Blu Ray games

A built in Blu-Ray player is only $145 more, but I already have a ps3. The only applicable situation to use this Blu-Ray player would be in the future if- or when- games switch to it. How long do you guys propose games will stay on DVDs for?

 

i would assume when blu-ray becomes the new standard or when blu-ray replaces more than half of dvd's library (newer releases).

 

Discs are not the future, IMO, other means of storage like flash memory will take its place.

 

Or cloud computing and downloadable game's, like steam.

 

Agreed, downloading, streaming, and flash memory are the ways of the future.

DVD's will be around at least a little while longer though. They offer a cheap, relatively large storage solution. All games out there can still fit on only one or two DVD's, so using a Blu-ray disc instead would be a bit of a waste.

 

Meh, build in BD-Rom + HDMI = Portable BD player.

 

Blu Ray most likely will not be a mainstream storage medium for PC games, ever. Digital Distribution is quickly taking over, but DVDs will be around for a while longer.

Long term, you won't need any optical drive at all. So if you really want to future proof your machine, remove the DVD drive.

 

Quite a few games coming out are beginning to require STEAM in order to even run. Even if you buy the disk version, such as FEAR 2, Saints Row 2 etc. You still have to install steam and register the game, and launch it through steam. So what's the point anymore? People may as well just succumb and buy everything on steam now. BD, and other physical storage will never be the standard, from here on out, the standard is digital distribution.

 

Unfortunately with digital distribution becoming more and more popular on the PC, we may be hampered by size constraints. It will take a while for us to comfortably download Blu-Ray size games off of Steam or similar services. We are already uneasy about downloading GTA4 which is roughly 15gb!

Already we have the stupid ISPs imposing bandwidth usage caps on us as digital distribution, streaming video, etc. become more and more popular.

I am kind of hoping for Blu-Ray to kick off on the PC, for games to be on that format but it is a very slim chance of happening. I think PC games will be stuck at DVD-size levels way into the next generation of consoles and we may suffer for it.

 

With an average connection of 1 Mbps or more, 15gb isn't that much of a problem, it's roughly the same cost in shipping and time of physical media.

As others have said OP, the future is digital distro, and if there are physical media still laying about they will most likely be on DVDs or flash mem. Sony won the battle in a dying war.

 

digital distribution can't really take off unless we get better broadband. the average connection speed in the UK is PATHETIC.

 

The average connection in America is pathetic too.

I mean, I am on Hughesnet because I live in a rural area I get about 200kb/s and have a 425MB a day download limit, yes thats right, not even half of a full gig.

The point is there are millions of people like me who live in rural areas that get crappy cell phone coverage and suffer because the base architect for the internet wasn't even built to handle todays internet activities. Plus companies don't wanna waste money to bring acceptable no cap broadband services like 4 miles down the road.

 

Wow seriously? Thats bad, I know for $30 CAD a month I get UNLIMITED downloads and at 500 kilobytes a second.

 

Download will be limited by bandwidth cap, not speed.

 

my DSL internet only gives me 80 kb/s DL ...and i live in the suburbs near washington D.C.

 

lol, try downloading some steam games with that

 

From what I remember DVDs as a game distribution medium did not really take off until it took 4 or more CDs for a game. At the moment I haven't heard of a game needing more than two DVDs, the exception of course is games with big expansions or the Orange Box which is 5 games in one.

It is also likely that consoles will drive the move to Blu-ray, the PS3 already has it and the next Microsoft console will either have blu-ray or a USB drive system.

I believe blu-ray will definitely have its place, but it will face a strong rival in USB (particularly version 3.0). Internet downloads just don't work for people at the moment. In New Zealand (small market I know), it costs about NZ$80-90 for 10 gigs of broadband a month (including the phoneline rental you need to pay). For reference that would be about US$50-60 or so and that would be with a major ISP, some smaller ones offer good non-peak hours downloading. Consider that a new release PC game in New Zealand is rarely above $100 and you start to see that internet downloads just won't work here at the moment since you'll probably in real terms spend 50% more to get the same game.