Chalks
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I read a magazine called Video Business. Blockbuster gets it about once a month. They had an article in there today about the PS3 potentially costing the manufacturer ~$800 per unit. This was based on a study done by Merril Lynch. Also, they said that because of recent hitches in blu-ray technology development, the ps3 release date may be forced back to late 2006, or early 2007. This would majorily suck.

Personally, I'm *very* psyched about the ps3 coming out with blu-ray disc readers. Imagine a 50 gigabyte game on ONE disk. I keep drooling every time I think about that.

Zmann
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Chalks wrote:Imagine a 50 gigabyte game on ONE disk. I keep drooling every time I think about that.

Imagine how long it takes for developers to make 50 gigabytes of content. Or, alternately, imagine how much money it costs to make that much content.

Currently, it's hard to make a good looking game. It takes a whole team of graphics designers and modelers and texture-ers. My theory is that, if we even get the technology to display and even hold photo-realistic graphics, it just won't happen because they take way too long to produce, and they cost too much money.

Untill someone creates a way to procedurally create graphics, or some method that cuts down production time/cost, that extra space is going to do nothing but sit there. And maybe store movies or something.

Syntax
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Well this is what's happening:

UK, PS3 due out Autumn 2007. Instead of Spring 2006 originally.

800 pound sterling is the proposed production price per unit (not $s), but that isn't the staller as Sony will make the money back in game endorsements. Sony brings financial aid to developers in exchange of a high enough %age of revenue to recoup.

The actual stall is due to Blu-Ray disc format definition which is run by an independent panel, usually chaired by Sony (which helps) but not so from last year. Unfortunately MS have their own disc def so Sony need to pursue their angle. Betamax anyone ?

As for games which can occupy 50 GB ? Not a problem... we'll just get more cut scenes, and less optimisation than ever before.

But suffice to say it will look stunning.

Romero... Carmack... Where art thou ?

Needless to say that faster hardware is ironically the death of efficient code...

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[Last edited by Syntax at 03-02-2006 11:55 PM]

Oneiromancer
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I certainly don't expect anything absolutely astounding from the PS3 in the first year. Eventually the developers will be able to take advantage of the large storage space, and the processor and whatnot, but until then we'll just see better graphics, I think. Once they can really do a good job with it I am also eagerly awaiting the games, but I doubt I'll be getting a PS3 on launch day or anything like that. It depends on the Revolution and what the launch titles are, though. Who knows, if I think it's all crap I might even get myself an XBox 360...by then they won't be so hard to find, probably. I guess it depends on how much it will cost to make my computer able to run Oblivion (which is now coming out on March 20...not that I'll be getting it).

Game on,

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Mattcrampy
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I would be very, very surprised if the PS3 makes it out for Christmas. I've thought so for ages, and it turns out I was probably right.

I'm not exactly psyched about the PS3. I haven't seen anything that gets me excited for it yet. I also think that game developers have been floundering a bit with current systems, so I dread seeing them have to deal with a system that almost requires a small army to fill it up in a timely fashion.

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NiroZ
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50gb's would help the developers... to be more lazy.

seriously, do you think the infamous hot coffe mod would have been there if those disks held half the size that they do?

i also belive that this is the case with civ 4(not 100% certain) and it lead to heaps of bugs, so 50 gb's are only going to be good for the developers who know how to use it properly.

in reference to all the consoles, i am definatly going to wait untill all the consoles come out b4 i think of buying any of them, althougth it will be pretty difficult for mircosoft to convice me to buy an xbox 2, cos all it has is some prettier graphics (not even a HD-DVD drive!)

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[Last edited by NiroZ at 05-30-2007 04:40 AM]

forrestfire
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I'm not that excited about the ps3. I may get it when there are good games that come out for it and if the price lowers to less than $200. But that may be a long time after the release.

I don't think there is anything that great about the better graphics that the xbox360 and the ps3 have. As far as gameplay goes, I think that the revolution will be the best. But we will have to wait and see. If the revolution is as good as I think it will be, I will probably buy it.

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Ezlo
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I already have 50 dollars in my Revolution fund. Just shows how big a metroid fanboy I am. I won't buy a PS3 myself, I'll just borrow one from my friend if a game I want comes out.

b0rsuk
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It wouldn't be that bad (50 GB discs) if developers were actually interested in creating 50GB of content. I find it hard to believe they would like to. Major reason for this is the fact graphics ages quickly, so in time you have that 50GB ready you realise your game looks old.

I really hope graphics are going to gradually stabilize soon. We already see a lot of games made using licensed engines, and that's a good sign. If I only were sure that the first image is not just a photo (Blender's website; it's supposed to be rendered): http://blender.org/cms/Gallery.55.0.html#

Disclaimer: I'm not interested, and will never be, in purchasing a gaming console of any kind.

