Yoshihiro Maruyama - "No Xbox 360 Games on HD-DVD"

[fitbabits]

You can read the full story here (http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=12661), courtesy of GamesIndistry.biz (http://www.gamesindustry.biz)

Japan's chief of Xbox operations, Yoshihiro Maruyama, has confirmed that while a version of the Xbox 360 console which can read HD-DVD discs is a possibility, the next-generation DVD standard will never be used for games on the platform."If the Xbox 360 uses a next-generation DVD drive in the future, it will only be used for watching movies that run on next-generation DVDs."
No comment...

[bapenguin]

There's no way they could do it....it would split their market even further.

[fitbabits]

There's no way they could do it....it would split their market even further.
I'm tempted to say that there needs to be a viable market before it can be split (in reference to Japan, of course), but I think I'll leave it up to others!

[Zawath]

Bigger discs aren't needed in this console generation. Even ES4: Oblivion fits into one DVD disc and that game is huge. Only those games with loads of prerendered cutscenes need larger format.

And for the PC, the BlueRay & HD-DVD formats won't appear anytime soon. Hell, the American gamers still use CD-ROM for most of their PC Games so they aren't switching to HD-DVD/Blueray anytime soon.

[Atorak]

Or...God forbid, they have to split a game into 2 DVDs.

*gasp*

[Morratut]

The reason why the 360 doesn't have HDDVD drive now is because it's so expensive and still in the future.Simple.

Besides i'm not upgrading my DVD collection anytime soon :)

[tvgm2]

Well there's another push towards Blu-Ray.

[Borys]

In other news: grass is still green and sky is still blue.

Zawath, you are wrong on so many levels. With your kind of thinking the PS2 would have went with a CD instead of a DVD drive.

[EvilBob46]

Bigger discs aren't needed in this console generation. Even ES4: Oblivion fits into one DVD disc and that game is huge. Only those games with loads of prerendered cutscenes need larger format.

For the nth time: Mark Rein has stated that Gears of War will need about 20 GB and thus require at least 2 dual-layer DVDs (3 if you do the math). Gears of War is a game that will be rendered almost entirely ingame. A reason why Oblivion would neeed less space is perhaps because the game is also coming out on the PC and will probably need 3-5 CDs as is without Bethesda going overboard with texture data.

[NoName]

I don't think this is going to stop developers from making xbox360 games and I don't think this is going to stop people from buying the system. It's good to note and that's about it.

[fitbabits]

I don't think this is going to stop developers from making xbox360 games and I don't think this is going to stop people from buying the system. It's good to note and that's about it.
Exactamundo!

[CaptStu]

But, you will see much larger hard-drives and the availability to download your games through Live at a reduced price ... hopefully. No format is needed.

[Roc Ingersol]

A reason why Oblivion would neeed less space is perhaps because the game is also coming out on the PC and will probably need 3-5 CDs as is without Bethesda going overboard with texture data.
The reason, is probably much closer to procedural generation vs handcrafted.

[bean19]

Just because this comes up all the time in these conversations:

DVD has smaller storage space (4.7 Gigabytes or 8.5 Gigabytes if double-layered). The data transfer rate for DVD is 1350 KBs, so the X360's data transfer rate with their DVDx12 will be 16.2 MB/second.

Blu-Ray (used in the PS3) discs have larger storage space (23.3 to 27 GB - single layer or 46.6 to 54 GB - double layer). The data transfer rate for Blu-Ray is 4.5 MBs/second (36 Mbits converted to MBs for linear comparison), but they may come out with 2x Blu-Ray drives will raise this to 9 MB/second. Let's hope so as 4.5 MB/second is a really slow transfer rate for streaming game information. It deserves to be mentioned that the Blu-Ray is designed to add even more layers for even greater data storage int he future with as much as 100 GB's being possible. Definitley the data storage winner, but the data transfer loser.

