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Ok so what is this topic about then? Well it is all about the different storage mediums used by consoles and games machines past and present and maybe even what to expect in the future.
I’ll start with the past going back as far as when I started playing games.
The first computer I had when I was a kid used a tape machine to play games. You put the tape in and about 35 minutes later the game finished loading, so if the game was really poor then you had to wait ages to load a better one. While it was loading you could go watch TV, sleep, eat etc until it was Loaded. It also made a horrible noise as the tape loaded so you knew once this had stopped it had either finished loading or crashed completely. Tape wasn’t really a good storage medium for games but at the time it was the most cost effective and the best one they could use due to the fact it could hold quite a bit of data and was quite cheap to make. Tapes could easily be copied and people did exploit this fact and copy them for friends and some to sell for money. Piracy has always been a problem in the industry, it has grown over the years due to the fact more people are getting interested in gaming and the standard of games are so high these days.
Floppy Disks
I remember when we got an Amstrad and it played floppy disks, it changed the way I though of gaming, games took minutes to load so if you didn’t like the game you were playing you could swap it and play another in a few minutes. I also had an Amiga which used floppy disks. There are good points and bad points about floppies. Firstly they are small and easy to store meaning you can have them all stored easily in a box. Bad points are that they don’t hold enough data which meant a lot of the games had to come on multiple disks so “Please insert disk 2 etc” was a common sight. Floppy disks like tapes could also be copied very easily and Amiga games were pirated all the time. I have to confess that I also bought pirate copies of Amiga games, firstly because I had no idea it was wrong as everyone I knew was doing it and also it was the only way I could get games as shops nearby didn’t sell them as they knew how large the problems with piracy were.
Cartridges
Fond memories of the SNES with its cartridges which loaded almost straight away, first time I ever played a SNES I was shocked, I had played the NES in the past but the SNES had something special. The cartridges were small in size but could hold quite a lot of data and also were very hard if not impossible to copy illegally. With the increase in capacity the SNES could offer great gameplay with good looking graphics which was a big step forward in terms of gaming. In time though the capacity of the cartridge wasn’t enough as developers wanted and sometimes needed, they had to reduce parts of the game and find the right balance between the gameplay and the graphics so that the game didn’t suffer in areas due to not being able to store as much data as they would like. A lot of people argue that if the N64 had been CD based it could have been a lot more successful but due to it being cartridge based there was always a limit as to what the developers could include. In saying that there were still a lot of great games released but competition from the PSX put these down a little.
CD’s
With the arrival of the PSX from Sony and also the Saturn from Sega we seen the jump to CD based consoles. I still have my PSX and it was the first console that really showed me just how good some games could be, the likes of metal gear solid and gran turismo 2 were games I had never thought would be possible at that time. CD’s have a much greater capacity than floppies and tapes and also more than most cartridges, average CD’s hold around 783 MB of data. This meant the developers again at the start didn’t really have any restrictions in terms of what they could include and what they couldn’t. But this didn’t last too long, as time goes by developers develop new ideas which require more data and in turn more disk space which means either use multiple disks for the game or reduce parts of the game to allow it to fit on the CD. The PSX was another one that suffered from the problem of piracy, CD writers were common and the disks could easily be copied using a PC, some software and hardware techniques were used to try prevent this but with the aide of patches for the game and a ModChip for the console these were easily overcome.
A common problem with all storage mediums is that the data can be corrupted if the medium is damaged in some way, If a CD or DVD is scratched or the magnetic disk in a floppy damaged then the data may be corrupted and in turn the disk becomes useless. Well Floppy disks could be used as a weapon and CD’s as mini Frisbees or weapons but that’s about it. Maybe in the future we will see storage which is less easy to damage and corrupt the data on or within it. If the disk does not get damaged then most have been very reliable which is something that all storage mediums need to be.
DVD’s (Digital Versatile Disks)
Following on from the CD we then moved on to the DVD which is used today in the PS2 and the X-Box, The GameCube uses Optical disks which are similar but smaller and have a reduced capacity meaning they can’t hold as much as a DVD but due to the way the GameCube games are created there are no problems in terms of fitting everything on the disk, yet. The DVD holds a lot more than a CD, the average DVD holds about 4.7 GB of data which just now is more than enough. The DVD should be used for quite some time to come as DVD’s today can be double sided and double density which increase the capacity to around 16GB. You only have to look at some of the games around today to see how good the standards of developers are and that the storage used is of a very high standard. With the increase in capacity we can usually expect an increase in quality as the developers can include more detailed graphics, better gameplay and more extras. But some time in the future we are more than likely to find games coming out on a new storage medium. So what will the future storage medium be?
