Viewing Thread:
"storage needs improving"

I posted this in another forum but not many people seen it. If you have already read it then sorry for having it here again.


Although consoles have improved greatly over the past ten or so years, one
thing seems to have improved very little, and that is what our games come on.
Originally it was cartridges for the likes of the NES,Master System,
SNES,Mega Drive, N64 and a few others. The arival of the Playstation say the
change to CD based consoles, the Dreamcast also uses this. Then with the
arival of the PS2 we say the leap to using DVD's to store the game data.

I thought it would be a good idea for the big name companies, mainly Sony,
Nintendo, Microsoft, Sega and some hardware companies to try and create a
new type of storage device that would increase the capacity available to the
programmers.

I heard nintendo had a new type of CD/DVD that they where going to use but
I'm not sure if this is true. I also heard of new technology currently being tested
in Japan, where one small disk (it is square shaped and is about 6cm long) has
the storage capabilities of around 5 DVD's.

Console improve all the time so why not try and make the storage that the
games improve too, this is what we need for the so called "next generation
console". It won't happen with the PS2, GC or X-box but hopefully with the
consoles after that.

Technology changes all the time. The Amiga used to have a 1MG expansion
now we use that as a memory card on a PSX. Eventually the need for better
technology will come and no doubt someone will be there with a new
invention to shock the world.

With a CD you can hold at most 783 MB. The most you can store on a DVD is
around 15.9 GB but thats only if it is double sided and double layered. IBM
have been working on Holographic data storage, early devices have the storage
capacity of around 125 GB and a transfer rate of around 40 MB. Eventually
these devices could reach 1 TB (Terrabyte =1000GB) with a rate of 1GB a
second.

Imagine a games machine that uses this technology. It obviously wouldn't be
for a while but imagine what this could do, instead of buying games they could
be downloaded straight to your console and stored on a small disk, games
developers would have far more room to create games without having to worry
about how much room is left on the disk. I think in the future the storage will
greatly improve, maybe not like this for quite some time but it will gradualy get
there. You could have more than one game on each disk, maybee even between 5 and 10.
Also with the greater amount of space available the way games are made could
be changed offering the new users a new experience.

Mini disks are great. I've got loads. Do you know that if you record on to the disk in mono it doubles the length of the disk. I know the sound is a little crap in mono compared to stereo but if its for a personal MD player its hard to tell the difference.

Do you think one day minidisks will have small DVD's in them? That would be a good idea for the people of sony.

yep i have to agree mini discs are amazing

I just found out that Nintendo, unlike sony and microsoft, are not using DVD's for its games. Instead they will use 1.5-GB proprietary optical discs with a diameter of 8 cm (3.14 inches). A compact disc has a diameter of 12 cm (4.72 inches), which is the size of the Sony/microsoft game discs. The PS2 & X-box use DVD which hold 4.7GB (single sided single layered) and could use up to 17GB if they were double sided, double layered. Are nintendo making the same mistake they made with the N64. The cartridges couldn't hold as much as a CD and the games weren't as good as they could have been.

So why are Nintendo using these small disks? My fisrt thought was to do with piracy. like cartridges these small disks will be hard to copy and probably exspensive to copy so people will think twice before trying to do it.

My next though was maybe they wan't to be different, use small disk so people think its different as the small disks look better and can be stored easily. nobody will really think about how much data they can hold.

What I don't understand is why they don't go with the rest of the console and use the best storage that is available. At the moment that is DVD's, so why use these other disks. This could cost Nintendo in the long run as games improve and require more space on the disk.

I think it's great how over the years we've gone from cassette tapes, floppy discs, cartirdges e.t.c to finally end up with CD and DVD, and Nintendo's forthcoming optical discs. Whilst they give more storage space it's not necessarily going mean better games....anyone who remembers the first PC CD Rom games will agree here ! They were massive, unplayable FMV games with little to recommend them ; just having loads of space for games doesnt mean anything really.

As for Nintendo opting to use these new discs...well looks like they haven't learnt from past experience. Unless Nintendo convince companies to do music e.t.c on this format then the new console is "just" a console. Sure, maybe I'm massively wrong here, but I think people like a bit more when you consider the PS can do DVD, games, and music. With DVD audio ( which I've only heard one album of so far ) launching properly this year around December, and the increased popularity of DVD I think Nintendo may be on the verge of the Twenty-first century Betamax ! ( okay bit extreme but it's kinda apt )

Aliboy, how can ninty be making a mistake! Even when the GC eventually dies, their current format is big enough... maybe a few games will use more than one disc, but so what!

