360 HD DVD add-on coming to US, Europe in mid-November for $200/?200/£130

@48

all your points are valid, and could easily be used as an arguement for the 360 as well. microsoft has the games, the hardware changes and could (will) also lower the price of their system to undercut sony if needed. microsoft already has a prooven online system in use so no waiting there. the main differece i see is that the people in the microsoft camp dont have to wait for anything at this point. they have been enjoying their system for a while now.

I won't invest in a next gen movie format until/if, there is a market winner.

I learned my lesson with Laserdisc and Divx.

All this nonsense about next-gen games needing next-gen disc formats is nonsense. Maybe when the ps4, xbox1080, and mii come out 5-6 years from now.
You have to wait for HDTV's to catch up to DVD's before you can force the new format upon people.

If half the people don't have HDTV's (and I am being rather generous here, because it is probably closer to 80%) how can you expect a high definition movie format to become the new movie/game standard? Three fourths of the population has to have HDTV's before you can start imposing HD movie formats.

"We'll all be able to sample RFOM at kiosks in stores around the country in less than a month (hopefully) why don't we reserve judgement as to whether a size advantage exists/doesn't exist until we play a game that actually takes advantage of the extra space."

People are tired of waiting. We have been waiting since the 360 has launched. We have heard all the lies Sony has spouted off with everything from when its launched to what games will launch with it and exclusitivity. Time to jump on board with the console that makes the most sense financially (Thank you MS for giving me the option for HD-DVD but for now I will pass) and gamically (Yes, I made that up. The 360 at this point destroys the PS3 in games). I know there are a lot of people having second thoughts about the $600 monster...

#52 I bet they won't confirm that it won't overheat on you though. lol

"Either way, the fact that Xbox 360 will do 1080p over VGA with seemingly RCA audio is a deal breaker for me. I am one of the people who's ready for 1080p, and with that high-end video I need high-end -OPTICAL- audio. Maybe such a cable will be released for the 360..."

Are you retarded or just simple? Have you ever looked at the A/V hook-up for a 360? Apparantly not.

KOTAKU ARE AT IT AGAIN!!! MICROSOFT FANBOY ALL-RANGE MODE!!! FROM THE TITLES "News Shocker Summary", TO THE POSTS "It sounds like X06 was quite an amazing press conference, filled with the sort of surprises and delights befitting a regular carnival of gaming.", "We've posted all of the news on the site" NO SHIT??? TONS OF POINTLESS POSTS, WHAT THE F**K ARE WE INTERESTED IN KOTAKU STALKING "MAJOR" NELSON... THEY SEEM TO BE A BUNCH OF FANGIRLS GIGGLING ABOUT NOTHING!!! THEY ARE SO INTOXICATED BY THEIR OBSESSION ABOUT EVERYTHING MICROSOFT THAT THEY PASSED THE RIDICULOUS STAGE A CENTURY AGO... I HOPE THEY ARE WELL PAID BY MS BECAUSE THEY DO A HELL OF A JOB PROMOTING THE 360!!! WHAT I DON'T UNDERSTAND IS WHY THEY DON'T ASSUME THEMSELVES & CALL THE SITE KOTAKU 360!!!

"Put Oblivion and change all the texture files to 1080p, add 7.1 Dolby HD"

I have 1920x1280 pictures at home. Compressed they take up about 1 meg each.

Adding 2 more audio channels and them compressing/encoding them to 7.1 Dolby should take up a paltry amount of space as well. Wait, what am I saying. That crap is generated (in game) on the FLY, so it should take up NO extra space other than a little more code for sound generation.

And if oblivion is just over 4 gb now, you think it will DOUBLE in size but bumping resolution up a hair?

Can we get a Sony de-Brainwashing in here?

About Madden, I'm telling you what people tell me as a manager at Gamestop. It's missing features, Madden 06 did not have voiceovers, character creation and the rest of the game was DUMBED down, because of LACK of DVD storage. Put the game in your computer, look how much it takes up! That's why the Xbox version of the same game has more gameplay options, but less in the graphical department. When Madden 07 came out, we had several returns and trade ins on it to buy the xbox/ps2 version of the game.

@13 Actually I looked into it yesterday. The cheapest 1080p DLP TV at BestBuy.com has VGA in AND supports 1080p through it

crono141.

Its future proofing. That is never a bad thing.

Most HDTVs use 1366x768 panels. Many Plasmas use even lower resolution panels. Why is everyone complaining that they can't send a 1080P signal to a 720P panel?

