Despite Metal Gear Solid 4's teasing about the limitations of the DVD format, developers are already feeling the gigabyte crunch. Take Microsoft's own Forza 3 project (What? You didn't think they were working on another one?) which, according to the recently mined Xbox survey, won't be able to squeeze into a single DVD: "due to the number of cars and tracks included in the Forza 3 game, it will be sold as a 2-disc set."
Of course, the drawbacks of having multiple discs can be mitigated by handling the extra data intelligently, reducing the need to swap discs repeatedly, so we'll focus on the second part of that equation: one-hundred tracks? Seriously?
Reader Comments (101)
Posted: Jun 15th 2008 8:27PM (Unverified) said
You are probably one of those guys who calls GT:P a demo but went out and gushed over Grid. Grid actually has less cars than that $40.00 demo you speak about. Keep telling yourself you would rather have multiple disc sets rather than a storage medium that actually has more than enough storage. If you continue to tell yourself that you might actually start to believe it.
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Posted: Jun 15th 2008 8:41PM (Unverified) said
@Solid Chief
You are ***probably*** one of those guys who calls GT:P a demo but went out and gushed over Grid. Grid actually has less cars than that $40.00 demo you speak about. Keep telling yourself you would rather have multiple disc sets rather than a storage medium that actually has more than enough storage. If you continue to tell yourself that you might actually start to believe it.
Please elaborate Oh wise one
There were actually a lot of GT:P trolls who gushed over Grid. Which one of those games is a better value for the price?
I would have preferred the 360 use HD-DVD rather than DVD-9 even if it required installs. That way we would not have issues like this one pop up as games have more depth and require a larger storage medium.
I guess calling GT:P a $40.00 demo is not judging or showing bias at all is it? I should expect from someone with a Master Chief avatar.
Reply
You are ***probably*** one of those guys who calls GT:P a demo but went out and gushed over Grid. Grid actually has less cars than that $40.00 demo you speak about. Keep telling yourself you would rather have multiple disc sets rather than a storage medium that actually has more than enough storage. If you continue to tell yourself that you might actually start to believe it.
Please elaborate Oh wise one
There were actually a lot of GT:P trolls who gushed over Grid. Which one of those games is a better value for the price?
I would have preferred the 360 use HD-DVD rather than DVD-9 even if it required installs. That way we would not have issues like this one pop up as games have more depth and require a larger storage medium.
I guess calling GT:P a $40.00 demo is not judging or showing bias at all is it? I should expect from someone with a Master Chief avatar.
Posted: Jun 15th 2008 8:57PM Premature ejaculation man said
=3
Its more to do with that, while yes he did downplay GT5:P as a $40 demo, you came in and went "GRAAAH! YOU PROBABLY BOUGHT GRID BUT GT:5 IS BETTAR! ALSO YOU SHOULD STOP CONVINCING YOURSELF THAT BLURAY IS SHIT BECAUSE IT IS ACTUALLY SUPERIOR! RAWR!!!"
When
1) He didn't even talk about Grid, on top of which, this is about Forza 3 (aside from the aforementioned downplay)
2) Where the hell did he say anything bad or good about blu-ray?
All he really said, was that he doesn't mind having two disks. He never said he LIKED it, he never said he PREFERRED it (over other available alternatives). So I still stand by my judgmental statement because you assumed a fair amount there.
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Its more to do with that, while yes he did downplay GT5:P as a $40 demo, you came in and went "GRAAAH! YOU PROBABLY BOUGHT GRID BUT GT:5 IS BETTAR! ALSO YOU SHOULD STOP CONVINCING YOURSELF THAT BLURAY IS SHIT BECAUSE IT IS ACTUALLY SUPERIOR! RAWR!!!"
When
1) He didn't even talk about Grid, on top of which, this is about Forza 3 (aside from the aforementioned downplay)
2) Where the hell did he say anything bad or good about blu-ray?
All he really said, was that he doesn't mind having two disks. He never said he LIKED it, he never said he PREFERRED it (over other available alternatives). So I still stand by my judgmental statement because you assumed a fair amount there.