The Future?
My first prediction is holographic memory, It is an idea that could soon be seen in the likes of PC’s and could then be used within consoles. The idea behind holographic memory is quite complex, it doesn’t just use the surface are of the medium but uses the volume meaning the disks could be cube shaped instead of a flat circular shape that is common today. The facts about holographic memory are quite mind-blowing at first. With holographic memory there is the possibility of storing 1 terabyte (TB) of data in a sugar-cube-sized crystal. A terabyte of data equals 1,000 gigabytes, 1 million megabytes. The idea for this has been around since the sixties but due to the cost and complexity it hasn’t been turned into reality until a few years ago, now it seems that soon it will be used within PC’s as hard disks (maybe in 2004 or soon after) which means we could see holographic disks being used in the next consoles from the big developers. This all depends on how successful it would be in PC’s and how reliable and if it is possible for developers to use as best as they can. With disks that could hold around the same as 27 DVD’s with a data rate about 25 times faster than a DVD player it certainly has very good chances of being used if it can live up to these when produced for the mass market. As with every storage medium it does have a few faults, it isn’t 100% reliable as sometimes data isn’t read correctly if the laser isn’t aimed precisely at the data it is trying to receive, but these problems could be fixed before it is used (if it ever is used). This new data storage could also lower piracy as it would be very complex and need expensive equipment to do so and no doubt by the time it is available new hardware and software techniques will be used to also prevent piracy.
Another possibility is that games may not come on disks but be downloadable from a network straight on to a hard disk within the console. On-line gaming is something which will soon take off, probably in a big way and there are many possibilities available including this one. If the connection speeds become fast enough then we could see developers using an idea like this, you could log on to the network, choose a game, pay the fee then download it straight to your consoles hard drive. An option like this would mean developers wouldn’t have a restriction on the overall size of the game (although it would have to be within a reasonable amount to be able to download and fit on the hard drive with other games). If this idea was to be used it could lower the cost of games a little as you could just purchase it straight from the developer and it wouldn’t require packaging etc.
Maybe technology will continue along the same lines as it is now using flat circular disks like DVD’s and CD’s except they contain more space for data, to be honest I don’t think that developers will struggle to make high quality games using DVD’s as storage as the capacity is high, when the time comes when they do need more it is likely that there will be new technology that has been tried and tested and ready to use in the next console.
There will no doubt be other storage mediums used in the not to distant future but as I haven’t heard of any other major developments I can’t really comment, If you know of any then post them and let us all know what we could expect to see.
I know at the moment there isn’t really a requirement for extra space, Nintendo have shown us that even with the smaller 1.5 GB disks that they can still create games of today’s standard matching the PS2 and Xbox. DVD’s seem to be enough at the moment for most developers. But I can’t help think that if the extra space was available then developers would find other ways and maybe add more to utilize the extra space, Like for example commentary as the other post from today shows, with more space available we get more options, developers can either use it or ignore it. I just hope that come the next batch of consoles set to last us another 5 years that the storage medium they chose is the right one.
I’ll start with the past going back as far as when I started playing games.
The first computer I had when I was a kid used a tape machine to play games. You put the tape in and about 35 minutes later the game finished loading, so if the game was really poor then you had to wait ages to load a better one. While it was loading you could go watch TV, sleep, eat etc until it was Loaded. It also made a horrible noise as the tape loaded so you knew once this had stopped it had either finished loading or crashed completely. Tape wasn’t really a good storage medium for games but at the time it was the most cost effective and the best one they could use due to the fact it could hold quite a bit of data and was quite cheap to make. Tapes could easily be copied and people did exploit this fact and copy them for friends and some to sell for money. Piracy has always been a problem in the industry, it has grown over the years due to the fact more people are getting interested in gaming and the standard of games are so high these days.
Floppy Disks
I remember when we got an Amstrad and it played floppy disks, it changed the way I though of gaming, games took minutes to load so if you didn’t like the game you were playing you could swap it and play another in a few minutes. I also had an Amiga which used floppy disks. There are good points and bad points about floppies. Firstly they are small and easy to store meaning you can have them all stored easily in a box. Bad points are that they don’t hold enough data which meant a lot of the games had to come on multiple disks so “Please insert disk 2 etc” was a common sight. Floppy disks like tapes could also be copied very easily and Amiga games were pirated all the time. I have to confess that I also bought pirate copies of Amiga games, firstly because I had no idea it was wrong as everyone I knew was doing it and also it was the only way I could get games as shops nearby didn’t sell them as they knew how large the problems with piracy were.
