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Will DVD Size Limitations Affect the Graphics of Future Xbox 360 Games?

August 10, 2008 in News comments 22

Will game developers have to make games with many disc's to keep up with the standards of Blu-Ray or will they lower graphics and processing to keep it on one disc?

'From the beginning of time, Xbox 360 and PS3 gamers have been dueling about who’s console is the more graphically powerful. In these skirmishes, terms like CPU, GPU, and RAM have been thrown around, but now those folks on the PS3 side of the fray have another weapon in their arsenal: disc format.

You may think that disc size has absolutely nothing to do with graphical quality of games. It all has to do with the raw power of the console’s CPU, RAM, etc., you might say; the discs are just used to store the data that is pushed through the processors. Yes, but no. Let me explain.'
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  • 3
    Goldva_X Aug 10, 08
    You betcha they will. I think they will still cope with it and make games on multiple discs.
    • 0
      Bri Aug 11, 08

      A bit inconvenient, but this is what I think will happen. this worked wonders on previous systems.

      What MGS4 did is another option, but I would prefer the multiple discs without having to wait for an annoying 5 minute loading time....granted, in MGS4, it works pretty well.
  • 3
    HawkMan Aug 10, 08
    nope. I don't think so. Size has no correlation to graphical quality. Id needs to use better compression tools and better programmers....carmack.
    • 1
      Red 9 Aug 11, 08
      Even if the power of the console allows it, it's all about disc space. If you compress everything, quality will decrease. MGS4 is a great example of what no compression gives you.
      • 1
        Armed Rebel Aug 11, 08
        What does it give you exactly? Do you hear significant sound quality improvements over 360 games?
        • 2
          Koloth* Aug 11, 08
          Actually yes. Just glancing over at my receiver the 360 always plays sound in stereo. Not bad you might think. However the PS3 always plays sound in full 5.1 surround.

          Now that might not be an actually difference in acoustic quality. However it is clear they are sacrificing surround sound because it takes up more disc space. Eventually they might make other sacrifices unless Microsoft lets up on trying to enforce the single disc thing.
  • 0
    Final Blade Aug 12, 08
    Pretty sure its been stated many times over, and once here, but I wouldn't pass it by them making multiple discs. There's still no problem with this solution, as clearly LO had it, and now FF13 on the 360 will be getting it as well.

    But there is still some benefits for the Blu-ray as Koloth stated above, but that, again, can be fixed with multiple discs.
    • 0
      Red 9 Aug 12, 08
      Multiple discs doesn't necessarily equal better graphics. If you want amazing graphics, you need to dedicate more room to the graphics. Which means you get considerably less gameplay because graphics are taking up room.

      So a four-to-five disc FFXIII isn't out of the question.
      • 0
        Final Blade Aug 13, 08
        Who said anything about better graphics. I was more inline talking about sound, but to be honest its not impossible, in fact I could see it being very likely to match the blu-ray qualities in multiple discs. The only reason why Blu-ray might look better is due to available space, having multiple disc's increases size of game and negates the issue of compressing it on one disc.
        • 0
          Red 9 Aug 13, 08
          MGS4 barely fit inside a 50GB Blu-Ray. If multi-discing could match that, there'd be a lot of discs.
        • 2
          Koloth* Aug 13, 08
          About 6. The 8.5 GB DVD9 disks that Microsoft uses could fit it on about 6 discs. Without any sort of compression of course.
        • 0
          Red 9 Aug 14, 08
          I rest my case then. Even a rabid fanboy wouldn't be able to justify 6 discs.
        • 0
          Koloth* Aug 14, 08
          I think it would depend on the game. Something like Final Fantasy which should last you a good 120+ hours 6 disks isn't so bad. A new disk every 20 hours or so.

          For a game like MGS4 which can be beaten in under 5 hours a new disk every 40 minutes would be a bit much.
        • 0
          Red 9 Aug 14, 08
          I would accept three discs, four at the most, but six? Even PS1 games didn't use six. The game case would be kind of big, wouldn't it?
        • 0
          Koloth* Aug 14, 08
          Not really. It wouldn't have to be any bigger than the double cases they use for some TV series. They could easily cram about 8 discs in a case like that. They managed to get 4 in a standard case along with a manuel for Lost Odyessy.

          But I think you're being pedantic. If the game was good enough and long enough people wouldn't care how many discs it was. As long as tey get to play it and it cost then the same. The thing is developers aren't going to go crazy on the 360 like that. Because Microsoft has a per disc charge for 360 releases that makes it prohibitively expensive to produce a multi disc game.
  • 0
    Slumpy monkey Aug 12, 08
    Well there going to allow installation of games now, So that could be an option.

    But most likely multi-disk will be standard near the end of the 360's life, so at that time it would not really matter, Not like it matters now anyway.
    • 0
      Red 9 Aug 12, 08
      The data still needs to be on the disc to install it.

      If multi-disc games is what they need, so be it.
      • 0
        Slumpy monkey Aug 12, 08
        Yeah, What I meant was that they could have multi install disks, then from then on you only need one disk to play, Like Pc games.
        • 0
          Red 9 Aug 13, 08
          But that'd be one crazy-ass install, wouldn't it?
    • 0
      Koloth* Aug 13, 08
      It clearly matters to Microsoft since they structured things so that it costs developers more money to put games on multiple disks. They are literally telling devs not to do it.
  • 0
    Storm Aug 13, 08
    I kind of hate this gaming era. The 8/16-bit days owned, you know, where it wasn't about the graphics. This era...we judge books by it's covers, then it sometimes ends up being a Lair or something of the sort.

    As long as the gameplay, story, and other elements are kick-ass, the graphics will balance out for me.

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