I don't see physical media ever disappearing; you can still find floppy disks and drives as an example. If the next Xbox lacks a Blu-ray drive it could be that Microsoft doesn't want to pay the licensing to do so. Whatever the reason I don't think it spells doom for optical media. I still prefer my games on DVD and wouldn't mind if they shipped on Blu-ray discs since I have Blu-ray burners in my boxes.
A man must have code -Bunk
Yes, but not everyone is clearly as fortunate as you with your splendid super broadband. There are many who have just slightly better than dial up, and downloading or streaming is not a viable option (believe me, I wish it was). So physical media is the only way forward.Originally Posted by nacasatu
Trust me. It's quicker to order a bluray from amazon and receive it in the post, than it is to download a hidef movie
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As has been posted a couple times, it might be time to bring back Ye Olde Cartridge.
The reason that consoles went to optical was the increased capacity and cheaper production costs albeit with slower read speeds.
Nowadays the chips used are as cheap as production discs, have more capacity and higher read speeds, and they're much smaller to boot.
Stick a SDHC 64GB (or 2) into a small cartridge, with a different physical connector and a custom filesystem so the "Evil Pirates" can't build a reader/writer and copy 'em. You could even have the patches you don't need to download (because all the production houses release games that are perfect right?) write themselves to the cartridge.
They could put a unique identifier onto the chips on an incremental/random basis so that each game could be linked to an individual machine/account to stop resale or at least track where the games are going and if an identifier is duplicated (played on 2 machines at the same time) they could both be permanently blocked.
Just because it can go bigger doesnt mean there will a requirement for them to actually push the technology there. Remember the main usage for this storage is still movies and TV shows, and the push to get higher definition content runs parallel to the push for more efficient encoding processes. 4K wont be genuinely viable until they can make better use of the bandwidth (be it wired internet or OTA) to get it into the home, and if they achieve that then there is little need for more storage. If there is no need for that extra storage then it wont reach mass production and become cost effective.
I would argue that people who think Microsoft wouldn't make a big push for digital distribution have tunnel vision. Once again, this isnt about whats best for the public within any given country, its about whats best for Microsoft to make money and i can't honestly say i know, but i suspect the main gaming audience are people who go the extra mile to be in that percentage of people who have better internet connections, and that's who MS would target. It would be extremely naive to try and rule out a possibility like this.Dont believe MS have HD-DVDs lined up again, if they did then they could pull it off since HD-DVD has much more storage available and its cheaper to use... however I doubt they will revive that dead horse.
It would be silly to no include a Blu-Ray drive because for starters MS make money off the main codec used so the more blurays sold the more money they get, sony already pays MS royalties for this. Sony do not own Blu-ray technology, I believe Philips was the main pioneer but there is a whole consortium who founded this tech so royalties arent specifically going to Sony and it cannot be that much for a drive in this day and age, I would say £10 per drive tops!. Bluray medium is not going anywhere soon and I think people who assume physical formats are dead are really stuck in tunnel vision, no infrastructure in England can support that many people streaming Blu-ray equivalent picture and AUDIO quality, cannot believe people like netflix while providing an awesome service still have no HD audio only 2 channel! HD Audio is certainly a big bonus on blu-rays and I would not like to give that up. I reckon if we all were streaming 50GBs of data VM and BT would crawl to a halt, maybe in 10 years when they both get their act together we shall see this become reality.
Again, i think it will come with a drive of some form... (be it optical or Solid State based)i definitely wouldn't rule a lack of one out though.
Also not sure where you heard MS get paid for royalties on Blu-Ray by Sony? Codecs perhaps but i dont think they had much or even anything to do with the hardware and medium. Happy to be proved wrong if there is a source though.
Last edited by Biscuit; 06-03-2013 at 03:52 PM.
We coped with multiple audio cassettes for years. Yoof nowadays don't know they're born
40mbit fibre says ` lol` - 4 gig in around 12 mins , 20 gig an hour - thats a full blu ray in 90 minsYes, but not everyone is clearly as fortunate as you with your splendid super broadband. There are many who have just slightly better than dial up, and downloading or streaming is not a viable option (believe me, I wish it was). So physical media is the only way forward.
Trust me. It's quicker to order a bluray from amazon and receive it in the post, than it is to download a hidef movie
Yes but with Blu-Ray comes HDCP and the banning of analogue outputs which for console users that also record footage for streaming and YouTube will not buy it, and the fans won't either. Besides, content is going to the cloud in the next 6 years of this consoles life cycle so its not a worthy investment for Microsoft to make nor the consumers.
