Blu-ray Drive Speed More Relevant to Games Than Capacity
Couple of you wrote asking what I thought of the recent announcement by Insomniac that their PS3 title Resistance: Fall of Man would use 22 GB of a Blu-ray disc’s capacity. I also had someone point me to a recent CNET interview with Kaz Hirai in which he said the following:
Given the differences in pricing, which is fairly significant between Microsoft’s Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3, are there any chances of a PlayStation 3 down the line that doesn’t have Blu-ray built in?
Hirai: The PlayStation 3 uses the Blu-ray as its storage medium for both games and for movies as well. We wanted to take advantage of the storage capacity that Blu-ray offers in terms of motion pictures and other content, but most importantly, for games as well. Our decision to include the Blu-ray player from day one in all of our PlayStation 3s was the right decision and, quite honestly, the only decision we can make.Look at the massive amounts of data that’s required to provide a truly immersive gaming experience in true HD. If you only have a DVD ROM drive, which can only go up to about 9GB or so, you’re going to end up with a game that’s going to have two or possibly even three discs. And then you’re going to have to ask consumers to swap discs out or cache all the game onto the hard drive which I think is an inconvenience–not to mention the fact that you’re going to fill up a 20GB hard drive very quickly with some of these games. So trying to go without a Blu-ray drive in the PlayStation 3 really is a nonstarter.
I’ve already written some thoughts about Blu-ray’s capacity being irrelevant for games in this generation. In that article I stated that while I believed we’d see games released on larger discs, I didn’t believe the content on those discs would directly impact the game itself (versus having “making of” or other random bonus material).
Appears this is the case with Resistance. A recent interview with the developer in the Unofficial Playstation Magazine stated that the 22 GB “game” size was made up of localized content. In other words, instead of having an English version of the game, a French version, a Japanese version, and so on on separate discs, all of that localized content is simply being bundled on one disc. While that makes things a bit easier for the developer, the disc capacity isn’t being used in any meaningful way to improve the game. And frankly, I believe time will show (after the game is released and people start poking around the file system) that there isn’t any reason the title couldn’t have shipped on a DVD-9.
As to Hirai’s quote on next-gen games needing 2-3 discs, the simplest answer I can give is to just look around. There appear to be plenty of next-generation games out today that are doing just fine on one disc… I’m really not sure what game store he’s been shopping at. And this holiday when you’re able to compare next-gen titles side-by-side on multiple platforms, I suspect you’ll quickly find the vast majority are on one disc, and that the game content is identical.
I thought the the poke about “caching the game to the hard drive” was a bit odd as well. At GDC Europe last year Sony mentioned in their presentation that the PS3 Blu-ray drive would have sustained peak transfer rates of 36 MBit/s (4.5 MB/s) at 1x speed. Since then it appears that the drive has been upgraded to a 2x drive, which would enable transfer rates of 9 MB/s. Assuming a full 50 GB Blu-ray disc, at this speed you’d need just over 90 minutes to read the entire disc through memory. Of course, you can’t fit all of that data into system memory at the same time, so you’ll either be streaming a great deal (hard even with faster optical drives) and/or caching data to the hard drive. There’s a reason the PS3 is so expensive – once Sony committed to Blu-ray as a corporate strategy, they were also forced to bundle the hard drive in every box to help mitigate slow disc data transfer rates. PS3 games need that hard drive to load in any reasonable time – just look at the PSP for an example of the effects of a slow optical drive on game loading times.
One last thing to think about. Put yourself in the shoes of a game developer faced with loading game assets into memory from a slow optical drive. You’re going to have to be clever and find ways to try and make sure the data is laid out on the disc where it’s most quickly accessible. You might do things like burn chunks of data to the disc in multiple locations to cut down on seek times, or duplicate assets such as level textures in each level’s package so they can be read serially on level load. In other words, you might start storing data inefficiently and duplicatively to better conform to the drive’s poor speed characteristics. It’s not too hard to see how a game could quickly balloon in size while not adding any actual value or gameplay.
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I love checking your blog to see what’s new on the M$ propaganda front. To your credit, your stating a lot of half truths, so your not completely a liar.
First of all, multiple languages on a disc is a big deal(See your entry on mod chips for import games). It contributes greatly to Sony’s statements that the PS3 will be region-free. Something I’m sure you’d like to downplay because the 360, using DVD-ROMs, does not have the capacity to pull the multi-language thing off.
