Support NeoGAF

[farmerboy]

Its dead Jim. But I'm not happy about it.

 

[kyliethicc]

Will there be a "next" physical format?

for PlayStation?

no

 

[ByWatterson]

About the same as the odds for a new physical music format.

Shit, we're going back to the past there.

 

[TransTrender]

"New" would be the concept of 'holographic' or '3D' storage but applied as 'write once read forever' to keep the cost super low. Otherwise it's an extension of BluRay.

 

[SportsFan581]

There was a new form of optical disc media demoed at CES 2023 that claims up to 8TB usable space.



Their roadmap says commercial drive available in 2026.

If it actually delivers on it's cheaper the Blu-ray claims, it might prolong optical disc support in consoles.

What the industry really needs is everyone to come together and produce a single high capacity, low cost storage medium akin to SD cards with readers/players are built into everything, TV's, phones, set top boxes, consoles etc. This will keep the market for physical media market going as DVD/BD disc spinners are in their twilight years, all of the hardware to play movies is in your TV already or console, the whole point of DVD/Blu-ray other than a storage vessel is obsolete and as a storage vessel for games on consoles its inadequate.

Interesting.

There was a time when holographic disks were supposed to eventually store TBs of data as well, but the original company there went bankrupt ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holographic_Versatile_Disc ). Not sure if anyone else was or is working on that tech at this point.

Edit: @ TransTrender beat me to it.

 

[AmuroChan]

Human beings will become the new physical format. In the not so distant future, we'll just "plug in" and download information straight into our brains.

 

[CGNoire]

The Blu ray discs have very high capacity of up to 100gb. Not sure if more is possible on ps5.
The discs are also much more durable than cd or dvd was. Take a look and your games are most likely not scratched and should not rot like some 90s cds.

Of course if we used sd cards, we could get more capacity and smaller size but it's more expensive.
Would be awesome if new physical was some sort of SD card that you can write updates ONTO.
But for the sake of bc, I am hoping ps6 will use the same standard, so ps4 and ps5 discs work!

I have every cd and cd game i bought in the 90s and none of them have had any skipping issuse or seem to have had there plastic covering erode at all. CD rot is abosolute bollocks and just an excuse from those who take shitty care of there property and want pretend its not there fault. Ill see you in another 15-20 years when my cds still work just fine.

 

[Fess]

I’d love a giant cartridge. Having switch games is nice, but feels funny with how small the card is. I love large formats like Vinyl and 8 Tracks. It’s probably stupid, but I’d love to put an 8 track size cartridge into a game system. Really feel like you are starting a game up.

The cost would be insane but ever since I tried hot swapping the slot-in external SSD on Xbox Series X I have wished for cartridges to return. Feels so nice. Was such a missed opportunity to not have the slot in the front and at least release some Collector’s Editions that way.

 

[DemonGamerTTT]

Digital is proving to be inadequate as well. If you actually want to own what you buy, then you're going to have to force the companies to re-think what it means to OWN what you buy.

You are not getting it...

You never owned shit... you own the plastic of the CD you never owned the game itself.

Let me explain this in a easy way... SOME people have Snes cartridge's... They DO NOT produce them anymore... so those people have limited access to those cartridges but yet WE ALL can have instant access to ALL KNOWN SNES games in a instant... and the only reason that's possible is because the games are in a digital(they were dumped from the cartriges) formant instead of a dumb physical format.

Having a physical copy of the game that doesn't even work without a online patch would not guarantee access to that game in the future. The only place where you can have "eternal" access to software is in the internet, even if your home blow up you can still redownload all your games(from the internet again, now and forever).

The thing that PEOPLE SHOULD BE REALLY WORRIED about the ALWAYS CONNECTION shit... and Yet we have a bunch of dumb people making topics in this very own forum trying to explain why having a game that doesn't work without theauthorization from a REMOTE third party is not a issue.

 

[G-Bus]

New kind of ROM cartridge for next gen consoles.

Probably in the minority here but I'd like to see cartridges make a comeback. That would be awesome.

 

[Yumi]

The cost would be insane but ever since I tried hot swapping the slot-in external SSD on Xbox Series X I have wished for cartridges to return. Feels so nice. Was such a missed opportunity to not have the slot in the front and at least release some Collector’s Editions that

Agreed, I don’t think it would shine in a cost to benefit analysis, but it would be cool in my opinion. Love the idea of collectors editions that would fit in the hard drive slot.

 

[GenericUser]

Zero chance, they want your money

 

[Dane]

The Blu ray discs have very high capacity of up to 100gb. Not sure if more is possible on ps5.
The discs are also much more durable than cd or dvd was. Take a look and your games are most likely not scratched and should not rot like some 90s cds.

Of course if we used sd cards, we could get more capacity and smaller size but it's more expensive.
Would be awesome if new physical was some sort of SD card that you can write updates ONTO.
But for the sake of bc, I am hoping ps6 will use the same standard, so ps4 and ps5 discs work!