Cartridges
Fond memories of the SNES with its cartridges which loaded almost straight away, first time I ever played a SNES I was shocked, I had played the NES in the past but the SNES had something special. The cartridges were small in size but could hold quite a lot of data and also were very hard if not impossible to copy illegally. With the increase in capacity the SNES could offer great gameplay with good looking graphics which was a big step forward in terms of gaming. In time though the capacity of the cartridge wasn’t enough as developers wanted and sometimes needed, they had to reduce parts of the game and find the right balance between the gameplay and the graphics so that the game didn’t suffer in areas due to not being able to store as much data as they would like. A lot of people argue that if the N64 had been CD based it could have been a lot more successful but due to it being cartridge based there was always a limit as to what the developers could include. In saying that there were still a lot of great games released but competition from the PSX put these down a little.
CD’s
With the arrival of the PSX from Sony and also the Saturn from Sega we seen the jump to CD based consoles. I still have my PSX and it was the first console that really showed me just how good some games could be, the likes of metal gear solid and gran turismo 2 were games I had never thought would be possible at that time. CD’s have a much greater capacity than floppies and tapes and also more than most cartridges, average CD’s hold around 783 MB of data. This meant the developers again at the start didn’t really have any restrictions in terms of what they could include and what they couldn’t. But this didn’t last too long, as time goes by developers develop new ideas which require more data and in turn more disk space which means either use multiple disks for the game or reduce parts of the game to allow it to fit on the CD. The PSX was another one that suffered from the problem of piracy, CD writers were common and the disks could easily be copied using a PC, some software and hardware techniques were used to try prevent this but with the aide of patches for the game and a ModChip for the console these were easily overcome.
A common problem with all storage mediums is that the data can be corrupted if the medium is damaged in some way, If a CD or DVD is scratched or the magnetic disk in a floppy damaged then the data may be corrupted and in turn the disk becomes useless. Well Floppy disks could be used as a weapon and CD’s as mini Frisbees or weapons but that’s about it. Maybe in the future we will see storage which is less easy to damage and corrupt the data on or within it. If the disk does not get damaged then most have been very reliable which is something that all storage mediums need to be.
DVD’s (Digital Versatile Disks)
Following on from the CD we then moved on to the DVD which is used today in the PS2 and the X-Box, The GameCube uses Optical disks which are similar but smaller and have a reduced capacity meaning they can’t hold as much as a DVD but due to the way the GameCube games are created there are no problems in terms of fitting everything on the disk, yet. The DVD holds a lot more than a CD, the average DVD holds about 4.7 GB of data which just now is more than enough. The DVD should be used for quite some time to come as DVD’s today can be double sided and double density which increase the capacity to around 16GB. You only have to look at some of the games around today to see how good the standards of developers are and that the storage used is of a very high standard. With the increase in capacity we can usually expect an increase in quality as the developers can include more detailed graphics, better gameplay and more extras. But some time in the future we are more than likely to find games coming out on a new storage medium. So what will the future storage medium be?
The Future?
My first prediction is holographic memory, It is an idea that could soon be seen in the likes of PC’s and could then be used within consoles. The idea behind holographic memory is quite complex, it doesn’t just use the surface are of the medium but uses the volume meaning the disks could be cube shaped instead of a flat circular shape that is common today. The facts about holographic memory are quite mind-blowing at first. With holographic memory there is the possibility of storing 1 terabyte (TB) of data in a sugar-cube-sized crystal. A terabyte of data equals 1,000 gigabytes, 1 million megabytes. The idea for this has been around since the sixties but due to the cost and complexity it hasn’t been turned into reality until a few years ago, now it seems that soon it will be used within PC’s as hard disks (maybe in 2004 or soon after) which means we could see holographic disks being used in the next consoles from the big developers. This all depends on how successful it would be in PC’s and how reliable and if it is possible for developers to use as best as they can. With disks that could hold around the same as 27 DVD’s with a data rate about 25 times faster than a DVD player it certainly has very good chances of being used if it can live up to these when produced for the mass market. As with every storage medium it does have a few faults, it isn’t 100% reliable as sometimes data isn’t read correctly if the laser isn’t aimed precisely at the data it is trying to receive, but these problems could be fixed before it is used (if it ever is used). This new data storage could also lower piracy as it would be very complex and need expensive equipment to do so and no doubt by the time it is available new hardware and software techniques will be used to also prevent piracy.