The few HDTVs that can actually display 1920x1080 pixels mostly do support 1080P over VGA and component.

"u no that applys to the 360 too
but good try genius"

1. What applies to 360? Could you be more specific when you insult someone.

2. No it doesn't, because DVD-9 read speed is about twice as fast as blu-ray speed.

3. If thats not what you were talking about... then I have no idea what your talking about. See point 1.

Cronos, he's talking about the 80 core IBM you spoke of, it makes the 360 cpu just as obsolete as the Ps3 one.

If you honestly think that Sony is going to have a price drop in the U.S. you are sorely mistaken. The only reason they are cutting prices overseas on the cheaper verison is because they only alloted 100k launch units to them.

So when the holidays role around and everyone in Japan can't buy a PS3 cause its sold out and low and behold the Wii and 360 are sitting on the shelf what do you think they are going to do?

I think releasing the HD-DVD "add-on" is a great price point. Because it is just that, an add on! You don't have to have it. Just like you don't have to have 25gb BR discs to have a great looking fun game. For example like many others, look at Oblivion, yeah I know "render it in 1080p with 7.1 audio then see if it fits on a single DVD9..." The game as it is right now is just over 4gigs, take out the audio now and redo it with the proper compression and add in the new audio and it will still come in under 8.5 gigs.

I am just as excited about the PS3 as all of the fanboys but come on it isn't even out yet and you guys are talking about how badass it is, how sweet the games are. What games? Resistance? Great if Microsoft came out with Resistance every Sony fanboy would be "look another crappy fps.." just because you are looking forward to it doesn't mean it is going to be the end all be all of gaming. See: Killzone

Backing up games with relative ease is the 360's best feature, fools! I bet lots of blackbeards are very happy MS went with DVD9 instead of HD discs. Won't be as easy for the bluray fans on PS3, will it? yarrr

AK

You have to have high definition content to push the sales of HD televisions. The PS3 and other players give consumers a reason to upgrade their current televisions. Therefore pushing penetration through the market. Sony has made this investment a little safer by bundling it with a gaming console and selling it at a pricepoint well below its current value.

The value of additional storage could play into gaming simply with the fact that developers can include all languages on a single disc and since games are now region free, you save on production and development costs associated with producing different game discs for different regions. Now you have games that are released worldwide at once, when a smaller developer would only have the ability to sell the product in Japan or North America because they didn't know the demand aspects of other countries. Another smart Sony business decision that would otherwise be overlooked by the consumer.

killploki

I definitely don't disagree that Microsoft has the proven online component, but they've built their console on online play and not everyone is interested with playing games online and dealing with some of the hassles associated with that. The PS3 isn't built around that aspect of gaming, but hopefully will provide it to a greater extent this generation. I just think that the XBOX players are more your traditional PC gamers and PS3 players are more interested in games with excellent single player aspects. As far as people still waiting for the PS3; that should show you just how much loyalty Sony has built up over the years. The difference between Sony and Microsoft is that at the end of the day Sony does listen to their customers. We demanded HDMI and a price cut (now that I think about it, you can still import the PS3 for cheaper and since Japan is in the same region as the US you're fine with movies as well as games) and we got both of those things. If they deliver on a free online service then we're good to go.

"Its future proofing. That is never a bad thing"

See previous post. If sony claims their tech is going to last 10 years, then they have no plans for another console until that time. X360 and Wii have no such self imposed restrictions. In 2 years there will be an aftermarket 80 core intel chip. In 5 years, you could see a Nintendo or Microsoft new console using a 25 core chip, dwarfing the capabilities of ps3 only halfway through its projected life cycle.

So "future proofing" is garbage. They want you to drop 500-600 dollars, and are saying you won't have to do it again for another 10 years because it will last that long. Well it won't, and it can't. Its just more Sony marketing hype.

http://www.engadget.com/2006/09/26/intel-developers-forum-roundup-four-cores-now-80-cores-later/

I really hope some of you get laid some time soon.

Uh, Nick (#57), you're not making sense. Yes, Madden is missing features on the 360, we know this and have known this for some time. It has SOD ALL to do with the space on the DVD though, it's just EA being bloody lazy about updating their code base to the new platform. The 06 games were rushed and the 07 games, while better, are still suffering for what we can reasonably assume is MUCH higher overheads associated with creating a next-gen graphics engine when there's only one platform available for those games. Otherwise, by your logic, Madden 07 would not have had a single feature more than 06.