Posted: Jun 15th 2008 9:40PM (Unverified) said
2 disc...how cute.
Forza was a nice distraction for me, but when GT5P hit, Forza's hoe card was pulled. They are going to have to make gigantic leaps to even come close to what is coming in GT5.
Reply
Forza was a nice distraction for me, but when GT5P hit, Forza's hoe card was pulled. They are going to have to make gigantic leaps to even come close to what is coming in GT5.
Posted: Jun 15th 2008 9:44PM (Unverified) said
@Master Chief Guy
"GRAAAH! YOU PROBABLY BOUGHT GRID BUT GT:5 IS BETTAR! ALSO YOU SHOULD STOP CONVINCING YOURSELF THAT BLURAY IS SHIT BECAUSE IT IS ACTUALLY SUPERIOR! RAWR!!!"
When did I say anything about Blu-Ray? Then I actually went on to elaborate in my most recent post. You see you chose to read into my post that i was huffing and puffing because thats how you chose to see it.
So Master Chief Guy also = Judgmental
By him saying he doesn't mind multiple disc's and then railing on GT:P its pretty safe to assume exactly what he meant.
I call it deductive reasoning you call it judging.
Whatever I don't care but don't act like your any better when you just did teh same exact thing.
Reply
"GRAAAH! YOU PROBABLY BOUGHT GRID BUT GT:5 IS BETTAR! ALSO YOU SHOULD STOP CONVINCING YOURSELF THAT BLURAY IS SHIT BECAUSE IT IS ACTUALLY SUPERIOR! RAWR!!!"
When did I say anything about Blu-Ray? Then I actually went on to elaborate in my most recent post. You see you chose to read into my post that i was huffing and puffing because thats how you chose to see it.
So Master Chief Guy also = Judgmental
By him saying he doesn't mind multiple disc's and then railing on GT:P its pretty safe to assume exactly what he meant.
I call it deductive reasoning you call it judging.
Whatever I don't care but don't act like your any better when you just did teh same exact thing.
Posted: Jun 15th 2008 10:00PM ExMcCloud said
Actually all they have to do in Forza 3 to improve from Forza 2 is the graphics, and put an in car view on all the cars...GT5 is actually taking everything that Forza did and using it with no improvement.....GT TV is Forza TV that comes on the speed channel(Great show by the way), They wouldn't have even put car damage in the game if it wasn't for all the bloggers saying but "Teh Forza has damage", driving assist like the brake paths, and real time car assessment, and the Auction house(the best feature on the game in my opinion). Plus the online racing and is head over heels better than GT5:P So give Forza respect. But their is things they could have done better which I expect them to fix.
Gt5 will be a great game but Polyphony has all the pressure on them, lets not forget the guys from Turn 10 were on the Polyphony development team a while ago. I expect Forza 3 to be the best racing game in the last 5 years...Over 100 trax? 400 cars...Thats insane.
Reply
Gt5 will be a great game but Polyphony has all the pressure on them, lets not forget the guys from Turn 10 were on the Polyphony development team a while ago. I expect Forza 3 to be the best racing game in the last 5 years...Over 100 trax? 400 cars...Thats insane.
Posted: Jun 15th 2008 10:02PM Premature ejaculation man said
Man you're right! Haha. We can both be judgmental together =)
Reply
Posted: Jun 15th 2008 10:22PM Premature ejaculation man said
Depends...Have you got a clean memory card and a full battery for your camera?
Reply
Posted: Jun 15th 2008 10:26PM pavs said
Dude, I was so with you on the whole $40 demo until I rented it from blockbuster and put in 59hours. Thats actually just as much time as I played in GTAIV (if you dont count multiplayer and some unsaved data)
So I guess my point is, if you wanna get the viper and some of those GT concept cars, you will quickly realize this is not just a demo, but a very, very long preview of whats to come from the full version next year.
Reply
So I guess my point is, if you wanna get the viper and some of those GT concept cars, you will quickly realize this is not just a demo, but a very, very long preview of whats to come from the full version next year.
Posted: Jun 15th 2008 10:26PM Nick the Hero of Canton said
GT5 Prologue is part of a game released before the full games release. How is this not a demo?
