blu-ray vs. DVD - what's the future for games?

I am looking for a new laptop and one of the finalists is the new Sony Vaio Z11. It has the option of having an internal blu-ray ODD. The price is ridiculous, but I'm considering it.

I know that the blu-ray buyer market is essentially still a niche market. But what does the future hold? Will blu-ray become the standard format for physical media like games and OSs in the future? I'm thinking probably not for a while at any rate, given the increasing ability to download programs directly from the internet. But I don't want to sink several grand into a new laptop only to have missed out on a key piece of hardware that will soon become essential.

Any thoughts welcome.

 

I say just get the DVD drive now and then replace it later if needs be (assuming bluray does become a standard), the drives you buy then would be much cheaper and probably faster with more features

 

what's the price for it? If it is below $200, just get it... if it is above , get the DVD and just upgrade urself.

 

The future might be the internet. You can just download digital copies of games. As of now, just stick with DVD.

 

That would have been true before those greedy internet source provider realized they could make a lot of money by limiting your downloads then charging you for the additional gigabytes you use. Given those restrictions, downloading may not always be the most cost effective solution. In addition, it's still limited by it's ability to be readily transfered. You still have to wait for it.

In my view OP, blu-ray is here to stay (at least until the next advancement) and DVDs are backwards compatible. So put your mind at ease and go ahead with the purchase.

 

Digital of flash distribution will be the future, disk based it not the way things will be going.

 

Sony, and a dozen other giant media companies begs to differ.

 

The Z11 take a ultraslim 9.5m UJ242A drive. These don't run cheap. Now the version before this the UJ232A are going for about $300-$450 new.

I cannot see the UJ242A going for under $400 for quite some time. There are no OEM drives out there either apart from a lenovo model which is like $500.

You pay a premium for the ultraslim ones. I do expect these ultraslim drives to start turning up OEM on ebay but of course i don't know for sure that they will.

Sony do charge a lot for these drives. I've just upgraded my Sony TT to a bluray drive. I think i would do the same if i was to buy the Z.

 

ouch in that case , stay with DVD... $500 is certainly not worth it for blue ray yet... and i do agree... digital and flash storage is the future...

 

I disagree. Downloading games (legally or illegally) is a problem here in Canada, as you have to pay a premium to get more bandwidth (I have the top internet package from rogers and I'm limited to 80 gigs, which is really less than they say).

Internet speeds really haven't jumped up noticeably lately, and I would really prefer installing from a 25 gig disc, rather than downloading a 25 gig game, which is ~1/3 of my bandwith.

I wouldn't get the drive until blue-rays become mainstream. Stick with a DVD-drive for now.

 

They can beg all they want, but there are clear advantages to digital distribution such that if they decide not to do it, they will be at a competitive disadvantage to those companies who chose to go that route.

 

To say that you won't buy blu-ray because it will some day be superseded by flash or some other technology is to say you won't buy a computer of cell phone because it will at some future point become obsolete. Things change, and the technological industry is most likely the fastest changing industry of all. Still, the buck has to stop somewhere, otherwise, the wheel of commerce (and technological improvement) will cease to exist.

For the record, I don't want to get caught with a failing technology anymore than the next guy, but I've been following blu-ray since before it became the standard HD disc format, and all indication point to it becoming the next digital format for the foreseeable future.

That said, here's a snippet of what I've been reading from the experts:

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1880652,00.html

 

Go on then, name some clear advantages of flash memory over optical at the moment, I challenge you to find more positives than I can think of negatives

 

That mostly talks about how Bluray plays higher quality video than DVD. Well, duh.

But the question for this thread is: What's the future for games? And I bet we'll see some games come out on Bluray for the PC, but I definitely wouldn't expect a dominant physical disc after Bluray. The future - as far as I can see it - is digital distribution.

 

I don't think blueray has much of a future at the moment for games, developers wouldn't be able to use all the available space on the br disk, and if they did then our hard drives would run outa space in two minutes,

DVD is still the way forward, digital downloading is...meh, i rarely use it, i stick with hard copy DVD for now, and i haven't touched my Blueray drive once with any blueray content lol.

 

IMO Digital Distribution won't become the main distribution method for another few years. As stated, ISPs are still limiting both speed and bandwidth on their customers in many parts of the world so physical distribution will still exist so long as these restrictions are widespread.

That being said, I don't think Blu Ray discs will replace DVDs any time soon for games either. For the time being, given the cost, I'd say get a DVD and if Blu Ray does replace DVD within the lifespan of your laptop, then you could get a Blu Ray reader later for probably a cheaper price anyways.