Another possibility is that games may not come on disks but be downloadable from a network straight on to a hard disk within the console. On-line gaming is something which will soon take off, probably in a big way and there are many possibilities available including this one. If the connection speeds become fast enough then we could see developers using an idea like this, you could log on to the network, choose a game, pay the fee then download it straight to your consoles hard drive. An option like this would mean developers wouldn’t have a restriction on the overall size of the game (although it would have to be within a reasonable amount to be able to download and fit on the hard drive with other games). If this idea was to be used it could lower the cost of games a little as you could just purchase it straight from the developer and it wouldn’t require packaging etc.
Maybe technology will continue along the same lines as it is now using flat circular disks like DVD’s and CD’s except they contain more space for data, to be honest I don’t think that developers will struggle to make high quality games using DVD’s as storage as the capacity is high, when the time comes when they do need more it is likely that there will be new technology that has been tried and tested and ready to use in the next console.
There will no doubt be other storage mediums used in the not to distant future but as I haven’t heard of any other major developments I can’t really comment, If you know of any then post them and let us all know what we could expect to see.
I know at the moment there isn’t really a requirement for extra space, Nintendo have shown us that even with the smaller 1.5 GB disks that they can still create games of today’s standard matching the PS2 and Xbox. DVD’s seem to be enough at the moment for most developers. But I can’t help think that if the extra space was available then developers would find other ways and maybe add more to utilize the extra space, Like for example commentary as the other post from today shows, with more space available we get more options, developers can either use it or ignore it. I just hope that come the next batch of consoles set to last us another 5 years that the storage medium they chose is the right one.
Hyper-dust.
One speck of hyper-dust can carry 2 Gigabytes. Of course it's still in the development stage, but I think it's a safe bet. Think of the ease of storage! Think of the console sizes! It's a sure winner.
One speck of hyper-dust can carry 2 Gigabytes. Of course it's still in the development stage, but I think it's a safe bet. Think of the ease of storage! Think of the console sizes! It's a sure winner.
FMD-Rom.
Mmm.
Mmm.
Good post, by the way. Better than mine :)
http://ukchatforums.reserve.co.uk/display_messages.php?
threadid=56635&forumid=185
Hmmm...
threadid=56635&forumid=185
Hmmm...
Ok so what is this topic about then? Well it is all about the different storage mediums used by consoles and games machines past and present and maybe even what to expect in the future.
I’ll start with the past going back as far as when I started playing games.
The first computer I had when I was a kid used a tape machine to play games. You put the tape in and about 35 minutes later the game finished loading, so if the game was really poor then you had to wait ages to load a better one. While it was loading you could go watch TV, sleep, eat etc until it was Loaded. It also made a horrible noise as the tape loaded so you knew once this had stopped it had either finished loading or crashed completely. Tape wasn’t really a good storage medium for games but at the time it was the most cost effective and the best one they could use due to the fact it could hold quite a bit of data and was quite cheap to make. Tapes could easily be copied and people did exploit this fact and copy them for friends and some to sell for money. Piracy has always been a problem in the industry, it has grown over the years due to the fact more people are getting interested in gaming and the standard of games are so high these days.
Floppy Disks
I remember when we got an Amstrad and it played floppy disks, it changed the way I though of gaming, games took minutes to load so if you didn’t like the game you were playing you could swap it and play another in a few minutes. I also had an Amiga which used floppy disks. There are good points and bad points about floppies. Firstly they are small and easy to store meaning you can have them all stored easily in a box. Bad points are that they don’t hold enough data which meant a lot of the games had to come on multiple disks so “Please insert disk 2 etc” was a common sight. Floppy disks like tapes could also be copied very easily and Amiga games were pirated all the time. I have to confess that I also bought pirate copies of Amiga games, firstly because I had no idea it was wrong as everyone I knew was doing it and also it was the only way I could get games as shops nearby didn’t sell them as they knew how large the problems with piracy were.