It's a huge demo, but a demo nonetheless.
Reply
It's a huge demo, but a demo nonetheless.
Posted: Jun 15th 2008 10:33PM (Unverified) said
Damn Poop,
You are a very unpleasant individual.
Reply
You are a very unpleasant individual.
Posted: Jun 15th 2008 11:04PM (Unverified) said
@Co
Are you throwing your hat in the judging party as well ? As usual you bring so much to the conversation that none of us could ever get by without you.
Reply
Are you throwing your hat in the judging party as well ? As usual you bring so much to the conversation that none of us could ever get by without you.
Posted: Jun 15th 2008 11:16PM (Unverified) said
@Nick
If you have played and you still think that its a demo thats your opinion. I think it says exactly what it is in the title - A prologue - As in the opening scene of an act. But whatever I am over the whole thing. My point in comparison to Grid is pretty valid when someone pulls the demo card. Grid has less cars than the GT:P demo. So, going by that logic Grid is just a long demo for Grid II.
Like I said I am not going to argue about it. There is no need to derail this thread anymore as it has nothing to do with GT:P.
@Halo guy
Its all good man I thank you for the reality check. Glad I could send one back your way. Sometimes we can all get a little fed up with the same shit over and over on this blog. Same shit different day all over again. Even though we are all grown men (most of us) we all take it personal when someone talks about our favorite game or system.
You should see Co when anyone says anything thats not giving the Wii a rub down. He goes into a shit fit.
Reply
If you have played and you still think that its a demo thats your opinion. I think it says exactly what it is in the title - A prologue - As in the opening scene of an act. But whatever I am over the whole thing. My point in comparison to Grid is pretty valid when someone pulls the demo card. Grid has less cars than the GT:P demo. So, going by that logic Grid is just a long demo for Grid II.
Like I said I am not going to argue about it. There is no need to derail this thread anymore as it has nothing to do with GT:P.
@Halo guy
Its all good man I thank you for the reality check. Glad I could send one back your way. Sometimes we can all get a little fed up with the same shit over and over on this blog. Same shit different day all over again. Even though we are all grown men (most of us) we all take it personal when someone talks about our favorite game or system.
You should see Co when anyone says anything thats not giving the Wii a rub down. He goes into a shit fit.
Posted: Jun 15th 2008 8:06PM (Unverified) said
I'd rather they make this game have funner (less realistic) physics and less "omg lets completely stop so we can make the turn properly".
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Posted: Jun 16th 2008 12:53PM SoCoolCurt said
dude, Forza is a simulation racer in the same vein as Gran Turismo. its supposed to be as realistic as possible. there are plenty arcade racers out there that would appear to suit your needs.
Reply
Posted: Jun 15th 2008 8:07PM (Unverified) said
I think the best way to handle this is by allowing the second disc to be installed as if it were DLC.
In that way.. you get the extra content without needing to swap discs.
I wonder if MS will allow this?
Reply
In that way.. you get the extra content without needing to swap discs.
I wonder if MS will allow this?
Posted: Jun 15th 2008 8:25PM (Unverified) said
That or one disc is exclusive for single player and the other for multi player. Either way I look forward to a new racer.
Reply
Posted: Jun 15th 2008 8:31PM (Unverified) said
They would were it not for the Core & Arcade SKUs. They would never alienate their base. I do find it amusing that they say the 360 has a 20 Gb HDD when in actuality only 13 GB's of that is usable. Obviously it is not as big of a deal on the 360 as it is on the PS3 due to the mandatory installs but it is blatant false advertising.
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Posted: Jun 15th 2008 8:39PM KeenCommander said
Not really, it's a 20GB hard drive - it's not false advertising that you can't use all of it, it's pretty much accepted that this is the way things work. My "500 GB" drive is only 465, my "160 GB" is only 143 and my "30 GB" MP3 player drive only actually gives like 27.9. It's a pretty much accepted thing at this point, I highly doubt the PS3's hard drive has exactly the claimed space available.