 

Well I have two blu-ray drives--an internal one (that came with my laptop) and an external writer I purchased later. So if all you blu-ray naysayers are correct and it dies tomorrow, I promise I won't to throw myself off a cliff in despair.

Wait! There are no cliffs here in Florida!! Okay then, I won't jump off a building.

p.s. You're wrong though!

 

Blu-Ray is pretty much for movies and PS3 games. I highly doubt games will ever be published on Blu-Ray disks, unless it's as an optional simultaneously released alternative to DVD's and digital distribution.

 

Blu ray would probably make all games run like crysis.... terribly. Given all the extra space, it would lets developers write sloppy, un-optimised code which would be a pain the the ___ to run at a decent frame rate.

 

Blu-ray is fine for things like console games and movies because you play off that media and that's where the game resides. For PC gaming, all games require an install, copying all the game data off the discs and onto the PC. For this reason, there's absolutely no reason for companies to go blu-ray any time soon. It's just too expensive! For the companies and the consumers. DVD's are cheap enough, DVD drives are already in 100% of PC's you buy off the shelf (except some ultra portables) meaning distributing a game on DVD's won't alienate any section of the market. Releasing blu-ray would alienate a HUGE section of the market.

 

I doubt we are going to see bluray games any time soon. Remember how long it took PC games to stop coming out in CD format? We are talking at least 5 years, most likely more, from now when you will need a bluray drive to install games. Bluray games will be the sole format only if 95% or more of the potential market is using bluray. The majority of computers being sold now and for quite a while to come don't have bluray drives. By the time bluray games come out, your laptop will be unable to play such games so there is no worry at all.

 

DVDs are far too entrenched and Blu-Ray is still far too expensive for the latter to be anything but a niche market for some time to come. I wouldn't even be surprised if Blu-Ray as a format is skipped in favor of something significantly better and cheaper down the road.

Especially for games, I don't see Blu-Ray as a distribution medium... ever. Game distributors are not going to count on the fact that you are one of the few people who have a Blu-Ray drive, and in addition, it's far cheaper for them to include multiple DVDs to install (ie: Mass Effect 2) versus one Blu-Ray disk.

Bottom line is, I wouldn't recommend that you opt for a Blu-Ray drive in your laptop unless it's a $30 or below upgrade (and then only because people like to hear "Blu-Ray drive," increasing your laptop's resale value).

 

Or unless you want to watch Bluray movies on your computer.

That's another good reason to buy a Bluray drive.

 

While you're pondering the future of gaming, know that your GT 330M won't be be relevant by the time games are shipping on Blu-ray.

 

Right. It seems like it took years before games came on DVD instead of CD. I remember how irritated I was that games started shipping on four or five CD's instead of a single DVD.

But chances are, they won't start shipping games on BR's until games start running on 3 or 4 DVD's regularly, and BR manufacturing cost is greatly reduced. By that time, we will most likely be using digital distribution anyhow for most games.

 

I'm a digital distribution guy...honestly..I love Steam. I love the interface, I love the patching, I love the offers, I even love the ads (non-invasive, interesting, and visually pleasing).

Even with an official bandwidth cap of 30 (my ISP doesn't enforce overages for some strange reason) I will still stick to digital distribution...haven't bought a game from a brick and mortar store in 5+ years.

 

Well obviously if your ISP doesn't enforce excess bandwidth uses then you won't have an issue lol

Over here I can pay half my monthly fee if I go over.

 

All my console games I definitely prefer to have them on disc. For pc software I'm all for digital distribution for the simple fact that the software has to be installed, and does so extremely quickly from flash memory (SDHC, usb flash drives, etc.).

 

Basically no bandwidth limit? From what I remember from Shaw, their service was terrible. For the rest of Canada that's limited to Rogers, Bell, and Telus, there IS a limit, and it's rather a small limit. I would love for P2P to become the new distribution method. Download speeds would be ridiculous.

Exactly the same with me. I believe it's another $25-$35 max per month, which is ridiculous when we're already paying a sky-high price for our internet, tv and home phone bundle when compared to the US.

I believe that when Blu-Rays do go down in price, WHY THE HELL WOULD ANY COMPANY NOT USE THEM? ITS 25 GIGS OF RAW STORAGE!?!!? Right now, at my local retailer, Aftermarket (Chinese-brand) Blu-Ray discs go for 6.99 a piece, but just like CDs when they came out, they WILL go down in price, and they WILL become the next method for distribution of movies, games and maybe even extremely high quality lossless music files. I mean, PS3 games aren't even filling up the discs all the way.

Well Blu-Ray would help if you had a lot of large installation files. You don't usually "stream" games off of your discs, rather, you install them onto the hard drive and they are loaded from there into your RAM. Crysis' engine is beautiful, but just wasn't optimized very well. BF: BC2 looks beautiful, and runs above 30 fps most of the FULLY MAXED OUT @ 1080p on my i7 920, with my 4890. I couldn't do that with crysis, and after comparing the two, BC2 looks a lot better.