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[Last edited by b0rsuk at 03-04-2006 02:23 PM]

Krishh
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50gb would allow developers to be be more lazy and forget space-saving, but I don't see how this relates in any way to hot coffee, and I don't follow the more space-more bugs corelation, since that space would mostly store media, not code.

Pinnacle
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Krishh wrote:
50gb would allow developers to be be more lazy and forget space-saving, but I don't see how this relates in any way to hot coffee, and I don't follow the more space-more bugs corelation, since that space would mostly store media, not code.

They wouldn't have to delete what they decided not to use.
Instead of deleting the Hot Coffee segment, they simply made it inaccessable.

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[Last edited by Pinnacle at 03-04-2006 07:44 PM]

mrimer
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Pinnacle wrote:
They wouldn't have to delete what they decided not to use.
Instead of deleting the Hot Coffee segment, they simply made it inaccessable.

These two sound like the same thing to me.

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b0rsuk
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Krishh wrote:
50gb would allow developers to be be more lazy and forget space-saving,

On the topic: Notrium has obscenely big savegame files. Most of the disk space used by game's directory is actually used by saves.
When I pointed out that they compress very well with zip (would occupy several times less space), the developer said it's not needed because people have big disks anyway, and load times would be marginally longer.

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Mattcrampy
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mrimer wrote:

Pinnacle wrote:
They wouldn't have to delete what they decided not to use.
Instead of deleting the Hot Coffee segment, they simply made it inaccessable.

These two sound like the same thing to me.

Probably Rockstar did as well, which is the problem. It's inaccessable, but hacking the game made it accessable again. Seeing as the hack only added the code that went to the inaccessable part of the game, it was deemed Rockstar's problem.

It's like if someone hacked Webfoot DROD to add a way into First Level Once West. The hack took away the wall, but the room beyond it existed even without the hack.

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mrimer
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Right. So how does providing more space resolve issues like this?

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Banjooie
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It doesn't, which is the point. The idea is, more space will make developers lazier somehow, and they'll forget to delete things that are unsuitable/unfinished, just making them inaccessible.

Which is ridiculous, but okay, sure.

mrimer
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Ah, gotcha. That definitely makes sense.

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NiroZ
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for example, go download the new star wars rts demo, or battle for middle earth 2 demo.

they are really massive downloads, and people who have hacked the games have found loads of unused content that the devolpers couldn't be bothered to remove.

its rather sad really.

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[Last edited by NiroZ at 05-30-2007 04:44 AM]

eytanz
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Space constraints will force developers to delete unwanted features ...

But only if the game in question actually hits the limit. If a game only needs 80% of the limit anyway, developers can keep a ton of junk in.

So, basically, there are two options - set the space limit so low it basically constrains every game, which will reduce the amount of unwanted stuff but also reduce the amount of wanted stuff, sooner or later.

Or, set the space limit high enough that it doesn't matter.

All in all, I can't see how this is a useful idea.



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Mattcrampy
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What if it's an anti-piracy measure? 50g is a huge amount to download over BitTorrent, and that's useless code that some young punks have to trawl through to find out whether it can be used as an in for a hack.

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Chalks
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ok, so tons of extra space will allow the vast majority of game developers to become even more lazy than before. Eh, big deal.

I'm interested in that one lone pioneer who creates a game that needs: every. single. bit. of space on that disk. That's the game I'm looking for. Sure it won't come out for a looooong time, but when it does, I'll be playing it.

Znirk
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Chalks wrote:
I'm interested in that one lone pioneer who creates a game that needs: every. single. bit. of space on that disk.

As far as I can tell we're still waiting for the DVD version of that game.

Nillo
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I'm much more hyped about the Revolution, because I want to see how well it's going to make use of the gyroscopic stuff.

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coppro
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I don't see any gyroscopes! From what I've seen/heard about the Revolution (which has my hypeedness), there are two posts which will contain the sensor field, probably with the control emitting some sort of beam at different frequencies depending on the angle and those being picked up and figured out like a pair of ears.

Ezlo
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That's it. No gyroscopes involved!

NiroZ
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Mattcrampy wrote:
What if it's an anti-piracy measure? 50g is a huge amount to download over BitTorrent, and that's useless code that some young punks have to trawl through to find out whether it can be used as an in for a hack.

you fail to take into account the fact that in 3 years time, you will be download that in a hour.

althought that is a very valid point.

Mattcrampy
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In three years' time, no-one will be buying the game.

This is one of the things that annoys me the most about the game industry - how disposable it is. After-sales services like CaravelNet, episodic games and MMOGs are the future for that very reason. Well, that, and games that are good but no-one's heard of can build steam.

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davis
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I believe that the ps3 will be a good system but it will probably not be any better than the Xbox 360 or Revolution which probably will both be cheaper.

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Ezlo
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Both are confirmed to be less than the 500 dollar price for the PS3, so yes, probably they will. And the Revo is now called Wii.