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Posted: Jun 15th 2008 9:07PM simbadogg said
@ Keen Commander
do the math on your...anytime that you have a 80 gb, 120, 320 500 750 hd...no matter the size, you generally lose about 7%.
i think his beef, mr mcpoop, is that it loses 35%. Thats a boat load...especially considering that there "OS" for the console isn't going to be contained on the HD like it would on a computer (think about the arcade...no HD at all)
Reply
do the math on your...anytime that you have a 80 gb, 120, 320 500 750 hd...no matter the size, you generally lose about 7%.
i think his beef, mr mcpoop, is that it loses 35%. Thats a boat load...especially considering that there "OS" for the console isn't going to be contained on the HD like it would on a computer (think about the arcade...no HD at all)
Posted: Jun 15th 2008 9:16PM (Unverified) said
@Keen Commander
I don't care who is doing it because I feel is it false advertising. It is outright lying to consumers and you are right that it is not just Microsoft. Its nothing but an elaborate rouse but in the 360's case it is not just due to reasons as stated below. It also because there are X number of GB's reserved for functions within the OS.
What should be done is they should make the HDD capacity 26.5 GB so that there is actually 20 GB of usable space.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigabyte
From the link -
As of 2007, most consumer hard drives are defined by their gigabyte-range capacities. The true capacity is usually some number above or below the class designation. Although most manufacturers of hard disks and Flash disks define 1 gigabyte as 1,000,000,000 bytes, the computer operating systems used by most users usually calculate a gigabyte by dividing the bytes (whether it is disk capacity, file size, or system RAM) by 1,073,741,824. This distinction is a cause of confusion, as a hard disk with a manufacturer rated capacity of 400 gigabytes may have its capacity reported by the operating system as only 372 GB, depending on the type of report.
Reply
I don't care who is doing it because I feel is it false advertising. It is outright lying to consumers and you are right that it is not just Microsoft. Its nothing but an elaborate rouse but in the 360's case it is not just due to reasons as stated below. It also because there are X number of GB's reserved for functions within the OS.
What should be done is they should make the HDD capacity 26.5 GB so that there is actually 20 GB of usable space.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigabyte
From the link -
As of 2007, most consumer hard drives are defined by their gigabyte-range capacities. The true capacity is usually some number above or below the class designation. Although most manufacturers of hard disks and Flash disks define 1 gigabyte as 1,000,000,000 bytes, the computer operating systems used by most users usually calculate a gigabyte by dividing the bytes (whether it is disk capacity, file size, or system RAM) by 1,073,741,824. This distinction is a cause of confusion, as a hard disk with a manufacturer rated capacity of 400 gigabytes may have its capacity reported by the operating system as only 372 GB, depending on the type of report.
Posted: Jun 15th 2008 9:19PM (Unverified) said
Great point Simba about the OS not being on the HDD. The problem is in deed the fact it is such a large chunk of the available disc capacity. They should have just called it a 13.5 Gb HDD from the start because saying that its a 20 Gb HDD is extremely misleading in my opinion.
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Posted: Jun 15th 2008 11:24PM Vidikron said
Hard drive sizes are ridiculous. Technically, they are being measured correctly according the correct definitions of the SI prefixes like "giga", "mega", etc... But that's not traditional method of measurement cor computers. It's rather ridiculous that hard driver manufacturers measure cacaity one way, while manufacturers of everything else (system RAM, video card RAM, CPU cache, etc...) use a different system.
Anyway... Gigabyte and Gibibyte... look them up and then you will understand why HDD sizes aren't what you think.
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Anyway... Gigabyte and Gibibyte... look them up and then you will understand why HDD sizes aren't what you think.
Posted: Jun 16th 2008 7:54AM spin cycle said
A significant portion of the 20GB drive on the 360 is reserved for original Xbox backward compatibility. Those games were promised X amount of space to store data in, and the games wouldn't run if it weren't there. Also, there is "personality" data per game that runs in BC. These "personalities" customize the software emulation in different ways for each game so that the game runs as close to the original quality and framerate as possible.
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Posted: Jun 15th 2008 9:46PM (Unverified) said
And those guys saying GT5P is a demo.....
You should know that it has more content than probably 75% of next gen titles.