The HD-DVD that is mentioned actually has a lower storage capacity than the PS3's Blu-Ray drive too (15 GB or 30 GB dual layer). This mirrors the data transfer rate of the Blu-Ray DVD, at 4.5 MB/sec (36 Mbits/sec).

Basically the advanced drives are focused around playing high definition video. Even the largest games out right now top out at around 9 GB after instillation (without data compression). Also, these games (like Everquest II) generally use most of these assets for voice or video, so they could easily be split between multiple DVDs. In Act I you do not need the video or voice from the end of the game, just as you don't need these for the beggining of the game.

Will this mean that the PS3 will ship with a hard-drive so that many of the games assets can be pre-cached to the hard-drive, maybe only playing the disk for video sequences due to the inferior transfer rate from the disc? Let's hope so.

Will it mean that X360 games that have lots of high definition video, like Japanese RPGs, may have to be separated onto separate discs and that consumers will have to change out discs every 5 to 10 hours like we did with Resident Evil 2, Xenosaga, or Shadow Hearts: Covenant. Yeah, probably.

But it will beat the hell out of the PS3 for loading times unless they do a standardized hard-drive and precaching to the HD as their default in production. I'm really hoping the PS3 does this as it would give them superior storage space AND (more importantly) superior data transfer rates instead of vastly inferior ones.

No more loading screens that take as long as those in "Jade Empire" please!

[NoName]

No more loading screens that take as long as those in "Jade Empire" please!
With the way things are today, load times are a big turn off for me. One of my major annoyances in Radiata Stories was the game loading each room when trying to run through the castle/town. The movement felt way to choppy.

[bean19]

Quick stats and summation for those who don't want to read my novel above:

X360's DVDx12
Storage Capacity: 4.7 to 8.5 GBs/disc
Data Transfer rate: 16.2 MBs/sec

X360's if they used HD-DVD isntead of DVD
Storage Capacity: 15 to 30 GBs/disc
Data Transfer rate: 4.5 MBs/sec

PS3's Blu-Ray
Storage Capacity: 23.3 to 54 GBs/disc
Data Transfer rate: 4.5 MBs/sec (possible 9 GBs/sec if they get the x2 made for the PS3)

So you have a fast transfer rate vs. much slower rates on the newer drives that have much larger storage capacity. If you are more interested in playing high definition movies than playing games, these drives are superior. Otherwise, you can just switch discs occassionally during play (like between ever 5 to 10 hours - they did this on other games previously with CDs and no one refused to buy Resident Evil 2 or Xenosaga II because of it).

Basically Microsoft is selling it's High Definition movie player as an attachment, which makes a LOT of sense given that it is bullocks for streaming data. However, the PS3 could still win technically if they pre-cache to a hard-drive that they sell standard with the system. Let's hope they do so. . . I would hate to spend another $400 on the PS3 and have it be the "load screen" system.

[bean19]

With the way things are today, load times are a big turn off for me. One of my major annoyances in Radiata Stories was the game loading each room when trying to run through the castle/town. The movement felt way to choppy.

I didn't like that either. . . but did you ever play Jade Empire??? It is way more of an offender than Radiata Stories. . . especially when you get to the tournament. . . You would load up for over a minute for a one minute or less fight, then load back out to set up the next fight (takes 10 seconds) and then load in again. You were LITERALLY loading more than playing. Very frustrating.

[Paranoia]

I would hate to spend another $400 on the PS3 and have it be the "load screen" system.

Get real, even PC with the fastest HDD still have loading screen.

[bean19]

Get real, even PC with the fastest HDD still have loading screen.


Oh, no doubt. . . but they are also considering that they want each level to be playable for their minimum settings which are usually around 256 MB's on PC. Hopefully, with faster data transfer and more RAM, we'll get fewer AND faster load screens on next gen consoles.

Also, don't forget streaming technology. If they can stream from the disc fast enough to move in and out of RAM quickly then this is possible, but if they need to precache everything because the disc reads too slowly to stream or is more limited in speed for the streaming then we are borked.