 

You forgot Videotron! I have Videotron lol

But yeah, if Digital Distribution goes widespread, ISPs need to rethink their sales models.

 

Even for my current DVD drive, the only time I could remember ever using it in the past 5 years was probably to install windows, and that's it, not to even mention blu-ray, even DVD drives are getting obsolete.

but yes, I have a max 1mb/sec download speed here with no limit.

 

Ahh yes, Quebec, our neighbors. I thought our prices were bad, I nearly had a stroke when I saw yours :\

Well you're quite the lucky one



=~1.25 Megabytes/s

With an 80 gig monthly limit, which really is a waste as I'd LOVE to download more things on a daily basis, instead of having to monitor my usage every single day.

Us Canadians would have to pay $25-$30 EXTRA on top of our outrageously priced Internet bills, and ON TOP of the cost of the PC games that caused us to go over our limit.

Yes, I only use my CD drive for Windows installations, but now you can even use a USB key. When I buy my games, I rip ISO's of them for future use. Installation is a lot faster, and no more "put in cd 1, take out cd 2, take out cd 1 and put 2 in."

Besides blu-ray discs, I'd love for flash memory to be cheap enough for PC Game makers to use them as a method of distribution. Installation speeds would be blazing quick, and let's say they use SD cards (for example), it's so much easier to store as they are a lot smaller than CD's, plus they don't get scratched

 

Rage from id-software may come in a blu-ray disk; at least in the collector's edition.

 

I wouldn't doubt that they'd release collector's or limited editions on Blu-Ray. I recall many games came on DVD in collector's or limited editions when CD's were most common.

Personally, I'd prefer BR and I don't even own a BR drive, but fewer discs the better.

 

bandwidth in canada? really! oh wait all you poor people use Telus Bell or Rogers... I've been on Shaw for years, 7.5Mbps normal, some days up to 16-18mbps.

oh and we pay ~100$ a month for 7.5mbps, cable, and home phone. Shaw says we have 60GB/month but I frequently blow over that and they don't complain. (I've done ~30GB in the last 3 days).

I think high speed SD cards (or similar) would be great, say 128GB with 200MB/s read speed would be a nice successor to BR.

 

That could change at anytime. And it usually will just when you least expect it.

My feelings exactly. In fact, I remember thinking that exact thing when I spend an hour and a half inserting and ejecting discs to load Adobe CS4 on my computer. Just think it could have all been put on one disc.

 

I suddenly want to move there... hmmm... how is the economy doing there? lol

Ok, i'm kidding.

I think for games, we *may* see them on Bluray, but I still would love to see disc's removed from society in favor of flash memory, and eventually 3.5inch hard drives can go as well (but not until flash is cheaper and larger in storage).

 

Of course in time; but you're jumping the gun aren't you? Also I'm no gamer, so I can't speak specifically as to how blu-ray will apply there. But don't you guys still trade games? How would you do that economically if not by disc? Like it or not, we still NEED discs!

Disc prices are pretty consistent; but ISP can find every way they possibly can to raise their prices--remember when cell phone contracts were for a year? Just wait until you become addicted. Then you'll be begging for some industry to come in and save you from the GB vampires. Never put all you eggs in one basket gentlemen.

 

Not to mention that Blu-Rays will go down in price, just like DVD's did. A box of 100-philips DVDs are 14.49 at my local comp. store, which = ~23 cents a DVD. This isn't even on sale. I've gotten 100 for around $8 when they were on sale. That makes them 8 cents/DVD. Blue rays over around 5 times more storage than DVD's, and they are going down in price.

These prices are what the consumer has to pay, I'm not talking about a bulk deal of 1000+ DVDs that PC-Game publishers can probably get for even cheaper than we do.

 

The question is are there that enough games that require more than one DVD to make the shift justifiable within a short term time lapse in a widespread manner? As far as I recall, there are only a handful of games that really have monstrous amounts of DVDs.

I don't doubt it might happen, the question is how soon.

 

this.
there is NO logical reason to do so for games.
games would come in BR when a blank BR cost the same as 2-3 dvds. knowing sony, you will have to wait a loooong time for that to happen.

 

When and if bluray becomes a norm, I can foresee game developers throwing in craps and badly optimized content just to make full use of the space bluray provided.