"As to Hirai’s quote on next-gen games needing 2-3 discs, the simplest answer I can give is to just look around. There appear to be plenty of next-generation games out today that are doing just fine on one disc… "
The Dreamcast got by with 1 Gigabyte GD-ROMS… at first. In the long run, the small size of the media began to hinder what could be included in a game. I love my Dreamcast, but this short-sightedness, among other things, killed it. Of course the current crop of 360 games are happy with the amount of space on a DVD-ROM. It’s because right now the power of the system is barely being scratched.
For your last point you said something about it taking a long time to read a BD-ROM’s data. To this I simply reply, "Whatever works." Sony has been in the hardware industry(particularly the video games sector) longer than Microsoft. They know what they are doing. This is the only argument that you may have a valid point on. If push comes to shove, the PS3 is capable of reading DVD-ROMS too. So I guess I spoke too soon about the valid argument thing.
Anyway, keep up the good work. I’m always happy to read your illogical, baseless, M$-biased(for good reason, I know), propaganda.
RE: "First of all, multiple languages on a disc is a big deal(See your entry on mod chips for import games). It contributes greatly to Sony’s statements that the PS3 will be region-free."
It’ll be interesting to see what happens here. Having multiple languages on a disc doesn’t necessarily mean the disc will run in every region. It’s pretty simple to region code a disc at manufacturing time – in which case the game would use the appropriate language and only that language. I still believe region coding will be a way of life for all of the next-gen consoles… guess we’ll see in a few months!
Thought you might find this funny.
In this article Adam Pletcher says "Theoretically 12x blu-ray could reach transfer speeds of 400mb/s while 16x DVD only clocks in at 21mb/s."
http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/entertainment/next-gen-consoles-held-up-by-last-gen-disc-speeds-196976.php
How are they going to get these theoretical 12x Blu-Ray drives into the PS3???
It’s true that multiple languages does not mean region free(DVD’s are a good example of this), but it will be all the more easier for a game to be region free and sell in multiple regions, if it is as simple as changing an in-game option to go from kanji to english.
The nature of handheld consoles, specifically the PSP and DS, have made region-free gaming almost mandatory. For example, if I’m in Japan the day FFIII comes out and I want to buy it with my American DS, the Japanese game will be compatible with my American DS. While the need isn’t as evident with home consoles, I think that the PSP and DS being region-free has shown that this is a viable feature, and doesn’t disrupt things as much as manufacturers(M$) and retailers think.
You’ve made some good points on the seek-time front. However, the PS2 originally came out near the birth of main-stream DVD technology. While I honestly don’t know the DVD read rates of the first DVD drives placed in PS2’s, my suspicion is that they weren’t reading at speeds much better than these early Blue-Ray drives. Since we’re only talking about the reading of raw data, we can easily compare a next-gen and current-gen console in this regard. Also, if seek times are a particular problem for a game the developer has the option of going with the DVD format. Or, let’s say the game is only 9 GB on a Blue-Ray disk…that’s only 14 minutes or so to read all the data. That’s still a significant amount of time, but it’s much more conceivable that a developer can deal with this over the 90 minute figure. Next, you really downplay the need for a larger optical medium, but clearly even Microsoft recognizes this need in its coming out with an HD-DVD drive. While I don’t have the specs in front of me, I can’t imagine that this first-generation HD-DVD drive will perform much better than its Blue-Ray counterpart. If all this new storage is truly not needed by developers then we may consider the storage to be “unlimited.” Thus, let me say that I am excited that developers now have unlimited storage at their disposal that they can use however they want to increase the value of the game. It’s true that initially this will probably mean “extras” of some kind, but consider that many initial PS2 games were still on CDROM format. Today most every PS2 game uses the DVD format and many use dual-layer DVDs. Thus, history has shown that developers will eventually take advantage of the extra space and use it as apart of the game instead of the dreaded “extras.” Finally, your arguments conflict; either games will be 50GB in which case load times will be a huge problem, or else games will remain around their current sizes and load times are no longer such a serious issue. You can’t make both arguments simultaneously.
How is this illogical propaganda? Then I’m guessing you’ve missed all the foolishness that Sony allows people such as Ken Kutaragi, Phil Harrison, and Kaz Hirai to actually say in public and keep their jobs. Roughly 93% of what comes out of either of these guys mouths is absolutely ridiculous and they say it while representing Sony, not as a personal statement like this blog. What Ozymandias is basically saying is that Sony is pretending that this 22GB will automatically cause this game to be better than everything else out there simply because of its file size. Why not include an extreme amount of additional content as well? Good job putting 97 different languages on one disc, but that’s not helping me. If I have to import a game from Japan, (or anywhere else for that matter) it can be as region free as it wants, but when I pop it in it’ll still be in Japanese. If it weren’t I wouldn’t have to import it because it would already be sitting on North American store shelves since localization would obviously be completed. This would, however, be good for those who travel a lot and the developers. Don’t get me wrong, as I will purchase my PS3 and Wii on launch day and put them right beside my 360 because I appreciate all consoles without bias. What I don’t appreciate is the company that Sony has become since they’ve been feeling the pressure from Microsoft and only recently, Nintendo.
