Now it's official: Blue Ray has lost the battle

[eldaec]

Games could easily become that big [30Gb], simply because of hi def audio (+localized versions to boot).

This all goes without mentioning that 640k is never enough.

They undoubtedly will become that big eventually.

But console games won't do so on this or the next iteration of hardware - after which we'll be posting threads about the next generation of media; and having one extra disc at install on a PC game doesn't matter.

[HaemishM]

As far as Blu-Ray technological advantages go, it has better capacity and is a better "platform" (for lack of a better word) for interactive content (BD-J vs HDi).

Since you asked, better capacity means FUCKALL to me. I remember when DVD was first being touted, and it was going to have all this extra content like DIFFERENT VIEWING ANGLES and etc. etc. etc. Guess what? All that extra capacity didn't get filled with different viewing angles, it got filled with mostly useless shit that I look over once and forget. Or 15 billion Shamalamadingdong interviews about how it was such a twist to have the aliens melt in water. Other than deleted scenes, I don't ever tend to look at much extra stuff anymore. The LOTOR discs really killed that for me, because they did the format's capacity right. Everyone else was just filling discs with crap.

And as for my reluctance to upgrade formats AGAIN, I still own VHS tapes and Laserdiscs for movies I don't have on DVD, because I am getting sick of being expected to re-buy all my movies every time some fucking marketing executive wants to put an uptick on the stock price for a quarter.

Nothing has made me think either format is any better than the other, which means as I've said over and over, it'll come down to price of the player and content on the format. All that other shit is marketing bullet points in a war I give not a fuck about.

[geldonyetich]

And as for my reluctance to upgrade formats AGAIN, I still own VHS tapes and Laserdiscs for movies I don't have on DVD, because I am getting sick of being expected to re-buy all my movies every time some fucking marketing executive wants to put an uptick on the stock price for a quarter.

This is a good point.  I wonder if we can get Hollywood to loosen their purse strings enough to allow us to purchase the right to get our movies in any format we want.  I can see this leading to Phantom-esque digital download services.

[HaemishM]

We could, if Hollywood would just let us burn our downloaded movies to DVD in a format that didn't immediately make the damn thing locked into just that format.

But they won't do that, because they WANT to sell us Pulp Fiction in a new format every 5 years from now until the end of time.

[Riggswolfe]

Games could easily become that big, simply because of hi def audio (+localized versions to boot).

This all goes without mentioning that 640k is never enough. ;)

They could. But I'm not sure I want a 30 gig game sitting on my hard drive. And with a console it'd be even more of a problem I'd think.

[Velorath]

Since you asked, better capacity means FUCKALL to me. I remember when DVD was first being touted, and it was going to have all this extra content like DIFFERENT VIEWING ANGLES and etc. etc. etc. Guess what? All that extra capacity didn't get filled with different viewing angles, it got filled with mostly useless shit that I look over once and forget. Or 15 billion Shamalamadingdong interviews about how it was such a twist to have the aliens melt in water. Other than deleted scenes, I don't ever tend to look at much extra stuff anymore. The LOTOR discs really killed that for me, because they did the format's capacity right. Everyone else was just filling discs with crap.

The trick I hate these days is the "20 minutes of deleted and extended scenes" shit, where 17 out of those 20 minutes are the same scenes you already saw, but slightly extended with one line of dialogue, or a longer pause inbetween people speaking, or other stupid shit like that.

[schild]

Goddamnit! I already fucking said it! Blue Dragon is 3 Dual Layer discs!

Final Fantasy XIII will UNDOUBTEDLY be at least 25GB. Metal Gear Solid probably will as well.

And there'd be no shock and awe if Atlus stuff got that big by the end of this generation.

[HaemishM]

Goddamnit! I already fucking said it! Blue Dragon is 3 Dual Layer discs!

And?

[stray]

And that's not good for a year old system?


Anyways...

Comparing DVD and HD games aside (which is completely retarded btw), I thought the debate here was HD-DVD vs Blu-Ray (as it pertains to films).

On that note, I'll be fair, you can't go wrong with any of them really. 50GB or 200GB capacity (BD) hasn't quite showed it's use as of yet. Not with films. Even with hi-def multi-region audio, a full 200GB isn't going to be tapped. 50GB maybe, especially if you count extras, documentaries, and the like. This could really become an issue considering that this is a region free media, and companies might want to put a bunch of languages on one disc.

[EDIT] Deleted creative vocabulary. I shouldn't make up words. Only a few here are good at that ;).

[Trippy]

Goddamnit! I already fucking said it! Blue Dragon is 3 Dual Layer discs!

And?

He's responding to eldaec and others that believe that a single dual-layer DVD is all that's needed to fit the content for this generation of HD console games or even the next.

[Big Gulp]

Goddamnit! I already fucking said it! Blue Dragon is 3 Dual Layer discs!

Final Fantasy XIII will UNDOUBTEDLY be at least 25GB. Metal Gear Solid probably will as well.

So I guess what you're saying is that without the astounding capacity of Blue-Ray we'll be forced to swap discs in order to enjoy cinematics of effeminate Japanese man-boys?

That's a shame.

[Calantus]

Hey! Behind those effeminate Japanese man-boys are the corny stories and formulaic gameplay we all love.