Let's put this another way, as you're the manager of a gamestore look through the boxes of the latest PC games. Pick the biggest, baddest, most graphicaly-intense game you can find. Have a look at the hard disc requirements for that game. If you find anything over 9Gb I'd be surprised, and even then remember that the same game developed for two resolutions (SD and HD) built to run on a system that doesn't have to deal with multiple hardware configurations will take up FAR less space than a PC install. Just as a very fast example, look at Doom3. Total installed size on my hard disc right now with all the latest patches and a few extra maps is less than 2Gb. My entire Steam folder, including Half Life 2, Counterstrike Source, Day Of Defeat (original and source), Lost Coast, Half Life Source, Half Life Blueshit and a load of other titles comes in almost bang on 9Gb. That's Half Life 2, a game that certainly qualifies as graphically impressive and a game that's never been shy about gobbling hard drive space thanks to Steam and all the bloat / extra content that comes with it (delete as appropriate).

crono141

Just read this interview. Thanks.

http://www.dvd-intelligence.com/main_sections/executive_interviews/spath.htm

um... the ps3 can do this for $500. yes, there is a $500 dollar ps3 with a 20gb hdd

How is the PS3 the "latest" in tech, compared with 360, when all of the components were available when the 360 launched.

The main reason that PS3 is out so late is the difficulty with the Blu-ray.

So, PS3 fanboys, I hope the 1 year wait for Blu-ray is worth it.

@67
"we demanded HDMI and a price cut...." yes, sony may have been listening to its fans, but it may have also been doing some damage control from the negative pr leading up to that. as loyal as you say the sony fans are, they would buy the system without the price drop.

i dont understand the whole brand loyalty myself, i buy systems for the games. i plan on owning a 360 and if the ps3 impresses me i will buy that as well. at this point i will wait and see what happens for the holidays. get a good 360 bundle for now, and maybe next year get a ps3 when some better games come out and the price comes down.

darth pixel thats a good point, the 360 already sounds like a hoover on low, when you add the drive, it will be way too loud... I want silence during quiet film passages, not the sound of a hairdryer.

Steve

PC games are built to remain compressed when they are installed on a hard drive. Secondly, while he's looking through that store, see if you find any games that have Dolby HD or run in native 1080p.

My point is that PC gaming has the luxury of building the games around the fact that their is significant amount of compression on the disc and even once the game is installed. Load times and CPU usage would prevent the XBOX from utilizing the CPU for such tasks as decompression when you want to push the graphical envelope of the system.

If Oblivion is the zenith of next gen' gaming then God help us.

Thankfully it, and its use of disc space, isn't as good or as big as it gets. Here's to bigger better games, with less repetitive textures and snow that doesn't follow the player around the landscape.

@68 LOL

I've got to say as a happy 360 owner, who was quite pleased with all the gaming news from X06 today, I think this add on is going to be bad news for MS. For one, I think it's too expensive. It's essentially a drive unit only, as all the processing is done on the 360 itself. And as a device aimed targeted at videophiles, lack of HDMI is a far more glaring omission than it is on the 360 alone.

Additionally, look what this does for the pro PS3 camp from a sales perspective, as the pitch might go to the average consumer in Best Buy or Circuit City.
"You can by a PS3 and get the latest and greatest DVD technology, wifi connection, motion sensing controls, and next-gen graphics all for $599. To achieve the same with the XBox you'll need to pony up $697 and you'll have to make room for extra equipment."

I'm by no means sold on the PS3, and I'm all over BioShock, but this really muddies the waters on the sales floor for the XBox IMHO.

Exactly, If Oblivion is about a full DVD disc, why stop there? Why should Oblivion be the standard just because its a great looking, great playing game that fits on a dvd? When it comes to next gen, I want it to put my computer to shame, Oblivion looks pretty good on my computer, and I don't feel like I am playing a truly next gen game. I'm just saying that PS3 is going to have the room to truly take advantage of a larger disc medium, even if the systems are completley equal in graphical power. Longer games, cooler cut scenes, and quite possibly sharper graphics that will (in due time, years perhaps) push the power of the system.

Of course this goes with any system, as time goes on developers learn to push an old system as hard as it can go. As they do this the games near the end of a systems life look almost as good as lets say a PS4. I'm just saying a larger storage medium is going to help developers really expand on what the system can do, specifically in the future. I'm not expecting many ps3 games to look amazing, or even be good games at all. Much like any new systems launch lineup, or even the first year for that matter. I'm looking at every system here, ps2, ps3, 360 and gamecube. Now the Wii on the other hand actually looks like it might have a few instant classics when launch hits.