’so you’ll either be streaming a great deal (hard even with faster optical drives) "
Minor problem. Bluray is designed to handle multiplexed loading much better than DVD drives.
"How is this illogical propaganda?"
I kind of took his argument apart piece by piece. He has no valid points.
"Good job putting 97 different languages on one disc, but that’s not helping me. If I have to import a game from Japan, (or anywhere else for that matter) it can be as region free as it wants, but when I pop it in it’ll still be in Japanese."
Some people that aren’t in Japan can speak/read Japanese. Likewise for the English language. To play a foreign game with the PS2, XBOX, and more recently the X360. You would have to A.)Buy a separate console that was of the same region of the game you want to play, or B.)Modify the console in some way(usually nullifying the warranty. With a region-free game and system you can play a foreign game without all that trouble. With the capacity of the BD-ROM it is possible to put langauges other than the one of its native region on the disc. Whether or not this will be done, is anybody’s guess. However you should be able to see how region-free for games that will NEVER make it to my territory(Vib Ribbon,Tobal No.2, Rumble Fish, Ikusa Gami, Namco X Capcom etc.) is a godsend: No more worries about bricking your expensive console.
I know the rule is don’t feed the trolls but despite the credibility knocking use of ‘M$’ there, and curious self back patting are are some points of discussion.
Multiple languages on a disc do happen today with several titles and for the most part it’s a downer – an extra menu to go through (EA games in the EU tend to do this) it smacks of a lack of personal touch – your paying $50-60 and it’s not even personalised to your region? Face it for each region the cover of the disc is going to have differences. The other day Reservoir Dogs was recalled in the UK because they didn’t add an 18 certificate logo to the disc.
Think of the major PS titles like Final Fantasy where there is a major gap between the Japanese language version and the International editions. Lets face it American consumers expect it to boot in American and likewise Japanese. The difference of changing the disc to boot up in a specific language and just leaving off those unused assets isn’t really much different. This isn’t even going into issues of different video formats/censorship etc…
As to your Dreamcast example – I think the Dreamcast died long before it could feel any real bite from space issues. In fact just remember the woes of the PS2 owners with faulty DVD drives (a technology that had already been on the market for some time at this point). The import market has some say but the games you decribe are unlikey to have english translations anyway (either like FF coming later or not coming at all) and bigger titles are leaning more and more to worldwide simultaneous releases to combat these very import issues.
Games like Oblivion point to the ability of large amounts of Hi Def content to be possible, and more importantly the market is moving towards more procedural techniques now instead of making traditional (disc filling) hard content.
It’s interesting that Apple, Microsoft, Adobe and even PC games have gotten lambasted as space filling bloatware over the years – yet suddenly on a slower drive it’s a selling point?
And as you didn’t really contest that slow access rates would have (or the given example of the effect on the PSP). I guess you didn’t count that point in your ‘baseless’ sideswipe.
"There appear to be plenty of next-generation games out today that are doing just fine on one disc… I’m really not sure what game store he’s been shopping at."
Let’s be fair: most developers focus on the limits of their target platform. Most PS1 games fit on a single CD and most SNES games fit on a single cartridge; that didn’t mean that more storage wouldn’t have helped.
The real test is after PS3 is out for two years: Will games use the extra storage to benefit the game?
Some of you guys point towards the fact that if BLU Ray is too slow they can simply used a DVD to store games on to take advantage of higher DVD read speeds.
Wouldnt you be a little ticked off if that happened? Given that youd coughed up a load more money for BLU RAY and its not even being used?
"Next, you really downplay the need for a larger optical medium, but clearly even Microsoft recognizes this need in its coming out with an HD-DVD drive."
This would be the HD-DVD drive that MicroSoft has repeatedly stated will not be used for games would it? So how is this "recognising the need for a larger optical medium"? By the time DVD9 is running out of room, the next Xbox will probably be on the way, whereas Sony will probably stick with the PS3 for longer than the typical ‘console cycle’. Whether the PS3 is powerful enough to last this long remains to be seen, but I don’t think the 360 will suffer because of the drive capacity.