Basically I want to see an improvement in this, or at the very least, not a fall backwards to MORE loading screens or longer loading screens. After all, there is a lot more data to transfer with bigger, newer games.

[NoName]

Get real, even PC with the fastest HDD still have loading screen.
Right, you load some things in the beginning and you're good to go. If there are mid game loading screens, they're usually far between and don't take to much away from the game.

[Leaving Hope]

I didn't like that either. . . but did you ever play Jade Empire??? It is way more of an offender than Radiata Stories. . . especially when you get to the tournament. . . You would load up for over a minute for a one minute or less fight, then load back out to set up the next fight (takes 10 seconds) and then load in again. You were LITERALLY loading more than playing. Very frustrating.

This--and Xbox Media Center--is a leading reason for why people mod the Xbox. They buy games and copy them straight to the HDD; the load times are significantly decreased. It also creates a backup so that the original discs don't have to be used.

It's great when you have young children that aren't careful with optical media.

[Paranoia]

They buy games and copy them straight to the HDD; the load times are significantly decreased.

Makes pirating games damn easy too.

[Dabombpizza]

Makes pirating games damn easy too.
Well, take a hint from steam and create a network that allows you to purchase games and D/L them to the HD (as was brought up earlier). Put in some authentication and then pirating becomes a whole lot harder.

[jacktion]

What you are feeling is the long slow comedown from the high hype of over-inflated expectations. The b.s. promises of MS that the 360 will make you fly and inject you into virtual worlds through magical means are slowly being pared back to reality. It will end when the first games are played by people and they realize they are just like the xbox games but with better textures.
Don't you get it that just cause a machine has more storage, it does not make the artists and animators and game designers any better? They are still the same people making games now. The games will be just like now. But higher rez textures.
I was in the Best Buy looking at the demo of basketball and I heard someone say, "huh, I thought it would look better."
That basically sums it up. The animations are still choppy. The faces still look like weird zombie doll versions of the real people.
I'm just saying don't get your hopes up too high. It's going to be more of the same.

[Paranoia]

Put in some authentication and then pirating becomes a whole lot harder.

Online authentication? HahHAHaHAHhahHAhaHAHAhAhahA!!!!

[Dirty Harry]

Online authentication? HahHAHaHAHhahHAhaHAHAhAhahA!!!!
hah, yeah seriously haha. You (one you quoted)are aware TEH HAXORZZZ, OH N03S, ripped the games and removed steam, and infact you can play cs and dod and all that jazz for free. Its not perfect obviously and i see its somewhat pointless to not play half life on steam (not as much service, and servers/players). Anyways being a pirate is bad so don't do it.

[Dabombpizza]

Yes, but not everyone is TEH HAXORZZZ. You have significantly reduced the pirates from average joe schmo who has his Kazaa download going, to more technologically savy pirates, which there just aren't as many. Also, with online authentication you are essentially paying for online multiplayer. Sure, you can download BF2 for free from right places, but you don't get rankings, unlockable weapons, or the sweetness of a wide variety of servers to play from. So yes, any security is crackable, but there are certain securities that provide benifits to those that buy the game, unlike CD-checks which just bring the gamer down.

[Balthasar]

Quick stats and summation for those who don't want to read my novel above:

X360's DVDx12
Storage Capacity: 4.7 to 8.5 GBs/disc
Data Transfer rate: 16.2 MBs/sec

X360's if they used HD-DVD isntead of DVD
Storage Capacity: 15 to 30 GBs/disc
Data Transfer rate: 4.5 MBs/sec

PS3's Blu-Ray
Storage Capacity: 23.3 to 54 GBs/disc
Data Transfer rate: 4.5 MBs/sec (possible 9 GBs/sec if they get the x2 made for the PS3)

While all of this is probably true, you've made a bit of a leap here in assuming Sony will force Blu-Ray as a standard for game discs. The PS3 will be able to play standard DVDs, so if streaming is an issue for programmers, I see no reason why they wouldn't just release it on DVDs instead.