DBX,

Then why didn't Super Audio CD, or DVD-Audio succeed?
There was content.
People had CD players, and DVD players. Why didn't these formats take off, if the content was there?

It is more than just content. It is the market's willingness to accept the content, and abandon what they currently own.

isn't the 360's DVD reader only 8x for dual-layer discs, which most games already are? At that speed, BD at 2x would beat out the 360 in read times.

I also remember from way back when that 360 DVDs are limited to 7GB due to formatting. I havn't really been following the 360 that closely, did that change? Also, if that is true, why is that?

@Matt - I apologise if this is wrong (it's been a long day and the brain isn't working too well) but couldn't using uncompressed / unoptimised textures run the risk of flooding the graphics bus and/or graphics memory in certain situations? After all, if you're chucking 2Mb textures around as opposed to, say, 500k (numbers pulled from thin air) you're going to need a LOT more memory / throughput aren't you? And it's not as if either next-gen console has a spare 512Mb dedicated to the graphics hanging around, the PS3 has, what, 256Mb of graphics memory to play with? In theory anyway couldn't that lead to a situation where the PS3 has to take an uncompressed texture, apply compression and then actually chuck it at the graphics card?

With regards to what that space would be used for, the only thing I can realisticly think of is a ton of FMV cutscenes. Which lead me on to another thought, do we know yet what format PS3 game developers are using for their game FMV? Just thinking about the ongoing arguments between HD-DVD and BluRay movies, is this a case of 360 using something like VC-1 while PS3 is going the MPEG2 route for whatever reason? Maybe to ease the decoding load?

its amazing to read all these "expert" opinions on what can fit on a DVD9 disk. Procedural Synthesis is like magic, you dont even need a disk any more 'cause it can do procedural synthesis. The whole game can be done with 1m HD textures and Procedural Synthesis and voice files that only take up 256k each. Why, its amazing that they didn't stick with a CD drive!

Truth is that none of you know what you're really talking about technically, if you did you'd be too busy working 100 hour weeks actually programming / developing games. Maybe some of you looked some stuff up on wikipedia, but mostly the talk here is all a bunch of talking points that don't really say anything, no matter whats your platform of choice.

Matt

I just try to bring some maturity to the discussion. If I weren't around nobody would effectively argue the other side of the coin around here. I'm not exactly a fanboy of any console and plan on getting a PS3 and Wii if third party development holds up.

"Higher resolution graphics mean nothing if your system is not fast enough to use them."

- Wasn't the cell processor built to handle these calculations? I thought one of the benefits of the cell processor is that it could handle some of the GPU processing as well, which is why it was so hard to program for.

Load times for Ridge Racer 7 (I believe it was 100% complete at TGS in 1080p)

- "Namco Bandai's Ridge Racer 7 is gorgeous. After 36 minutes of waiting in line and 13 seconds of loading screens, we got a chance to play a track of one of the few PS3 games running in 1080p." Once again, I don't have to load all the textures from the disc as you may only require a fictional 1 mile radius at a time.

http://www.joystiq.com/2006/09/22/joystiq-hands-on-ridge-racer-7-ps3/

- I bring up Oblivion because that's the game that XBOX users keep referring to constantly. You ever think that the console version of the game lacked the graphical nature of the PC counterpart because they couldn't fit increased textures into the DVD format because the compression of the game had to be catered towards streaming off a DVD drive instead of installed on a hard disc like a PC game?

The New Revelation, the SXRDs that came out earlier this year do not do more than 1366x768 over VGA.

Look it up for yourself on page 60.

http://www.sonystyle.com/intershoproot/eCS/Store/en/documents/specifications/KDSA2000.pdf

I would also mention for $499 Sony gives you HD playback, 20GB HD, wireless/rechargable controller and HDMI.

MS charges $598 ($399 full system + $199 HD-DVd drive) for HD playback, 20GB, wireless controller. No HDMI, and a rechargeable pack and charger for your controller is $20 more.

MS' bundle price point is truly awful. Sony is killing them on value of you want HD playback.

But, on the other hand, if you want good games, X360 is killing PS3 on value.

there is no such thing as future proofing. you cant predict what new type of technology will come out in a few years.
even talking about 80 core intell chips, 5 years from now there could be a new type of holographic 3d laser processing core that is equal to 1000 regular cores.
technology evolves too much, too fast to try and stay ahead of it or adapt with it.

PS3 eh? Have fun playing Halo 3 on LIVE, or for that matter ...anything online! PS-Online is free ...cause who would pay for that garbage? PS will always be in MS's shadow when it comes to online pay, all the graphics arguments in the world are not going to change that.

