Shadak on 21/11/2008 at 14:40
Years ago when DVD drives were first coming out, some games came out with a "DVD version" and a "CD version" in the store. Are we going to soon be seeing "Blu-Ray version" for games? Are we even slightly close to having a lot of people with the drives to play them?
Matthew on 21/11/2008 at 14:55
Doubtful, there are about, what, two or three manufacturers at the moment?
EvaUnit02 on 21/11/2008 at 15:02
Probably not. I do have a Blu-ray ROM drive, but it's in my HTPC and not my general purpose/gaming desktop system. I suppose that I could share the drive's access over the network, map it to a drive letter and afterwards crack the game.
If BD drives were sold for $100-200 NZD, then I'd have no problem with it.
Rogue Keeper on 21/11/2008 at 15:12
To fully use the BluRay capacity, games should have uber-HD-quality textures, lots of 48khz sounds and music and HD cutscene videos... it should demand other PC hardware to jump forward considerably. It takes few more years until games will be common on BluRay, under condition that development of other PC hardware will have steady pace as it had up to this point (it's quite possible though that if the economic recession will continue in next years, it may slow down progress in PC hardware evolution as well). As for now, it seems that Dual Layer DVDs can provide enough storage space for modern games.
june gloom on 21/11/2008 at 15:12
I don't have a blu-ray drive, I don't want a blu-ray drive, I think blu-ray is totally pointless at this point in time (ask me again in 10 years and see if I give a shit by then) and frankly the media already on BR isn't worth the asking price for a drive.
Renzatic on 21/11/2008 at 15:18
I would eventually, but I don't see much point in it at the moment. The biggest games out right now take up, what, two DVDs? Maybe three at most? That isn't much of an inconvience considering you don't have to do any disc swapping beyond the initial install. I'll upgrade once games start taking up 5 or 6 discs again.
Bjossi on 21/11/2008 at 15:18
In the course of 10 years games have gone from few hundred MBs to several GBs. I think Blu-ray will come in handy long before 2018.
june gloom on 21/11/2008 at 15:22
I'm not so sure about that, given the law of diminishing returns.
Digital Nightfall on 21/11/2008 at 15:28
Games will go 100% download before Blueray drives are common enough for a publisher to produce a boxed shelf copy.
That's my prediction anyway. I expect movies to become the same way. The boxed thing you get at BestBuy is just a fancy packaging (if you're a collector) for what amounts to a DRM key, which you enter into your unit and then download the movie/tvshow. Games, if they even stay on the store shelf, will be the same.
gunsmoke on 21/11/2008 at 15:35
Nearly exactly my thoughts as well.