[Dirty Harry]

Yes, but not everyone is TEH HAXORZZZ. You have significantly reduced the pirates from average joe schmo who has his Kazaa download going, to more technologically savy pirates, which there just aren't as many. Also, with online authentication you are essentially paying for online multiplayer. Sure, you can download BF2 for free from right places, but you don't get rankings, unlockable weapons, or the sweetness of a wide variety of servers to play from. So yes, any security is crackable, but there are certain securities that provide benifits to those that buy the game, unlike CD-checks which just bring the gamer down.
about the bf2 point,
The weapons are server side variables as we have seen in the demo of the game, where people where unlocking the weapons and vivendi tried to blacklist the servers.

[Dabombpizza]

about the bf2 point,
The weapons are server side variables as we have seen in the demo of the game, where people where unlocking the weapons and vivendi tried to blacklist the servers.

I did not know that, point taken. But, regardless, authentication serves as an incentive to buy the actual game. If you look at piracy and how business models have adapted to create pirates into consumers it has been very succesful. The tranformation of napster and the building of iTunes is the most notable. But also Nintendo embracing the emulation nation (sorry it just came out) I think is another example of business embracing these new models that piracy creates.

If I could download all my games and it was cheaper then buying them (no DVD cost) then god yes I would do that, and I don't doubt it would cut down on piracy.

[Dirty Harry]

I did not know that, point taken. But, regardless, authentication serves as an incentive to buy the actual game. If you look at piracy and how business models have adapted to create pirates into consumers it has been very succesful. The tranformation of napster and the building of iTunes is the most notable. But also Nintendo embracing the emulation nation (sorry it just came out) I think is another example of business embracing these new models that piracy creates.

If I could download all my games and it was cheaper then buying them (no DVD cost) then god yes I would do that, and I don't doubt it would cut down on piracy.
See there are many sides to the arguement and personally i dont side with anyone but myself. There is only one rule in life and that is to outdo and outperform everyone else so in the end you are alive and well and your tummy is full. This is just my opinion, and naturally you have to follow the rules of the land you live on so pirating software is naturally illegal. The truth is the two main groups of people that are most vocal about anti piracy protections on games are the pc owner crowd who have to swap 5 cds out of the cd rom a day to play even though you've installed the entire game to your harddrive and the other group is pirates. I think the pirates non-legitimate complaints about the game industrys cd protections completely outweigh the actual legitimate complaints. So i think this is one of the reasons that we will never see and end to cd protection or infact minimal protection. Newer games are using authentication methods such as starforce and steam for example. Steam\valve took the smart approach and made the games content encrypted so the game wasnt "Haxored" untill the game was actually released.
This was a smart move on valves part to stop piracy but it also hurts the consumer because i know for a fact 10 people who had to wait an hour for the game to unlock after the 7 (i cannot remember) disc install.

So in the end do we get rid of cd protection and let the consumer be happy and let piracy reach unheard of levels or do we keep the consumers unhappy and try deseperately to keep a hold of piracy?.

[doyama]

Games will never come out on HD-DVD because the xbox360 market is already so fragmented. YOu have some units with hard drives, others that dont. Guess what not many developers are going to invest time in taking advantage of those hard drives because you'd alienate those customers that don't.

Same with HD-DVD. Is a publisher going to release 2 differenet versions with 2 different SKUs for one product? That's a retail shelfspace issue cuz then you have less shelf space for your product. So publishers are going to insist on the lowest common denomiator so that DVD will be the de facto standard.

[bapenguin]

So in the end do we get rid of cd protection and let the consumer be happy and let piracy reach unheard of levels or do we keep the consumers unhappy and try deseperately to keep a hold of piracy?.

It is somewhere in between. It's a delicate balance...

[bean19]

While all of this is probably true, you've made a bit of a leap here in assuming Sony will force Blu-Ray as a standard for game discs. The PS3 will be able to play standard DVDs, so if streaming is an issue for programmers, I see no reason why they wouldn't just release it on DVDs instead.