 

The price you play for writable Blu-Ray discs is not correlated at all with the price that a distributor pays to get a run of discs pressed:

http://wesleytech.com/blu-ray-vs-hd-dvd-replication-costs-revealed/111/

That article claims that 3 years ago Blu-Rays cost only 3-4x what a DVD costs to press en-masse, and even then just over a dollar per disc in actual cost. Yes, the movie producers are making a lot of money on Blu-Ray sales. The real tipping point is not the cost to manufacturers, but when Blu-Ray readers reach saturation, when most of your targeted end users will have a Blu-Ray drive to use.

 

More like better optimized content. High-res textures take up a lot of space.

 

On the other hand, they could use the additional space in a more creative way. Think about the movie industry: all these things could be said of that industry too unless you use the extra space creatively. Like commentary deleted scenes interviews, multiple angles etc. The industry's still looking for new ideas.

One example, would be to put movies with two parts or even three parts (trilogies) on one disc! Slip in just one disc, say Lord of the Rings Trilogy, and go for a movie marathon without ever having to get up. And of course who could not benefit form the reduced load and inconvenience of lugging around several discs vs one?

A second example comes from when I made my first backup of my OS--it took 4 DVDs to complete. All that I could think about while I was waiting inserting and eject discs, was how nice it would be if I could do this with just one disc. Now with my blu-ray writer, that dream is a reality. I just insert one disc, one click and I'm done. Then I just distribute multiple copies to my family/friends and I've got a convenient and inexpensive way to keep all my data backed up and safe. Try that with flash technology and then compare receipts.

Anyway, I'm not dissing flash (I like it as much as the next guy) but it's just can't take the place of a blu-ray disc for distribution or economy. At least not at the moment.

 

I think once BR/DVD combo drives are consistently below $50 you may start to see more "limited" or "special" editions in BR. I think if developers started shipping both DVD and BR versions simultaneously, it might help drive the cost of BR drives down quickly, and transition to BR altogether. I'm all for larger capacity, even if we don't really need all that capacity yet.

 

This is one of those rare times when the industry responds faster than the gluttony of the never satiated consumers and all you can do is find it's faults? Since when did increased storage capacity get to be a bad thing?

Really people, some of you don't know a good thing when you see it. Rather than praising Sony (and other blu-ray supporters) for it's forward thinking and intrepidity on taking such a gamble to bring this giant leap in disc technology to the public, all many of you can do is pick at it's faults.

Fact is, blu-ray discs, an it's players have both dropped substantially since their introduction; and the writers continue to get faster and cheaper with every update as well. When compared to the development of DVDs back in the 1980's, it has been consistent. Then too were there detractors that said we didn't need discs, tapes were good enough. Or that discs was too expensive, unreliable, scratch easily, etc., etc. If you look hard enough, you can find faults and limitations in any technology, but discs have been around since the early 80's and increased their capacity and stability which should be something we value, not denigrated.

I for one, will support Sony and blu-ray discs regardless of it's outcome. I thinks they deserve our appreciation...and support!


Remember, to be competitive a company has to take chances; but to be successful it has to have support from is consumers. Next time, don't blame industry when they drag their feet on bringing technology to the consumer level. Instead, look back at where your attitude is today, and you'll understand why.

 

Ummm, I'm not sure what you're trying to say? I agreed we should move to BD drives. Just the market will have to also satisfy DVD customers. So how is it a bad thing if publishers release titles in both formats? But if you switch instantly to BD it will tick off a lot of customers.

But maybe that was what you were trying to say. I don't know. Your post sounds angry, you quoted me, but I agree with you about BD drives quickly becoming the standard.

 

It is my belief that BD is going to be around for awhile. Will game companies start shipping stuff on BD? Like other people have mentioned, I too don't think that is going to happen for a while. I opted for the BD burner on my Alienware laptop for a couple of reasons. Looking at the overall cost of the machine, it was about a 10% increase, and I felt that this was a relative small increase to the total cost. It is a desktop replacement laptop(?) and meant to serve multiple functions, one of them being entertainment.

If it had been a lower cost laptop, with a smaller screen there is no way I would have opted for it. But with storage costs coming down and more movies available on BD, it seemed like a reasonable option on that laptop in particular. If this had been a desktop system, again I don't think that I would have opted for the burner just yet, but certainly a reader. Laptops are more difficult to upgrade, and find components for.

I think that in the long run I will be happy with my choice. Unless you are doing some heavy archiving, and or using the laptop as an important piece of entertainment equipment, I don't think that BD burners are really worth the price premium at this point. BD readers will certainly have value if you watch a lot of movies, especially if you hookup the laptop to a much larger display.

 

BD will be around for longer than DVD's especially with higher demand for space... and speaking of that a new 100GB RW BD DVD is comming out and 150GB BD DVD is comming out in a few months but u would need new players to play them... u might want to hold out till then if u want Blue ray...

info is from engadget.com