kaching,
cja: I agree, the timing is a little tighter this time around and its very likely to cost MS more to implement HDDVD in the Xenon than it did to implement DVD in the Xbox, but that doesn't change the fact that the opportunity, if missed, would be extremely difficult to properly rectify for several years. If we revise history on this gen for a moment, what would things have been like if all the console makers had stuck to CD media only?
I'd argue timing is a lot tighter! Admittedly it would be virtually impossible to rectify the "mistake" if HD video players became de-facto and this could be catastrophic for the system. It won't happen though! Blue laser is not going to have the quick adoption rates of DVD because you have two competing formats, people need to replace their TVs, you have standalone DVD-RW or Divx players competing and the leap from DVD to Blu-ray/HD-DVD is nowhere near the gap between VHS and DVD. Xenon is meant to be a game system not a video player. Any storage trouble? Just use another disc.
The potential risks far outweigh the advantages for Microsoft imho. Not being competitive on price or having numerous teething troubles with the media player are far more likely occurances if they adopt a blue laser device. They can't compete with Sony on costs for an optical drive, perhaps if Toshiba and NEC are desperate enough they could get costs close but emphasising a new optical storage device is playing to Sony's strength whereas connectivity with the home PC, for example, would play better to Microsoft's.
CD media last-gen isn't comparable to DVD this in terms of usage. FFVII on PS1 used three CDs back in 1997. Every game released on Xbox or PS2 in the west only require a DVD-9 and the vast majority will fit on a single layer DVD-5. So the revision of history isn't a good fit for what may happen next-gen, if DVDs are used again.
How much data you can shuttle in and around the CPU and GPU at any given moment isn't going to dictate by itself how much overall storage you're going to need for a game. The much bigger determining factors are simply how much content you intend to have in a game and how data rich it is.
I don't see the increase in content, quantity wise, from one gen to the next. Game worlds haven't increased dramatically in size from PS1 to PS2. The time needed to create the content is far more exhaustive thanks to sonic and graphical improvements, the qualitative aspects, but this hasn't been mirrored in games taking far longer to complete in far larger environments. Perhaps MMORPGs are an exception to this but next-gen systems are going to have far more of a problem with writable storage space than just readable for this genre.
"Data rich", you may have to clarify the term for me. For FMV a 1GB MPEG-2 file that Sony envisioned when planning the PS2 will now fit into 200MB for the same quality and resolution with advanced video compression codecs. That includes H.264 which Sony is using for UMD video. Enriched game graphics and audio will take up more space but as mentioned before Doom III, 1.5GB, pretty much fit onto a GameCube disc. If the Unreal 3 engine is a rough estimate of what Xenon will be capable ofa single DVD-9 should be fine unless you're using a lot of FMV, audio or high-res pre-rendered stills. If this is the case just increase the disc quantity it happened on PS1 for FMV (Final Fantasy), audio (MGS) and pre-rendered backgrounds (Resident Evil).
It's a bit misleading to do the comparison like this since these games all have to be made with the limitations of current hardware and storage capacities in mind. Relax ALL of those limitations and the question becomes how would they be made differently?
My point was specifically that the games at the end of a hardware generation don't vastly differ from those at the start in terms of storage capacity. My argument being Microsoft should have a good idea if 8.4GB will be adequate right now, in the planning stages for 1st generation software.
It's not so much a matter of whether you need to use ALL of the space blue-laser media offers, just a question of whether you could use more than DVD offers.
Disagree slighty, for me it's whether the extra storage capacity would be put to good use.
It's a tough call, I agree. But I think part of this assessment of cost benefit has to factor in which one gives you more room to grow into and what the longer term benefits are, as a result. Do you increase your storage space by a factor of 3-4 or do you increase CPU/GPU clockspeed by a factor of 1-2 (and most likely closer to 1)? Which one ultimately provides the best ROI?
The clock speed of the device/s would perhaps only be boosted 10%, I still see this or the addition of some RAM for that hypothetical $50, as preferential to the ability to store a few more gigabytes since I feel this space will be redundant for anything related to the core game. By adopting HD-DVD MS would be emphasising blue laser storage and video players as crucial, yet they will still have the "inferior" technology compared to Sony. It would be a matter of damage control not strength.
MS have the advantage of targeting US gamers first with a system that is likely to get its initial release 3 months earlier (November '05 US for Xenon, February '06 for JPN PS3). Yet, by the time PS3 reaches the west Microsoft's machine could well have a nine month headstart in the largest markets. To get a machine out that matches or is superior to PS3 in terms of graphics is likely to strike a far greater blow on Sony's monopoly than trying to match Sony in terms of storage. It may be a tough ask for MS to win those hearts and minds of gamers conditioned to believe 16 Megabit games are better than 8, CDs are better than cartridges and DVD is better than CD but if you have a machine that has roughly the same performance, comes out earlier and gives you the cost advantage, that could lead to a very good return on investment.
