, they should ditch discs.
But not in favour of digital distribution. They should switch to high speed carts, like those used by the handhelds. Games are getting bigger and bigger, and reading that data from optical media takes a lot of time. Ever since the move to CDs in the 90s we've been paying the price with long loading screens. I'd love to see those days behind us.
Digital distribution has its place, and ought to be an option for those who want it, but it needs to be priced properly. It's ridiculous to charge 50-100% more for the download than any of the stores are charging.
flyfletch on 30 Jan '12 said:
Couldnt agree more!
theheavy on 30 Jan '12 said:
I think people who want to go digital should have the choice to !
But only if everyones going to be fair about the fact that if im downloading it then i want it cheaper as im not paying so much for logistics and packaging etc etc.
Then on the other hand i can see some people moaning about the fact that because digital is cheaper then why cant the packaged version be too !
Maybe its possible that two version of one console would be released ? One with a huge hard drive and the other just same old disc reading unit with say 500GB memory.
As far as a big company taking that risk of selling a title purely through DD. I doubt it, highly.
But then that gives indie studios a chance.
Look at how crazily successfull minecraft is now and its only getting bigger and biger.
But i reckon in say 7-8 years it will definetly all be digital.
gmcb007 on 30 Jan '12 said:
Maybe the option of buying a version of the console that is didgital only? It could be a cheaper model as well. I don't think it would go down so well if it was the only option next gen.
MPH on 30 Jan '12 said:
I guess you meant "move exclusively to PC."? If so then "This". The PC market would see a huge surge in game sales. I would never, ever buy a digital only console. The PSP Go is proof of how little people actually want a download only gaming device. Phones are fine, not our beloved consoles.
Windowlicker79 on 30 Jan '12 said:
This simply wouldn't work for the next generation of consoles, for various reasons.
1. Broadband speeds and download limits.
Current average broadband speeds are pretty poor. Yes 50 & 100mb connections are available to some people, but not everyone. Those who do have them are paying a pretty hefty price for them. A lot of people still only have access to speeds between 2 and 6mb. With games on the current generation of consoles sometimes hitting over 20gb in total it would take far too long to download on a slower connection. Also there are download limits, fair use policies and data management policies to contend with. If you have a download limit then you could end up paying a LOT more in additional data charges. Even supposedly "unlimited" connections have some form of limitations, usually in the form of traffic management (data throttling) which slows the speed of the connection during peak hours if you go over a certain amount of downloaded data.
2. "Casual" gamers.
Sony and Microsoft have spent huge amounts of money trying to attract casual gamers with Kinect and Move. These are the people who would be most likely to be adverse to having to pay for a better BB connection and are least likely to be willing to embrace what they may perceive as "new" technology such as downloading games.
3. Retailers.
If Sony and Microsoft decided to go downloads only then it would kill video game retailers outright. Without games to sell they would make no profit. Consoles and accessories gain almost no profit at all for the retailers, who make nearly all of their money from software sales. This would essentially destroy a complete industry and cost thousands of people their jobs over night. Even other retailers who sell games and consoles as well as other products (HMV, Argos, John Lewis, Currys etc) would not sell the consoles without software sales to support it as the cost of storing the consoles would outweigh the small potential profit they could make from them.
4. Wii U.
Nintendo have already shown the Wii U and its disc drive slot, confirming that it will read games from discs. The last thing Sony and Microsoft want is for Nintendo to be the only games company with any high street presence. It would be disastrous for them.
gypsygib on 30 Jan '12 said:
NO!!
Know how cheap I can get Blu-rays and DVDs at Best Buy and Amazon sometimes.
Digital Sales of games are terrible compared to the sales retail stores offer, as there no pressure to get rid of space taking inventory.
damoxuk on 30 Jan '12 said:
I agree to an extend Optical media generates heat, noisier, slower but I like watching blu-ray movies but the speed and quietness of flash (carts) is good however they is one thing you overlook - price. Flash is still exensive still - 32gb SD cards are over £20 that's blank no game.
A blu-ray disc costs less than 5p to press..
Sammy_bham on 30 Jan '12 said:
erm.... no?
WHITEyy118 on 30 Jan '12 said:
Yes.
Sorry what's the question? Oh it's a no then.
In all seriousness, atm it'd never work. Maybe IF next gen was 2 years plus down the line then yes. I just really don't see the need to ditch discs entirely (just downloads only) but then from their (SONY, MS) point of view, no discs would solve the problem of pre owned games and the negative effect they have on their new game sales/profits.
Demigod001 on 30 Jan '12 said:
No.
Look at it this way I have a 50gb limit on my net a lot for normal usage but eaten up fairly fast when steam has a sale. Assuming next gen consoles have enough memory to actually use even decent resolution textures and start to fill (or reach even half) a blu ray disc in size and I can download one game and leave enough for the rest of the month. If I want 2 games and dlc I'm out of luck.