RealWeaponX has a point when he says "…whereas Sony will probably stick with the PS3 for longer than the typical ‘console cycle’. Whether the PS3 is powerful enough to last this long remains to be seen…"
According to GameToday.nl Sony has stated they want the PS3 to last 10 years and not ask consumers to buy a new Playstation in 5 years making their $600 investment worthless.
The story (in Dutch) can be found here: http://www.gametoday.nl/article/49122381
Apparently it’s quoted from a Cnet.com interview with Kaz Hirai
"It’s interesting that Apple, Microsoft, Adobe and even PC games have gotten lambasted as space filling bloatware over the years – yet suddenly on a slower drive it’s a selling point?"
made me laugh hard. good one
Great article. I think the need for a 50GB storage space only comes (well, besides the whole languages thing) when the game has a lot of prerendered FMV, such as Final Fantasy. I rather see in-game engines on those movies anyway, because whenever I see those pre-rendered FMV in my game, I always wondered, "Why the hell can’t the actual game look that good?"
Whenever someone uses the letters "M$" I usually think a lot less of their opinion. It is like using "1337" and similar words. It feels childish.
Are we going to use $ony now? (As this is much more applicable, considering their consoles cost much more with less content).
(Wonders if Nintendough would ever work)
Great post! I love hearding the spin doctors at work over at Sony, and Im really glad I found your blog to make english of it and to translate it into unpropigadized text. Both companies will be able to spin their pluses and spin the competitions negatives, but its nice to be able to see the truth behind each. I dont know if you are really telling the truth, spinning, or just a fanboy at heart – but my gut tells me that you are just being honest (and giving praise when praise is due, and defending yourself when required). Thanks!
One thing to remember is that all editions of the PS3 have a hard drive to cache data. If used intelligently by the developer, this should help to lessen the fact that the blu-ray drive isn’t as fast as the 360’s drive. Yes, you can cache data onto the 360’s hard drive, but you’re not guaranteed to have the hard drive available.
As I understand it, the use of the blue laser in Blu-Ray and HD-DVD not only allows the track width to be thinner, but also permits you to use smaller pits and landings. Thus, data is physically compressed both in terms of the number of times you can go ’round the disc, and the number of bits you get on each rotation.
If such a disc is spinning at a given velocity, and a DVD is spinning at that same velocity, then the DVD would have a lower bit-rate than the high density storage media, because you would have a smaller number of pits and landings available to store data on each rotation because you’re using a wide red laser.
Are people here claiming that the PS3 spins DVD discs at a higher velocity than Blu-Ray discs? I’d be interested to know why Sony would include a drive that spins at a higher rate when their backwards compatible systems used slower drives and video DVDs do not require high speeds to provide the data rates needed to play their content.
AFAIK, the spin velocity of a 2X Blu-Ray drive should be in the same neighborhood as an 8X DVD drive, FWIW.
That would make it about one third slower than a 360 at extracting content from a regular DVD.
Feel free to let me know if there is some fundamental error in what I’m saying here.
I think also of people are missing a very valid point which is….It isn’t the amount of content involved in a game that makes it great. Vast amounts of space isn’t a panacea folks.
I also think that Ozy is right in the fact that with the compression algorithms of today the 360 can survive just fine for the life of that console. If you can fit a 300 hour game like Oblivion on a DVD-9 then I dont think you are going to have much of a problem regardless of what Sony says. That pretty much cinches this debate for me in Microsofts favor.
Having multiple localized versions is more important on the PS3 than the 360- traditionally if Gamer A wants to switch the language setting it’s for one of two reasons:
1) he doesn’t speak the default language or understand it as well.
2) He wants to play it in japanese.
360 games, on a whole, aren’t going to have many users in situation 2.
awesome =)
blu-ray is screwing the ps3 over in so many ways!
finally someone points out how the crap transfer rates on ray will waste tons of disc space and ramp up dev work and costs.
no successful multi disc games?
lol FF7 is 5/6 people’s all time favorite game.\
heres an idea-
scrap blu-ray crap, and put in the same reader the 360 has.
use that 400 bucks wasted on making sony rich off what they hope to be their first successful medium (blu-ray) (1/5 aint bad)\
put that money into 2gigs of ram instead of 512.
apparently the ps3 will have less ram than the 360 because the systems ui will actually gobble more than the 360’s dashboard during games.(kenturagi said it, not me)
2 gigs of ram would be a developers dream. that could produce great games, blu-ray, as you have already pointed out, has more cons than just the price (crap transfer rates)
2 gigs of ram at faster mhz? that’s at least a total improvement.
double edged sword.
i just thought of this =)
the ps3 is in every way painful.