Cartridges
Fond memories of the SNES with its cartridges which loaded almost straight away, first time I ever played a SNES I was shocked, I had played the NES in the past but the SNES had something special. The cartridges were small in size but could hold quite a lot of data and also were very hard if not impossible to copy illegally. With the increase in capacity the SNES could offer great gameplay with good looking graphics which was a big step forward in terms of gaming. In time though the capacity of the cartridge wasn’t enough as developers wanted and sometimes needed, they had to reduce parts of the game and find the right balance between the gameplay and the graphics so that the game didn’t suffer in areas due to not being able to store as much data as they would like. A lot of people argue that if the N64 had been CD based it could have been a lot more successful but due to it being cartridge based there was always a limit as to what the developers could include. In saying that there were still a lot of great games released but competition from the PSX put these down a little.
CD’s
With the arrival of the PSX from Sony and also the Saturn from Sega we seen the jump to CD based consoles. I still have my PSX and it was the first console that really showed me just how good some games could be, the likes of metal gear solid and gran turismo 2 were games I had never thought would be possible at that time. CD’s have a much greater capacity than floppies and tapes and also more than most cartridges, average CD’s hold around 783 MB of data. This meant the developers again at the start didn’t really have any restrictions in terms of what they could include and what they couldn’t. But this didn’t last too long, as time goes by developers develop new ideas which require more data and in turn more disk space which means either use multiple disks for the game or reduce parts of the game to allow it to fit on the CD. The PSX was another one that suffered from the problem of piracy, CD writers were common and the disks could easily be copied using a PC, some software and hardware techniques were used to try prevent this but with the aide of patches for the game and a ModChip for the console these were easily overcome.
A common problem with all storage mediums is that the data can be corrupted if the medium is damaged in some way, If a CD or DVD is scratched or the magnetic disk in a floppy damaged then the data may be corrupted and in turn the disk becomes useless. Well Floppy disks could be used as a weapon and CD’s as mini Frisbees or weapons but that’s about it. Maybe in the future we will see storage which is less easy to damage and corrupt the data on or within it. If the disk does not get damaged then most have been very reliable which is something that all storage mediums need to be.
DVD’s (Digital Versatile Disks)
Following on from the CD we then moved on to the DVD which is used today in the PS2 and the X-Box, The GameCube uses Optical disks which are similar but smaller and have a reduced capacity meaning they can’t hold as much as a DVD but due to the way the GameCube games are created there are no problems in terms of fitting everything on the disk, yet. The DVD holds a lot more than a CD, the average DVD holds about 4.7 GB of data which just now is more than enough. The DVD should be used for quite some time to come as DVD’s today can be double sided and double density which increase the capacity to around 16GB. You only have to look at some of the games around today to see how good the standards of developers are and that the storage used is of a very high standard. With the increase in capacity we can usually expect an increase in quality as the developers can include more detailed graphics, better gameplay and more extras. But some time in the future we are more than likely to find games coming out on a new storage medium. So what will the future storage medium be?
The Future?
My first prediction is holographic memory, It is an idea that could soon be seen in the likes of PC’s and could then be used within consoles. The idea behind holographic memory is quite complex, it doesn’t just use the surface are of the medium but uses the volume meaning the disks could be cube shaped instead of a flat circular shape that is common today. The facts about holographic memory are quite mind-blowing at first. With holographic memory there is the possibility of storing 1 terabyte (TB) of data in a sugar-cube-sized crystal. A terabyte of data equals 1,000 gigabytes, 1 million megabytes. The idea for this has been around since the sixties but due to the cost and complexity it hasn’t been turned into reality until a few years ago, now it seems that soon it will be used within PC’s as hard disks (maybe in 2004 or soon after) which means we could see holographic disks being used in the next consoles from the big developers. This all depends on how successful it would be in PC’s and how reliable and if it is possible for developers to use as best as they can. With disks that could hold around the same as 27 DVD’s with a data rate about 25 times faster than a DVD player it certainly has very good chances of being used if it can live up to these when produced for the mass market. As with every storage medium it does have a few faults, it isn’t 100% reliable as sometimes data isn’t read correctly if the laser isn’t aimed precisely at the data it is trying to receive, but these problems could be fixed before it is used (if it ever is used). This new data storage could also lower piracy as it would be very complex and need expensive equipment to do so and no doubt by the time it is available new hardware and software techniques will be used to also prevent piracy.