How is this going to be worth it? Walmart will be selling HD-DVD players for $14.99 by that point.

360's dvd is 12x not 8 x and at its slowest speed its still as fast as the 2x bluray players cosntant rate

also fanboys argue all u want. today was a good day to be a 360 gamer. live anywhere canlt wait

"What is not true is the illusion that 25GB of pixels will be shown on-screen at once in 1080p, as Sony would have you believe.

It is either going to be big textures (that are really not much bigger than the 360's because of the PS3's video processing limitations) or a high resolution (that isn't much higher, because in order to run at an acceptable frame-rate, the textures will have to be dumbed-down).

What this all comes down to is that we, as consumers and gamers, will not notice a graphical difference in 95% of the games we play, on either system. Period."

....what about more levels? More content? I'm more excited by the idea that you could have game worlds be about 5x larger than last generation, using traditional non-procedural synthesis methods. Or even what about this? Create a world using procedural synthesis, freeze it after it was constructed, modify it and add in your own whatever touches to it to make it interesting, then stream the world off disc like GTA? That would free up your CPU to do other things rather than generating the world itself.

It's another debate entirely if developers actually use the space.. but it only takes one game to really show off what 25gb worlds are, and that game will be PS3 exclusive, and awesome.

hey people how;s it going well i plan buying the 360 hd dvd addon player when it comes out but i got a ? i was wondering if my tv will need an hdmi port or i was wondering if i could hook it up via component cables like m 360 on my hd tv

Expensive, and external. LAME. Should have been inside the box. I'll probably pass on this unless some movies that I really want in HD are exclusive to HD-DVD.

Chrono141, you're sounding like a fanbot yourself.

crono141 wrote:

"Have fun with those load times Sony fanbots."

*******************************************************

OMG LMAO! You think 'fanboys' care about load times? Excessive, maybe. Typical load times? Not at all. Not to mention, data can be streamed off the disc for minimal loads.

By the way; I would rather have more initial content from the oringinal purchase than have to buy all the extras online. Something that you will find out in time; due to limitations on DVD storage vs BRD. Developers know this; More storage is beneficial for more content and more detailed bitmaps.

When devs start creating FPSs that support an entirely desctructable enviroment, you may then see the differences between the need of storage.

Don't give me this crap about what system has cheaper games because of the expensive Blu-Ray. Other than GranTurismo HD (which even I think is insane), you have to pay an anual subscription to play your games online whenever you want (or for free play on the weekends - wow).

Right there, you pay more than me.

OMG! The PS3 is so over priced! Sony is ripping us off! Okay M$ fanboys;

Xbox:
$400 (to enable backwards compatibility)
$200 (add HD movie player)
$500 (10 yrs Xbox Live)

PS3:
$600

WOW... let me think this over. I think I'll save money with...

@Lekko - I'd love to see that, but I can (just about) remember the great CD revolution of the 90's and have heard the same arguments before. What we got was the same old games dressed up with lashings of FMV and, for PC's, a far more convenient distribution method than a bundle of floppy disks. I honestly don't think things have changed that much either, most games aren't much larger really than mid 90's titles in terms of playing time, just things look far better these days and have a lot more variety.

If a developer did go down the route of more content they have to pay for the creation of that content somehow. Now realisticly there's three ways of doing that: 1) Sell millions of copies. 2) Increase the cost of the game and hope it's good enough for people to pay the extra. 3) Go the micro payments route that Gran Turismo HD seems to be exploring.

I think the biggest argument against developers actually using all that space to create larger game worlds and other mind-blowing stuff is, again, the PC world. Here we have a platform that is virtualy unlimited in what it can do, has MUCH faster local storage than the consoles, has in some cases a gig or more of graphics memory (I'm thinking of SLI rigs here) and we have yet to see anything really push the boundries. Yes, a first party title might do so at some point but that'll probably be about it, especially as the public has become so demanding these days. Can you imagine the outcry at a game that mapped an area the size of the UK but had to repeat its textures every few miles? Far easier to create an area the size of London where everything's unique. Plus it cuts down on development and, most importantly, testing time.