Oh, great point Balthasar. They could totally do DVDs like the X360 and still get good transfer rates. Does anyone know the data transfer rate for DVDs for the PS3?

[Kelegacy]

I didn't like that either. . . but did you ever play Jade Empire??? It is way more of an offender than Radiata Stories. . . especially when you get to the tournament. . . You would load up for over a minute for a one minute or less fight, then load back out to set up the next fight (takes 10 seconds) and then load in again. You were LITERALLY loading more than playing. Very frustrating.

I made a Bioware voodoo doll during the Jade Empire load screens. They were excrutiating.

[Murmillo]

Same with HD-DVD. Is a publisher going to release 2 differenet versions with 2 different SKUs for one product? That's a retail shelfspace issue cuz then you have less shelf space for your product. So publishers are going to insist on the lowest common denomiator so that DVD will be the de facto standard.

This same issue came up between cassettes and CD's. For a long time (10 years or so) you could easily see and find an equal numbers of cassettes as you could CD's in nearly any music store. After a while, the final push was made toward CD's to that cassettes only took 5% or less of the store space.

So much for always pushing for the lowest common denomiator. :rolleyes: Old tech gets pushed out, and if that means fighting over your own floor space to make it happen, so be it.

Developers don't code for the lowest common denomiator because they feel like it, they need to make a living so they need to recoop (and make a profit) off thier game. It just happens that coding for the lowest common denomiator fits this goal.

Out of a $50 game, $35 or so goes into marketing, sales, floorspace, shipping and all the useless overhead. Another $10 goes to the publisher, leaving on average $5 to the developer. $5 per copy sold doesn't go very far if only a handfull of people can buy it.

If bungie said, Halo3 = HD only and be damned the fans who don't have one! and bungie could guarantee they would still make a major profit in doing so, I could see it happening.

[bean19]

Out of a $50 game, $35 or so goes into marketing, sales, floorspace, shipping and all the useless overhead. Another $10 goes to the publisher, leaving on average $5 to the developer. $5 per copy sold doesn't go very far if only a handfull of people can buy it.

While otherwise you make a very good point, this just isn't true. About $10 retailer at the point of sale, and about $10 of a title goes to the publisher (although this can be much less depending on the title. For example, those $20 games are still making at least $5/sale for the developer).

Every deal is different of course, and some companies spend a fortune on marketing while a large number don't spend anything beyond the use of the game media (hiring PR personnel for it).

Every company is different and every deal is different, but I've made a study of this for my business course by looking at smaller developers that only developed one title at a time and looking at their quarterly reports when they are public. It is really difficult to get ACTUAL sales numbers and then I have had to apply them often only to net losses or gains over a quarterly period. There is a lot of math to this, and there is definitely a "hump" for profitability that moves. Basically, you have to try to estimate this "hump" as this is the developers operating costs versus their net profit.

The point is that this is always different, but that the amount of money going directly to a developer with each sale of a game varies between a low point of about $5 for budget software to a median point of about $20 ($15 to $25) for a AAA title that sells for $50 at release.

I'm not sure where you are getting your numbers, but even really successful games would not be profitable if developers were only receiving about $5/game sold. Keep in mind that selling a million units is considered a big success for a video game title and $5 million is not the kind of money that you need to run a studio of a 100 highly paid professionals, support staff, etc. for 2 years of development while still showing a noteworthy return on your investment. $15 to $25 million will not only keep the doors open, but will make your investors happy and allow companies to have an occassional flop and still stay afloat.

Finding this information is extremely difficult though. I think they must keep it under the hat to prevent competitors from knowing their business model and/or to keep employees from demanding more money. It might also be to keep investors from fleeing as video games seem to be a high risk investment in relation to their reward potential.