[HaemishM]

What Gulp said. I really don't give a shit about disc-swapping when I'm playing the game for 100 hours. And I really don't give a shit about effete man-boy Japanese NAMBLA fantasies.

[stray]

It depends on how the games are built, for me. I wouldn't want to swap discs when I backtrack to old areas and zones in an RPG, for example. If they tried to include those zones you'd revisit on all discs though, then it wouldn't be a problem.

Still, more capacity is always better. Did you guys not have a PSX or DC or something? Hell, those didn't even pose a problem until later in their lifecycles anyhow. Hi-def textures and hi-def audio are problematic even for an action game. Those things require a lot of space. You couldn't even make one over 20 hours with those features on to one DVD.

[HaemishM]

Who makes 20 hour games nowadays? Oh, right, effete manboy Japanese NAMBLA fantasy fetishists.

[stray]

Who makes 20 hour games nowadays? Oh, right, effete manboy Japanese NAMBLA fantasy fetishists.

Did you not buy a Wii and Zelda? Zelda is long. And that isn't even in HD. It'd be huge on the Xbox or PS3.

Or what? You'd rather have Fable?

Okami is long.

Bioware/Obisidian games last 30 or 40 hours. GTA lasts quite a bit.

15-20 is probably a sweet spot for me (as far as action games I'd like to pay for). DMC, MGS, Ratchet and Clank, and RE all fall under that category. RE might be a little longer. 10 hours or so a bit discouraging (at least if I'm gonna pay for something).

[Sky]

I like long rpgs. I got about 60 hours out of Gothic 2, and it was technically my second playthrough (I quit about halfway through last time when I heard about the Raven expansion in Germany).

But I like long action games, too. Finished X-Men Legends 2 after about 30 hours iirc, that was nice and could've been longer. Great game to jump into for small chunks of time. Thinking of playing it again with Iron Man and Deadpool now that I've unlocked them. Probably not, just wait to get MUA.

KotOR took me 60hrs light side, then 40 hrs dark side, enjoyed it all the way through.

Not sure I'm up to take on BG2 again, though. A lot to keep track of there, old tech...my girlfriend just got her first taste of Minsc and Boo last night while I was doing the newbie dungeon in BG2.

Anyway, 30 hours for XML2 seemed a little short to me, but it was still pretty satisfying...so I'd say anything less than 30 I feel a bit gypped.

[Strazos]

BG2 + ToB can take an Obscene amount of time. I think I heard 200hrs+ bandied around at some point. I forget how much time I took when I played through, though I'm sure it was tons.

[Riggswolfe]

BG2 + ToB can take an Obscene amount of time. I think I heard 200hrs+ bandied around at some point. I forget how much time I took when I played through, though I'm sure it was tons.

My girlfriend and I just played it through Coop. We started with BG1 and went through TOB. We played on average 3 times a week at 6-7 hours a time, let's call it 20 hours a week.(A couple of weeks we played less, on several saturdays we logged in 12 hours, easily.)  We started in early October and just finished a week ago. Though we did have almost two weeks off of playing due to her going home for Christmas. So yeah, 200+ hours is about right, and that's with me skipping a few quests and knowing exactly where to go and what to do for pretty much everything in the games.

[HaemishM]

Who makes 20 hour games nowadays? Oh, right, effete manboy Japanese NAMBLA fantasy fetishists.

Did you not buy a Wii and Zelda? Zelda is long. And that isn't even in HD. It'd be huge on the Xbox or PS3.

Or what? You'd rather have Fable?

I liked Fable.

Bioware/Obisidian games last 30 or 40 hours. GTA lasts quite a bit.

Jade Empire and KOTOR were on the very cusp of being just too damn long. Not because they weren't fun, but at some point, they both started to feel like the designers were just throwing enemies at me to artificially lengthen the time played. The first X-Men Legends (and especially Marvel Ultimate Alliance) felt like that too.

15-20 is probably a sweet spot for me (as far as action games I'd like to pay for). DMC, MGS, Ratchet and Clank, and RE all fall under that category. RE might be a little longer. 10 hours or so a bit discouraging (at least if I'm gonna pay for something).

15 hours is about the sweet spot. After that, most games just start throwing repetition at you anyway. Resident Evil 4 and Metal Gear Solid 2 were longer than that, but right up to the end of both games, there were still new bits of gameplay added, things that weren't just like the last 50 enemies I killed. Things like the knife fight with Wesker in RE4. I'm sure Zelda will be very similar, but I'm taking that game very very slowly.

I hate hack and slash just for the sake of elongating the games. It feels like I'm playing a goddamn MMOG solo.

[Sky]

I found the hack-n-slash mechanic of XML2 fun, though. I was a little too burned out at the end to replay /the entire game/ again with Iron Man, but hardly because the gameplay wasn't solid. It's hard to gripe about gratuitous hacking in a game that's all about gratuitous hacking :)

Juggernaut wins AGAIN! ;) I do admit the catchphrases were driving the old lady crazy by the time I was finishing up. Especially switching to Toad for his awesome SoW + dmg buff, then back to Juggy ("Yeah, whatever."). In fact, Toad's SoW buff kinda spoiled me when I started playthrough 2 on difficult with Iron Man...

It feels like I'm playing a goddamn MMOG solo.

You say it like it's a bad thing ;)