As someone who sells used videogames, its actually questionable against DVD in the durability: Blu Ray is layer structure is pretty much a reverse CD, the data is located at the very bottom protected by a much more resistant thin polycarbonate layer, but, due to its position it means if gets light sized scratches it will be likely dead unlike the other two. You can't resurface it since its protective layer is thin in the first place.

 

[nkarafo]

Everything after ROM carts/boards was a regression. It's expensive but ROMs was the best storage since it provided instant access to data. In a perfect universe, ROMs would still be used while being cheaper and having enough space for modern games.

In this universe it doesn't matter. Publishers don't care about that anymore, their goal is for you to not have any access to the game data at all. In the near future you will all play games through their servers.

 

[SportsFan581]

It isn't just the capacity either but the access speed. You need something cheap and mass producible like disk but fast with data access like a NVMe. That would really be something. I would go back to physical if you could play from the disk with no need for an install. Developers would hate it though because they wouldn't be able to patch things as completely/easily.

 

[Three]

Sony already has the Archive Disk format ready for the PS6 which can store upto 300GB, being based on BluRay disks. The snag is the discs themselves look to be enclosed in some sort of cartridge.

Looks like the modern day equivalent of a Zip drive.

 

[Dane]

Everything after ROM carts/boards was a regression. It's expensive but ROMs was the best storage since it provided instant access to data. In a perfect universe, ROMs would still be used while being cheaper and having enough space for modern games.

In this universe it doesn't matter. Publishers don't care about that anymore, their goal is for you to not have any access to the game data at all. In the near future you will all play games through their servers.

Way too expensive, weren't Neo Geo games at 150-200 dollars? I think Switch max capacity is at 64GB

 

[flying_sq]

You will own nothing and be happy

 

[nkarafo]

Way too expensive, weren't Neo Geo games at 150-200 dollars? I think Switch max capacity is at 64GB

Switch doesn't really use ROMs though. It's just regular solid state storage that still needs to load to RAM first. ROMs used to have instant access to every bit without even needing to to go through RAM first (for the most part). The Neo-Geo AES didn't even have much RAM but the CD version needed a massive (for the time) 7MB of RAM to compensate for the lack or ROMs.

The N64 also had such ROMs but some games did need to load for decompression. But i think the N64 was the last console that used such ROMs.

 

[Deerock71]

You are not getting it...

You never owned shit... you own the plastic of the CD you never owned the game itself.

Let me explain this in a easy way... SOME people have Snes cartridge's... They DO NOT produce them anymore... so those people have limited access to those cartridges but yet WE ALL can have instant access to ALL KNOWN SNES games in a instant... and the only reason that's possible is because the games are in a digital(they were dumped from the cartriges) formant instead of a dumb physical format.

Having a physical copy of the game that doesn't even work without a online patch would not guarantee access to that game in the future. The only place where you can have "eternal" access to software is in the internet, even if your home blow up you can still redownload all your games(from the internet again, now and forever).

The thing that PEOPLE SHOULD BE REALLY WORRIED about the ALWAYS CONNECTION shit... and Yet we have a bunch of dumb people making topics in this very own forum trying to explain why having a game that doesn't work without theauthorization from a REMOTE third party is not a issue.

As if the internet is...eternal. Carry on with your bullshit.

 

[Trilobit]

5D glass digital discs that could potentially hold hundreds of terabytes of data and last billions of years.

 

[YeulEmeralda]

I'm a PC gamer now so I haven't payed much attention. Are there games being released on multiple blurays?

 

[Mr.Phoenix]

The crazy thing is, we would sooner see them putting only like 1GB of a game on discs with you having to download and install the rest of it before we see a new physical format.

 

[daffyduck]

Human beings will become the new physical format. In the not so distant future, we'll just "plug in" and download information straight into our brains.

 

[Elder Legend]

None, dont alot of games nowadays store little to nothing on the discs and make you download everything.

Yeah, pretty much.

 

[angrod14]

I'm a PC gamer now so I haven't payed much attention. Are there games being released on multiple blurays?

Most of them come on a single BD. In some cases they come in two, so you have a "data" disc -which you only pop once, to install the game-, and a "play" disc, which you insert every time you want to play the game. Examples are Red Dead Redemption 2 and The Last of Us Part II.

 

[SportsFan581]

5D glass digital discs that could potentially hold hundreds of terabytes of data and last billions of years.

I watched a video on that the other day as well. I think the per disc cost would be prohibitive.

Most of them come on a single BD. In some cases they come in two, so you have a "data" disc -which you only pop once, to install the game-, and a "play" disc, which you insert every time you want to play the game. Examples are Red Dead Redemption 2 and The Last of Us Part II.

Until you got past 4 BD, this would likely continue to be the chosen method. Since they are relatively cheap to produce and you can easily stack 4 in a standard case.

 

[fuck_diggity_cunt_ingdon]

Blu-ray is still a thing?????

 

[angrod14]

None, dont alot of games nowadays store little to nothing on the discs and make you download everything.

That's the exception, not the rule. At least on PS, most of retail releases still contain full offline playable data. So even if Sony nuked the servers with all the patches you'll still have a full playable game from beginning to end, with a few bugs here and there, but perfectly playable. And they can't do shit with the data that's already burnt on the disc.