[Murmillo]

Your right, I had no hard down on paper numbers, but I know that most developers are not getting a whole lot of money back on thier games. Maybe I was more aiming for the worst case type of budget planning, ala, little known/new developer type who don't have the "weight" to demand better. Obviously a bigger and more invloved studio can demand more money if they have the history to prove it (BioWare, bungie.. etc.etc).

But not all titles are AAA, and not all titles require 100 highly paid professionals 24/7.

[*Legion*]

Zawath, you are wrong on so many levels. With your kind of thinking the PS2 would have went with a CD instead of a DVD drive.

Wow. Not only did Borys construct a straw man argument, but he had the straw man facing backwards. Bravo.

[bobbler]

Who here still thinks MS, if they actually even bother to create a next gen drive add-on, will go with HD-DVD?

Has nobody noticed the fact that MS doesn't explicitly say HD-DVD, or when they do, they always say something like "HD-DVD or other next generation format".

Don't be too sure you'll get an HD-DVD drive in that as an add-on. Infact, I would question anyones sanity that actually thinks we'll see a next gen drive add-on at all. It just isn't worth it for them, there is no good reason for them to do it; they only said it might be a possibility because they didn't want to explicitly say "no" on the topic when asked -- always leave a window open, even when you probably won't use it.

[Eric_T_Cheng]

And for the PC, the BlueRay & HD-DVD formats won't appear anytime soon. Hell, the American gamers still use CD-ROM for most of their PC Games so they aren't switching to HD-DVD/Blueray anytime soon.

I was so pissed off when I found out Call of Duty 2 came on SIX CD-ROMs! Grrr... it could have easily fit on one DVD!

[The Iron Weasel]

I was so pissed off when I found out Call of Duty 2 came on SIX CD-ROMs! Grrr... it could have easily fit on one DVD!

It does.....you just have to pay a little extra for it....I did, the extras arn't really worth it, but I had a happy time installing the game.

[bean19]

Who here still thinks MS, if they actually even bother to create a next gen drive add-on, will go with HD-DVD?

Has nobody noticed the fact that MS doesn't explicitly say HD-DVD, or when they do, they always say something like "HD-DVD or other next generation format".


Oh, I think they will. They will just wait until it is at a profitable price point and they'll sell it for what it is. . . a peripheral intended to play high definition movies, not a peripheral intended to play games.

If they ever moved towards a better storage device, they'd simply precache to the Hard-drive (because the HD has a much higher data transfer rate) and still use DVDs for the install (and to play movie sequences or other large data portions that aren't called upon during gameplay sequences like voice-acting, etc.) It wouldn't make sense to move to an HD-DVD or Blu-Ray if they transfer data more slowly than the DVD drive, especially when the hard-drive will have a much larger pre-existing install base and superior performance.

Data Transfer Rate:

Hard-Drive > DVD > HD-DVD = Blu-Ray

[Dabombpizza]

It's amazing how games are not being published on DVD as standard. You'd think that someone who can meet the sys reqs for CoD2 might have a freakin' DVD drive.

[The Iron Weasel]

It's amazing how games are not being published on DVD as standard. You'd think that someone who can meet the sys reqs for CoD2 might have a freakin' DVD drive.

You'd think that, but apparently, we're wrong.

[bean19]

It's amazing how games are not being published on DVD as standard. You'd think that someone who can meet the sys reqs for CoD2 might have a freakin' DVD drive.

Two things really:

1. This is not actually true. There are a lot of people who DON'T have systems with DVD drives. They could purchase one and install it themselves for only about $30, but there really isn't any reason to quite yet. All they have to do is spend an extra 5 minutes on the install, so why spend that little bit of money? Also, it is a bit more for someone who has to have it professionally isnstalled. Basically the feature of installing more quickly is not worth the expense to a lot of people and thus the market is still predominately only people with CD players. This will change in about 2 years probably.

2. People who have enough money to have a DVD drive or care enough about the 5 minutes saved on the install can buy the special edition version for an extra $5 to $10. It makes the Special Edition version more appealling for games that sell a higher priced special edition.