(example)
might make better games, for double the money.
it’s not just the cost either. just about every peice of the ps3 has a technological upside, with a huge downside
cell might be faster, but it’s 10X as hard and thus 10X as costly to develop for
ps3 might be powerful, but it actually has less ram than the x360, which will cause it to bottle neck.
ps3 512 ram at 1080p
360 512 ram at 720p
does this sound… like a good plan? as demands increase… hardware stays the same…
this is basically sony’s argument for the need for blu ray, except sony is taking the bullet- big time
blu-ray might make games larger, but slow transfer rates might make loading longer, might make developing harder, might make games take way way more space, might have minimal benefit for maximum cost…
sony could try adding something to the ps3 that doesnt make you cringe…
that’s why i suggested more ram running at a higher speed. because it’s a completely useful edition- something the ps3 has none of- even the hd just exists to supplement the ps3’s crap transfer rates.
one other negative benefit-
the united states… has no borders. it’s just a desert, and if you can run fast enough, you’re no longer in mexico.
do you really think that allowing games with full spanish audio to play on american consoles and be sold inside the us is a good idea?
i’m not intolerant or racist towards spanish people, but is it really a good idea to create a situation where one part of the U.S. speaks only spanish because they aren’t ever even moderately exposed to the English language in any form?
imagine when we have politicians lying to us in multiple languages, when the governor of arizona doesnt speak english? =)
we wouldnt create a vastly multi-lingual society like europe has, we’d create a country where nearly 95% of people in it only speak one language, and 50% speaks spanish and 50% speaks english =)
that… probably would be bad… and lead to hostilities…
hahah.
maybe that’d be interesting to see…. i dunno.
Multiple languages is a big deal… Since they are going into the area of HD gaming. With the new format comes a new region lay out US and Japan are in the same region so we can import games from japan and play them on our systems without the use of any mods. That alone makes the multi language worth it.
Also the size of Blue ray makes a huge diffrence with quality of game.
Also, no matter how good your compreshion/uncompress software is, if its used their is a loss of quailty. It also seems that uncompressed images can be processed and rendered faster then compressed. theirby saveing on some preccessing power.
Show me a developer that is interested in creating a game that won’t fit on a dvd-9 and I will show you one that is not interested in selling it at todays price point!
Developers simply cannot gamble anymore than they are now that a game will be a success. They simply cost to much to make.
All i can say as far as Blu-ray and Hd-dvd go is to look back on the format war between VHS and betamax. People don’t wanna pay more than they have to and to be fair the two formats both have advantages. Speed is certainly an issue and when playing a game load times are a pain. The main thing is a game is a game its played for fun your casual person is not going to want to pay loads for a game and it could put people off. At the moment all we can do is speculate but at the end of the day you never know until you try
The value of putting multiple languages on a game is highly dependent onthe region and the publisher’s capacity for international sales.
A substantial number of games created in Japan have no English language version because there is nobody fluent in english on the project. And it doesn’t matter. The game is being created for Japan. If a Euroean company licenses it for publication in the West, they are saddled with the task of translating the game’s text and hiring actors to perform and needed speaking roles.
Even massively budgeted projects from Square, that are known from Day 1 to have an eventual US release awaiting them, don’t bother to produce their content for languages other than Japanese until that version is in the hands of Japanese gamers. Despite the huge amounts of money involved, Square has yet to see fit to make any great effort to have a multilingual product on the day of release. It doesn’t seem to strike them as a terrible loss if those who need the game in English must wait six months or more.
They could do it if there were some reward but there isn’t. FFXII is going to sell just as mcuh in the US as itwould if it had a simultaneous release with Japan last March. going multilingual at launch would only serve to increase the scope of the project, especially the testing regime.
Region free is all well and good but a game with any substantial amount of text and/or spoken dialogue, there isn’t that much to be gained in exchange for concentrating all the pain in one place. Outside of Europe, multilingual games will be in the minority, regardless of disc capacity. Most consumers will never know the difference. They’ll buy the version fro their language when it shows up in their local reatiler. THey may hear about the occasional great game with no local version but the great majority simply aren’t that deeply interested.
It’s simple.
Higher capacity is a positive, not a negative.
People can present solid rationalisations as to why it is not necessary, practical, useful etc to have gobs of storage available but the bottom line is, a game designed to leverge off the greater capacity offered by Blu-Ray is taking advantage of a hardware feature not available on the 360.
In the end, it will be just one of many factors that will define which is the superiour gaming console, many of which, have nothing to do with hardware specs.