Streaming? No thanks Onlive has shown it works but it is lower res compressed vid so will never look as good as it could and has lag and always will compared to having the game on your own console, why would I want slightly muddy 720 and 1080 streamed when I can get it nice and crisp on my console and lets not get into how fast that eats up my bandwidth. (one set Ive seen showed 1.5gb for 30minutes)
So no ditching discs completely is a bad idea, giving the option to have digital as well as disc's now we can talk.
MD1500 on 31 Jan '12 said:
No. The great thing with physical media is.... you can still enjoy the games 15 years from now.
The trouble with the cloud is, once the servers go offline, your games go too.
rossva on 31 Jan '12 said:
No friggin way man
flowerday11 on 31 Jan '12 said:
f*ck no!
i live in the highlands of scotland and it's hard enough getting a game of fifa that doesn't judder about like a epileptic from start to finish. Imagine having to download games or, worse yet, stream them! i'd have to move home just to get some decent entertainment...or learn to love river city?!?
ckyleburnett on 31 Jan '12 said:
The problem with digital distribution is the size of the games. most current games are around 10gigs and would expect next gen games to be larger, 25-50gig would probably be a fair guess. Sony is already known to be working on a super blu-ray format - we all know how much they like to force new media types with there game consoles.
That being said - storage is an issue. A 1 terabyte HDD just wont cut it. I have a game collection of over 60 right now.
60 x 25g= 1500gig (1.5 terabyte), and that is assuming they are only 25gig. In my scenario, I would spend a couple hours downloading each games and i have 30 meg connection. I would also be forced to figure out what games i want to keep once my hdd is full. No thanks.
Then there is the issue of taking a game to a friends house to play - you couldn't. There are also many people that don't have a connection fast enough to support digital distribution.
There are too many issues with going fully digital. Just ask Sony how the PSP Go worked out or them!
glavias on 31 Jan '12 said:
How can they seriously!!! until people have better internet speeds.. but most people don't so it aint gonna happen for years!
ted1138 on 31 Jan '12 said:
Just look at what happened when the video game industry ditched cartridges and switched over to discs, nothing good came of it. And can't we all just be happy with the technology we have today/yesterday/last Tuesday? Why keep making new things when old things (mostly)work. I'm sure I speak for all people here, when I say I'd rather have a Vic20 than a Quad core PC and an Atari 2600 rather than a PS3 (with it's fancy pants, look at me Blu-rays)...
damoxuk on 31 Jan '12 said:
Lol Ted sarcasm or what.
Oh and Blu-Ray is great if your into movies like myself who prefer quality over juddery high compressed "HD" which looks worse than DVD.
But yes clearly that's superior and is the future
billysastard on 31 Jan '12 said:
"Should Xbox 720 and PS4 ditch discs?"
not unless they want to ditch most of their potential customers too.
(unless of course they ditched easily damaged discs in favour of games carts)
billysastard on 31 Jan '12 said:
i take it you've never played a film on hd-dvd then because if you ever get the chance, try it, same film on blur-ay and hd-dvd, you wouldnt be so cocky about how great blu-ray is, just like in most videogames and previously in videotapes the inferior system won the battle, vhs, psx, ps2, wii, gameboy, gba, ds and now 3ds and blu-ray, all inferior products compared to their direct competition but all the winners in the marketplace.
damoxuk on 31 Jan '12 said:
Actually I have a HD-DVD player. Where did I mention anything about HD-DVD - I should have been more clear I was on about streaming or downloads compared to Blu-Ray.
Oh and HD-DVD was good it still rarely had HD audio a fact the PS3 has which is never mentioned in any reviews.
But anyway HD-DVD and Blu-ray far exceed streaming.
Blu-ray WAS inferior at the start especially in terms of interactivity but HD-DVd had a max of 30gb - blu-ray is 50gb. I'd rather have less compression and better quality than interactivity.
But this is a rare case in which "superior" tech wins. Because HD-DVD in the long run would have been inferior.
Hashbrown on 1 Feb '12 said:
Ditch discs yes, entirely digital. not a chance. Takes long enough to download a demo sometimes. Things like OnLive are good as you can play games at the same spec as a top of the range PC year after year without ever having to fork out for an upgrade, but I wouldn't want to rely on it.
I say ditch discs and bring back the cartridge, or essentially a tiny portable HDD. You can get some pretty big USB sticks for little money now and if they were mass produced like discs are now then they would only get cheaper. I remember when blank RWDVD's came out, they cost more than the film they were printed on lol. With portable HDD's theres no limits, pre install the drivers like they are for PC's and if a Dev wants to make a massive game, they just have to invest in a bigger cartridge.