Another possibility is that games may not come on disks but be downloadable from a network straight on to a hard disk within the console. On-line gaming is something which will soon take off, probably in a big way and there are many possibilities available including this one. If the connection speeds become fast enough then we could see developers using an idea like this, you could log on to the network, choose a game, pay the fee then download it straight to your consoles hard drive. An option like this would mean developers wouldn’t have a restriction on the overall size of the game (although it would have to be within a reasonable amount to be able to download and fit on the hard drive with other games). If this idea was to be used it could lower the cost of games a little as you could just purchase it straight from the developer and it wouldn’t require packaging etc.
Maybe technology will continue along the same lines as it is now using flat circular disks like DVD’s and CD’s except they contain more space for data, to be honest I don’t think that developers will struggle to make high quality games using DVD’s as storage as the capacity is high, when the time comes when they do need more it is likely that there will be new technology that has been tried and tested and ready to use in the next console.
There will no doubt be other storage mediums used in the not to distant future but as I haven’t heard of any other major developments I can’t really comment, If you know of any then post them and let us all know what we could expect to see.
I know at the moment there isn’t really a requirement for extra space, Nintendo have shown us that even with the smaller 1.5 GB disks that they can still create games of today’s standard matching the PS2 and Xbox. DVD’s seem to be enough at the moment for most developers. But I can’t help think that if the extra space was available then developers would find other ways and maybe add more to utilize the extra space, Like for example commentary as the other post from today shows, with more space available we get more options, developers can either use it or ignore it. I just hope that come the next batch of consoles set to last us another 5 years that the storage medium they chose is the right one.
I’ll start with the past going back as far as when I started playing games.
The first computer I had when I was a kid used a tape machine to play games. You put the tape in and about 35 minutes later the game finished loading, so if the game was really poor then you had to wait ages to load a better one. While it was loading you could go watch TV, sleep, eat etc until it was Loaded. It also made a horrible noise as the tape loaded so you knew once this had stopped it had either finished loading or crashed completely. Tape wasn’t really a good storage medium for games but at the time it was the most cost effective and the best one they could use due to the fact it could hold quite a bit of data and was quite cheap to make. Tapes could easily be copied and people did exploit this fact and copy them for friends and some to sell for money. Piracy has always been a problem in the industry, it has grown over the years due to the fact more people are getting interested in gaming and the standard of games are so high these days.
Floppy Disks
I remember when we got an Amstrad and it played floppy disks, it changed the way I though of gaming, games took minutes to load so if you didn’t like the game you were playing you could swap it and play another in a few minutes. I also had an Amiga which used floppy disks. There are good points and bad points about floppies. Firstly they are small and easy to store meaning you can have them all stored easily in a box. Bad points are that they don’t hold enough data which meant a lot of the games had to come on multiple disks so “Please insert disk 2 etc” was a common sight. Floppy disks like tapes could also be copied very easily and Amiga games were pirated all the time. I have to confess that I also bought pirate copies of Amiga games, firstly because I had no idea it was wrong as everyone I knew was doing it and also it was the only way I could get games as shops nearby didn’t sell them as they knew how large the problems with piracy were.
Cartridges
Fond memories of the SNES with its cartridges which loaded almost straight away, first time I ever played a SNES I was shocked, I had played the NES in the past but the SNES had something special. The cartridges were small in size but could hold quite a lot of data and also were very hard if not impossible to copy illegally. With the increase in capacity the SNES could offer great gameplay with good looking graphics which was a big step forward in terms of gaming. In time though the capacity of the cartridge wasn’t enough as developers wanted and sometimes needed, they had to reduce parts of the game and find the right balance between the gameplay and the graphics so that the game didn’t suffer in areas due to not being able to store as much data as they would like. A lot of people argue that if the N64 had been CD based it could have been a lot more successful but due to it being cartridge based there was always a limit as to what the developers could include. In saying that there were still a lot of great games released but competition from the PSX put these down a little.
CD’s
With the arrival of the PSX from Sony and also the Saturn from Sega we seen the jump to CD based consoles. I still have my PSX and it was the first console that really showed me just how good some games could be, the likes of metal gear solid and gran turismo 2 were games I had never thought would be possible at that time. CD’s have a much greater capacity than floppies and tapes and also more than most cartridges, average CD’s hold around 783 MB of data. This meant the developers again at the start didn’t really have any restrictions in terms of what they could include and what they couldn’t. But this didn’t last too long, as time goes by developers develop new ideas which require more data and in turn more disk space which means either use multiple disks for the game or reduce parts of the game to allow it to fit on the CD. The PSX was another one that suffered from the problem of piracy, CD writers were common and the disks could easily be copied using a PC, some software and hardware techniques were used to try prevent this but with the aide of patches for the game and a ModChip for the console these were easily overcome.