One other thing, for a game to trully take advantage of bluray it would need to be of a size that cannot be compressed into less than 9Gb. Assuming for a moment a 4:1 compression ratio as being somewhat realistic, that would mean a developer creating at least 36.1Gb of material. I just don't see that happening on this generation. Maybe, just maybe, in five years time when the next set of HD standards hits and the next-next-gen of consoles comes along specificaly designed around that sort of game size (with content creation tools suitable for the job) then we'll see it. But this time round? No, everything I've seen points to the PS3 being bottlenecked in too many places to ever really take advantage of using all that space for actual game play in 99% of titles. Not saying it's not possible, and there are probably some advantages for developers in not having to worry quite so much about space, but if more than a handful of titles use it (out of necessity) I'll be amazed. Also, and this is a bit random, can you imagine being a gamer sat in front of a console that was constantly spinning the disc at high speed to read in game assets? If a bluray drive is anything like every other optical drive I'd imagine it wouldn't exactly be whisper quiet and ultra-cool while doing such a thing.

To all XBox360 owners who are getting the add-on:

SHUT UP! I'm a nice guy but all your rambling about the PS3 price makes you no different from those who are buying a PS3. You're in the same bracket as us,then you guys try and justify it by saying,"Oh its cheap!" be quiet from now on because you have nothing else to say about the Ps3 price, yuo're just as stupid as us Ps3 future owners who s would spend $600.00 period.

Now that's end of story.

Ps- You guys just eat you're own words and don't say anything to anybody about price.

The types of things you people use to argue one system's merits over anothers is a bastardization of gaming. To speak nothing of graphics and performance, the reason I like owning an Xbox 360 is because I like playing Kameo, and Fable 2 will be coming out for it. I got a PS2 after Shadow of Collossus came out in 2005. I was buying 5-year-old technology! No regrets. I love the Cell-shaded graphics in Zelda WW on Gamecube, and I'm looking forward to the awesome gameplay on the graphically inferior Wii. I'm a REAL gamer, the rest of you just suck.

damn right Im right Matt, I just dont see why Joystiq doesnt post it.
JUST ANNOUNCED IN 1 UPS NEW PODCAST. OBLIVION IS THE SECRET PS3 LAUNCH TITLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
http://www.1up.com/do/feature?cId=3150150 its 30 mins in.

"PS3 eh? Have fun playing Halo 3 on LIVE,"
NO.. you have fun playing 1 game online for the next 3 yrs untill another halo comes out while ps3 owners play 100's of hours of mgs4, dmc, ff13, gthd, rfom, etc....

o and to everyone else quit writing fucking essays on these post...noone is reading them!1

Steve- right, anyone would be stupid to think that most games will have a huge increase in size, I'm just excited by the possibility that that avenue is open to explore if you want to. Also, because BD is standard and not optional, that game could be more feasible if the PS3 has a high enough adoption rate to support the financial side of things.

If the PS3 sells well enough, and enough are put into houses, than more budget can be allocated for game development, and those bigger games could be reasonably produced since you have a large enough user base to sell to.

Also, you can't really push the boundaries on PC games because the more you push the envelope, the smaller your potential return can be since not everyone has a top-end system. The best solution is a variable setting game where you can max out settings if you have top end, or turn everything down if you have a low-end system. That solution only really works for graphics, and cannot be used for pivotal gameplay mechanics. That's why PC games generally don't push the boundaries of what is possible in a game. Although consoles are somewhat limited in power by comparison, so neither is really suited. Technically speaking, the only medium for a truly unlimited game would be... an arcade. there you could have guaranteed top-end hardware, and software catered to a new experience. The only problem is: arcades aren't popular anymore to warrant that kind of tech.

As far as needing to be large enough to not fit on a DVD-9 compressed... that's a gray area. You could probably get a HUGE game to fit on a DVD-9, but at the same time, it could very well suffer from that very compression. If the world is a streaming world (like GTA is), than you have to dedicate a greater amount of CPU time to decompress the world to make it playable. That CPU time could better be used to push more characters on screen or smoother physics simulation. I'm not saying a huge game can't be done on a DVD-9, I'm just saying that it can't do it without taking a hit somewhere else.

One funny thing that I myself have noticed, is that GTA on PS2 running off a hard drive actually runs slower than if ran from a disc. This is because farther off areas are instantly loaded, and makes the PS2 have more in draw distance, thus slowing down the framerate. Kinda funny how that worked out..

All I'm saying, is that BD gives game creators more options, and that's always a good thing. The 360's add-on is only really for movies, and doesn't give any developer any advantage. In the end, you buy a console to play games, not movies. Sorry Sony, but just because I'll have a BD player in my home, doesn't mean I'll watch more movies on it, especially when they a) cost more and b)I don't have a HD set yet. Once I do have that set... we'll talk.