After all, it'd cost more to double side and double layer... which was the main problem with carts!

Sonic

> I have just found out that Nintendo, unlike sony and microsoft, are not using DVD's for its games. Instead they will use 1.5-GB proprietary optical discs. The PS2 & X-box use DVD which hold 4.7GB


I really don't want Nintendo to fail (even though I am a PS2 owner) as they have allways put out good games, and when I had my PS I liked going to my mates house and playing his N64.

But they have done it again. Why on earth have they shot themselves in the foot like that by making the discs with so little space? piracy? fine. they could have made them bigger though. As the graphics get better and better they will need more space, and with the promise of the graphics that the GC is boasting, I recon these tiny discs will hinder them. I doubt MGS2 would fit on one. Final Fantasy?

They are missing out on the latest technology. DVD is a format now accepted as much as VHS and CD in this country despite how new it is. Surely adopting this format would make sense for such things as the inclusion of a bonus music video or celebrity voiceover interviews, or even the basic inclusion of DVD quality video playing in-game.

Because PS2 supports DVD, it supports DVD movies as an extra. This has proven to be a key selling point for the machine, with many people buying the machine as a dvd player.

Also, these discs are going to be specially made for the machine, like the cartridges were for the N64. Cue high prices...

Well done for trying to do it your way, Nintendo, but sticking with the big boys is a lot easier, especially when you have the N64 to make up on, the X-box a week later, and a phenominal amount of hype surrounding your machine. Good luck!

Hope Nintendo have a few more reasons for opting for this new format than anti piracy ones. After all, history has proved that just because a format is new doesn't mean it cannot be copied; just takes time for someone to crack it. For example: DVD's were supposedly hard to copy at first but now any one can do a search and turn up a variety of progams which will put DVD material to a hard disc then convert it to a more space-saving format. Even though I have a PS2 I'm kinda interested in the Game Cube but the idea of it using its own format is not very reassuring.

Richer Sounds are currently offering a DVD player/recorder (like the phillips dual deck cd writer seperates ayatem) for about a grand. the cd one was about 600 quid when it first came out, and not you can get them for less than 200. expect DVD writers to be affordable within 3-4 years or so.

I doubt it supports ps2, buy blimey! (for want of a better/stronger word!)

Nintendo having a whole new disc nails piracy for quite a while, almost permenantly. the machines that made the ninty carts were owned solely by ninty, and publishers who wanted to sell a game had to physically buy the carts from them at about £6 a shot (thats why they were so much money). I recon they are doing it again, so that nobody has access to the writer machines other than them. expect prices to be high again.

The pirates will have to have a lot of facilities to bootleg the games on this new format. PS1 can be pirated easily cos the discs are available at pc world for about £20 per 50 or so. they will have to be able to manufacture the discs as well as write them with a machine they would have to make themselves and I doubt they would bother.

The biggest problem with N64 copying was that the game ROMS could be stored on a machine which was easily available for the purposes of back-up ( yeah right...... ) This same machine then could either play back the ROm thus giving access to the game or could upload it to a PC meaning it could be used by emulators.

I don't believe "Nintendo having a whole new disc nails piracy for quite a while, almost permenantly. " one bit, as for "The pirates will have to have a lot of facilities to bootleg the games on this new format." : simply not true. All they will need is either;

1. A machine which does a basic copy of the game to another media which can then be played via the machine on the Gamecube.

OR...

2. Blank copies of this new media, if its as good as Nintendo say then someone, somewhere, is going to find another application for it. Nintendo were the only ones making the cartridges because they were useless for anything else !

Nintendo want their machine to be unique, but I doubt they will have the first machine that games cannot be pirated for. Sony tried on PS2 with magicgate technology which kinda works from what I've heard from talking to people. So far about 4 people have returned a PS2 to where I work saying they "had it chipped but it won't play all copied games, so can I have my money back please ?"........Oh dear eh ?

The first version of the holographic memory should appear in a hard drive in 2003/2004 so if there comes a time where we see a PS3 or another nintendo console, maybe we will see this kind of technology being used.
They also plan to release holographic memory players which use 3-D disks. The disks are similar to DVD's except they can hold around 27 times more data than a 4.7 GB DVD and would have data rates 25 times faster than today's fastest DVD players.

Thats just the early models so who knows what could happen nearer the time, I just hope that the developers of the consoles don't overlook this.