 

[angrod14]

Until you got past 4 BD, this would likely continue to be the chosen method. Since they are relatively cheap to produce and you can easily stack 4 in a standard case.

Well, publishers took that road on PC and we all know how that ended. They either come up with something practical that's up to date or it's gone.

 

[Barakov]

None, dont alot of games nowadays store little to nothing on the discs and make you download everything.

I wouldn't say a lot. The COD MW2(2) situation seems like an outlier. Most of the games I've bought in the last six months copy quite a bit of data from the disc.

 

[SportsFan581]

Well, publishers took that road on PC and we all know how that ended. They either come up with something practical that's up to date or it's gone.

The only option they would ever accept would be something that was as cheap to produce. If the Folio Disc or some kind of holographic disk could get there than maybe.

Anything overly expensive like flash media or expensive custom options like the Sony system mentioned early just wouldn't have a chance.

 

[Rhazer Fusion]

Zero. They are trying to get rid of physical media, so I doubt it.

 

[DemonGamerTTT]

As if the internet is...eternal. Carry on with your bullshit.

Are you really implying that your little piece of plastic is more reliable than the internet?

 

[Deerock71]

Are you really implying that your little piece of plastic is more reliable than the internet?

"The only place where you can have "eternal" access to software is in the internet, even if your home blow up you can still redownload all your games(from the internet again, now and forever)."

Are you implying that either are eternal?

 

[Esca]

Why wouldn't they just use an additional disc when needed. The game already has to be installed anyways. Disc's are ridiculously cheap and any other way to store that much data is easy more expensive

 

[El Muerto]

I think we'll use discs for maybe the next 2 generations. Our internet infrastructure in the USA is probably the worse there is. We need discs to fall back on in case the internet goes down. I prefer discs anyway as there are always games getting pulled from marketplaces due to licensing issues.

 

[Pimpbaa]

5D glass digital discs that could potentially hold hundreds of terabytes of data and last billions of years.

A game using such media would be massively expensive due to the amount of people needed to create assets for so much storage. Probably also very slow compared to the SSDs in current consoles. I think the Switch successor will be the last to use physical media. Most likely some updated version of the current game cards they use (hopefully with much higher capacities).

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Probably never unless there's some massive breakthrough. All software companies are gunning for as much digital sales possible so it's not like they are going to support a new format unless they are forced to. The last thing they want are more boxed copies being sold at Amazon and Game Stop.

 

[NotMyProblemAnymoreCunt]

Wishful thinking but cartridges that could Hold up 900 TB of storage and be as cheap as CD/DVD/Blu-ray to produce

I remember Nintendo investing into Holographic cartridges a while back. They could hold lot of memory but were supposedly expensive

 

[Wildebeest]

Holographic storage is for specialist archival. High capacity but very expensive and very slow access time.

I suppose you could pay a premium for something like SD card media, but it wouldn't be competitive with download, and there are environmental waste issues.

 

[winjer]

Companies don't want gamers to be able to resell their own games. And they want full control of what the gamer does.
So they will continue to push for digital only. The PS5 and Series consoles might be the last gen with a physical drive.

 

[NotMyProblemAnymoreCunt]

Holographic storage is for specialist archival. High capacity but very expensive and very slow access time.

I suppose you could pay a premium for something like SD card media, but it wouldn't be competitive with download, and there are environmental waste issues.

That's interesting

 

[RoboFu]

It’s going to be a sad day tens years from now when all of you realize that not only were your disks were merely an initial install disk but your consoles won’t even boot most of your physical games because they need a special response from a special server that’s no longer there.

 

[SportsFan581]

Holographic storage is for specialist archival. High capacity but very expensive and very slow access time.

I suppose you could pay a premium for something like SD card media, but it wouldn't be competitive with download, and there are environmental waste issues.

I guess it depends on what the definition of slow is. The holographic disks that were in development could hit 120-200 MBs. Compared to the peak speed of a 16x BD (72MBs) that is downright fast.

 

[Wildebeest]

I guess it depends on what the definition of slow is. The holographic disks that were in development could hit 120-200 MBs. Compared to the peak speed of a 16x BD (72MBs) that is downright fast.

Those holographic discs were a technology that was put up for investment a long time ago, and the idea behind the tech is even older, but it seems that nothing came from it. I'm talking about holographic storage in development at places like Microsoft that uses solid chunks of glass or crystal instead of discs. I don't know what the potential limits on read or write speed might be, but it is a very different technology where the transfer rate is not affected by the rotational speed of a disc, and isn't really a consumer level technology.

 

[SmokedMeat]

Here’s its next form

 

[Magic Carpet]

Ted Faro deleted the Apollo system so there is nothing to store. No media is needed. Don't worry, Aloy is taking care of things.

 

[Art The Clown]

Give me a digital marketplace where I can sell my digital games on right on my console to another user and I’d buy digital 100% of the time instead of 50%

 

[West Texas CEO]

Where are the next generation of MP3 players, though? I'm still waiting.