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You should know that it has more content than probably 75% of next gen titles.
Posted: Jun 15th 2008 8:34PM (Unverified) said
I have to agree there Khan. It's not a big deal if the multiple disc's are each a different section of linear map thus having no need for backtracking. It would be horrible in a racing game or an open world/sandbox game. However, pundits who say there is no need for the extra space that Blu-Ray offers need to look no further than Lost Odyssey & Blue Dragon. I am curious how many disc's the often rumored MGS 4 would be on the 360.
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Posted: Jun 16th 2008 8:50AM (Unverified) said
Final Fantasy VII had multiple disks on PS1 and its widely regarded as one of the best games ever. So really this is a non-issue.
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Posted: Jun 16th 2008 9:17AM (Unverified) said
What's funny is that disc swapping only recently became an issue when Blu-Ray became a selling point for certain individual's console of choice.
My guess....not an issue if the PS3 used DVD9.
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My guess....not an issue if the PS3 used DVD9.
Posted: Jun 16th 2008 9:58AM NeoNaoNeo said
@JohnPoop
It probably would've been on several discs on 360, but you have to figure, the disc changes would've been made the same time PS3 users are watching Snake smoke for 8 minutes, so it probably would've been quicker to change them.
Apologies for paraphrasing Jerry Holkins, but: 'Blu-Ray is only a convenience if it is actually convenient, if it doesn't require concessions either at the beginning of an experience or at several points throughout. It's amazing to me that this is considered progress.'
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It probably would've been on several discs on 360, but you have to figure, the disc changes would've been made the same time PS3 users are watching Snake smoke for 8 minutes, so it probably would've been quicker to change them.
Apologies for paraphrasing Jerry Holkins, but: 'Blu-Ray is only a convenience if it is actually convenient, if it doesn't require concessions either at the beginning of an experience or at several points throughout. It's amazing to me that this is considered progress.'
Posted: Jun 15th 2008 8:11PM (Unverified) said
Two disc's is not any big deal at all. It's just like if you were switching discs to play another game. How will this work though, is it going to be like "please insert disc two to play with the ferrari".
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Posted: Jun 16th 2008 12:37AM (Unverified) said
Gran Turismo 2 was also on the PS1. Two generations old and about 10 years ago.
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Posted: Jun 16th 2008 8:05AM spin cycle said
One disc for sim, one for arcade makes a lot of sense, especially with rumors of the demise of PGR.
Basically, by buying Forza 3, you'd be getting one "Forza 3" disc and one "PGR5" disc.
I'm not really looking forward to two discs. I'd rather not have to swap at all. But if MS does their job right, I'm sure the pain can be minimized.
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Basically, by buying Forza 3, you'd be getting one "Forza 3" disc and one "PGR5" disc.
I'm not really looking forward to two discs. I'd rather not have to swap at all. But if MS does their job right, I'm sure the pain can be minimized.
Posted: Jun 15th 2008 8:16PM Premature ejaculation man said
Whats better?
Two discs?
Or 4gig install?
OH I WENT THERE!
Reply
Two discs?
Or 4gig install?
OH I WENT THERE!
Posted: Jun 15th 2008 9:24PM (Unverified) said
Well I would rather have the one time install as opposed to multiple disc's. Also, this problem could be rectified with further hardware SKUs in the future. Blu-Ray is new technology and it will only improve as time goes on in the future. However, the 360 will always have capacity issues because they chose to use DVD-9 instead of say Blu-Ray or HD-DVD.
Honestly neither one of them are a huge deal to me. I have Lost odyssey and Blue Dragon and as Khan said because those games are extremely linear it is not a huge deal to swap the disc because there is no backtracking. I think the point is that it could be more cumbersome in different types of games that will release in the future. Possibly Forza 3 but we will not know until we see how the data is split up.
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Honestly neither one of them are a huge deal to me. I have Lost odyssey and Blue Dragon and as Khan said because those games are extremely linear it is not a huge deal to swap the disc because there is no backtracking. I think the point is that it could be more cumbersome in different types of games that will release in the future. Possibly Forza 3 but we will not know until we see how the data is split up.
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