Windowlicker79 on 1 Feb '12 said:
They'd never go back to cartridges. When you consider that games for current hardware can be anything up to a total of 20gb, the next generation could quite feasibly have games up to 30-40gb, maybe even more. The cheapest you can get any 32gb flash memory for nowadays is at least £15-£20. A rough guess at production costs for that would be at least £3-£5 each. This is due to the manufacturing process which involves many parts so is much more expensive than blu-ray, which generally cost just a few pence per disc to produce. There is no workable way to manufacture large capacity flash memory at anywhere near the cost of pressing discs, which is why home consoles won't EVER go back to cartridges.
Also cartridges wouldn't fit into the "all in one media system" angle that both Sony and Microsoft are heavily pushing at the moment.
divinebeetle on 1 Feb '12 said:
Wouldn't mind it as an option to discs, but replace them? no thanks
WHITEyy118 on 1 Feb '12 said:
I'm not saying your wrong but although manufacturing costs are a big factor just look at how PS3 changed from PS2. Sony took a risk and went with Blu-rays eventhough it meant that the console became alot more expensive than the 360. Until the recent few years, cheaper console, they haven't really seen the benefit. I think it was a good move on SONY's part but it (the price) did put a lot of people off in the beginning.
So I'm not saying discs should be abandoned, however much I dislike them, but I wouldn't be suprised if SONY, or MS, decided to make another huge, yet brave, decision to include/exclude something different.
Windowlicker79 on 2 Feb '12 said:
The PS3 was more expensive because blu-ray was relatively new when it came out, much in the same way that DVD was new when PS2 came out. They are also similar in that they were a lot of peoples first DVD and blu-ray players. They essentially bought the formats to the mainstream, which was part of Sony's marketing plan from the start.
What I was talking about was the production of the media itself, not the console its played on. Blu-ray discs cost around 5 pence each to produce. High capacity flash memory couldn't be mass produced for anywhere near that price, hence the reason they wouldn't use it.
I'm pretty much certain both Sony and Microsoft will use blu-ray. It is perfectly capable of doing the job and the are highly unlikely to spend the money on developing a completely new format when they already have access to a cheap and easy solution.
I think the consoles themselves will probably be cheaper on release than the PS3 was as well, purely for the fact that blu-ray drives are much cheaper now than they were then.
AvatarIII on 2 Feb '12 said:
It would be interesting if the next generation cam in 2 types, a cheap version that has a small (by that time's standards say 250-500gb) onboard HDD, and just uses flash media and downloads for games (saves and DLC could be put on flash media too, hence smaller HDD), and a more expensive version with a large HDD (say 1-2tb, for downloaded games, disc installs and DLC) that can take discs as well as flash media,
The clincher would be that flash media games are about £15 more expensive, and download titles would be about £15 cheaper than disc versions, then just see what people buy most of. if the disc version of the console was £150 more expensive, it would only take 10 games for a disc buyer to recoup their cost over a flash buyer, and only 5 games if the disc version person buys downloadable titles, and utilizes his 4x bigger hdd.
jamieleng on 2 Feb '12 said:
I do really like gaming, it has been a hobby of mine for approx 20 years & maybe that is the problem I have with digital gaming 'only'. I have grown up on boxed games & like many people of my age or older, I instinctively resist change.
When I buy something, I like to actually own it. That means I can do what I like with it i.e. sell it, lend it, give it away, use the disc as a frisbee/drinks coaster or the box as a door stop.
I'm not going to pretend my life is so full & exciting that I won't miss it, but I'm not afraid to seriously cut back on spending money on it. Even if that means I only play one game a year.
THETRUECAMEL on 25 Feb '12 said:
Only if
1). HDD are awhole lot bigger 4TB or bigger(at release date,not that suckers move like was pulled with xbox360S at 4GB)
2). games cost is reduced to half or less the current prices
3). More single player time(min.15-20hrs at easy level)
i currently own a 250GB and still don't have enough room,even with cloud and a 4GB mem stick added.
No clue where people get this PS3 is faster then xbox360,someone better check the specs on that,and see where this power is really going(stupid blu-ray player---nothing to do with gaming it's self)
LET US NOT FORGET HOW EASY IT(PS3)IS SO EASILY HACKED INTO(This happens when a company is too cheap to change it's format from the very first PS),YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR.
THETRUECAMEL on 25 Feb '12 said:
follow up on which system is faster:(numbers DO NOT LIE)
The PS3’s vaunted teraflop “advantage” is only an advantage on paper, because the PS3’s performance will be limited by its architecture. Real games are about 80% general purpose code and about 20% floating point code. Xbox 360 has three 3.2 GHz general purpose processors to Sony’s one, and it is these main cores, not special purpose SPEs, that are best suited for game code.
Floating point performance is much more relevant on the GPU, where Xbox 360 has more floating point performance than PS3. Not only does the Xbox 360 GPU have greater raw shader power than the PS3 GPU (240 GFLOPS versus estimated 228.8 GFLOPS on PS3), it will also use more of its power.