While the future may be streaming, we aren't there yet. Surely they'd rather put something in that makes it attractive to as many buyers now, than limiting the market now and hoping things change in the future. Seems a very off move to me. Me fwiw I don't just mean using it for movie playback, I also mean for game content.
Seems odd.
First bit I would say size does matter, we are limited to this current "HD" resolution due to the medium it is stored on as original footage is much higher than we currently see in consumer markets, the larger Blu-rays can get the better because it means 4k can arrive way before networks can transport it, HD-DVD was already past the 150GB mark which is why I am annoyed it died, it was the superior format and we would be at 4k by now
Clearly my post wasnt well thought out so I hope this time I elaborate a bit more
I would say that alienating everyone with an average internet connection is a terrible idea, they will lose so many sales because I think everyone knows someone on a dodgy bandwidth limited connection, loads buy physical discs which is why I dont see it changing anytime soon, I know loads of hardcore console gamers who dont give a crap about their internet and simply pay the cheapest for Sky capped internet. I reckon alot of casuals do as well? For the sake of a few quid they can have lots more game sales.
Sounds like nonsense to me, only realistic alternative is sticking with DVD but I don't see the point in doing that considering the small cost difference, or maybe some solid-state 'cartridge'. As for dual-layer comments, 360 already uses dual-layer discs, and they're easily filled by most games, assuming they don't need two or more discs.
Cartridge is an interesting idea I've been thinking about for a while now. Something like the Vita uses, essentially a flash memory card in a proprietary case, could work, but considering the large 'home theatre' influence on this console, it seems like a strange move to forgo a BD drive. There is most certainly a significant difference in quality between DVD and BD, and streaming isn't remotely close to BD quality either - there's more to it than resolution. The quality of some stuff I've streamed from Lovefilm has been horrendous in some cases, and despite a decent bandwidth connection (which an awful lot of people don't have I might add) my experience with streaming is still fairly poor. Lovefilm/iPlayer will occasionally pause and give up trying to buffer the rest, iPlayer will occasionally just reset to the beginning although it's usually necessary to reload either anyway, after they lock up. Simply pausing the video occasionally causes this. This is quite simply not an acceptable compromise.
I personally see 'Cloud is teh futurez' as a load of marketing-initiated guff ATM, in a world where a vast amount of people are stuck with poor connections. Not to mention how CDN networks would cope with everyone using them as much as physical media/broadcast is used now. There may come a time when pure streaming is plausible, but it isn't now, and not for some time. Console life cycle has been roughly 6 years for some time now, the situation won't improve massively in that time-scale.
Not to mention PS4 does have a BD drive. Maybe another step in MS alienating yet more of their customers? They only have so many feet to shoot themselves in.
So, Microsoft plan to sell games on USB sticks ?
Btw, I wouldnt want a future where its downloads only. I wont be able to sell my game!
Yeah I get that and understand it. I'm only on 30Mb broadband here btw, better than a lot of others but nowhere near what most are getting from the same provider (150Mb) for the same price. First world problems :/Yes, but not everyone is clearly as fortunate as you with your splendid super broadband. There are many who have just slightly better than dial up, and downloading or streaming is not a viable option (believe me, I wish it was). So physical media is the only way forward.
Trust me. It's quicker to order a bluray from amazon and receive it in the post, than it is to download a hidef movie
I would rarely stream or download movies at 1080p, even 720p is a rarity. I get all that HD stuff from a mutli-satellite setup (small, weird shaped dish with 4 x LNB's). Which I know also not everyone can or has access to do. So I guess I've spoiled myself really and done away with the need at all for blu-ray.
"but also because a lot of people still can't see a big difference between the quality of the BD copy and the cheaper DVD one"
With a good upscaling Blu-ray player, DVD can look wonderful. Not as good as Bluray but close.
As for streaming movies. Has anyone actually tried streaming Lovefilm HD content? I have a 20 MB internet connectio, a completely over-specced HTPC (but fun!) and Lovefilm still stutters. It is not my internet connection but there compression.
Everyone is so het up about the bluray thing, you didn't all notice the "3x more powerful than the xbox 360" thing? Surely this source is a joker - even my armpit on a bad day has 3x the power of the Xbox 360.
It came out at the end of 2005 for heaven's sake. At least 5 Moore's law cycles ago. Anything less than 10x the power of the 360 would be very odd.
Good point, I guess I assumed it was a mistake. Considering the next Xbox is supposed to be fairly similar to the PS4, I find it hard to believe though.
Blu Rays are the PRESENT, not the FUTURE.
Anyone who claims otherwise (unless they're referring to Blu Rays being both the past and present, which is also acceptable) is not really worth reading or listening to.
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