A common problem with all storage mediums is that the data can be corrupted if the medium is damaged in some way, If a CD or DVD is scratched or the magnetic disk in a floppy damaged then the data may be corrupted and in turn the disk becomes useless. Well Floppy disks could be used as a weapon and CD’s as mini Frisbees or weapons but that’s about it. Maybe in the future we will see storage which is less easy to damage and corrupt the data on or within it. If the disk does not get damaged then most have been very reliable which is something that all storage mediums need to be.
DVD’s (Digital Versatile Disks)
Following on from the CD we then moved on to the DVD which is used today in the PS2 and the X-Box, The GameCube uses Optical disks which are similar but smaller and have a reduced capacity meaning they can’t hold as much as a DVD but due to the way the GameCube games are created there are no problems in terms of fitting everything on the disk, yet. The DVD holds a lot more than a CD, the average DVD holds about 4.7 GB of data which just now is more than enough. The DVD should be used for quite some time to come as DVD’s today can be double sided and double density which increase the capacity to around 16GB. You only have to look at some of the games around today to see how good the standards of developers are and that the storage used is of a very high standard. With the increase in capacity we can usually expect an increase in quality as the developers can include more detailed graphics, better gameplay and more extras. But some time in the future we are more than likely to find games coming out on a new storage medium. So what will the future storage medium be?
The Future?
My first prediction is holographic memory, It is an idea that could soon be seen in the likes of PC’s and could then be used within consoles. The idea behind holographic memory is quite complex, it doesn’t just use the surface are of the medium but uses the volume meaning the disks could be cube shaped instead of a flat circular shape that is common today. The facts about holographic memory are quite mind-blowing at first. With holographic memory there is the possibility of storing 1 terabyte (TB) of data in a sugar-cube-sized crystal. A terabyte of data equals 1,000 gigabytes, 1 million megabytes. The idea for this has been around since the sixties but due to the cost and complexity it hasn’t been turned into reality until a few years ago, now it seems that soon it will be used within PC’s as hard disks (maybe in 2004 or soon after) which means we could see holographic disks being used in the next consoles from the big developers. This all depends on how successful it would be in PC’s and how reliable and if it is possible for developers to use as best as they can. With disks that could hold around the same as 27 DVD’s with a data rate about 25 times faster than a DVD player it certainly has very good chances of being used if it can live up to these when produced for the mass market. As with every storage medium it does have a few faults, it isn’t 100% reliable as sometimes data isn’t read correctly if the laser isn’t aimed precisely at the data it is trying to receive, but these problems could be fixed before it is used (if it ever is used). This new data storage could also lower piracy as it would be very complex and need expensive equipment to do so and no doubt by the time it is available new hardware and software techniques will be used to also prevent piracy.
Another possibility is that games may not come on disks but be downloadable from a network straight on to a hard disk within the console. On-line gaming is something which will soon take off, probably in a big way and there are many possibilities available including this one. If the connection speeds become fast enough then we could see developers using an idea like this, you could log on to the network, choose a game, pay the fee then download it straight to your consoles hard drive. An option like this would mean developers wouldn’t have a restriction on the overall size of the game (although it would have to be within a reasonable amount to be able to download and fit on the hard drive with other games). If this idea was to be used it could lower the cost of games a little as you could just purchase it straight from the developer and it wouldn’t require packaging etc.
Maybe technology will continue along the same lines as it is now using flat circular disks like DVD’s and CD’s except they contain more space for data, to be honest I don’t think that developers will struggle to make high quality games using DVD’s as storage as the capacity is high, when the time comes when they do need more it is likely that there will be new technology that has been tried and tested and ready to use in the next console.
There will no doubt be other storage mediums used in the not to distant future but as I haven’t heard of any other major developments I can’t really comment, If you know of any then post them and let us all know what we could expect to see.
I know at the moment there isn’t really a requirement for extra space, Nintendo have shown us that even with the smaller 1.5 GB disks that they can still create games of today’s standard matching the PS2 and Xbox. DVD’s seem to be enough at the moment for most developers. But I can’t help think that if the extra space was available then developers would find other ways and maybe add more to utilize the extra space, Like for example commentary as the other post from today shows, with more space available we get more options, developers can either use it or ignore it. I just hope that come the next batch of consoles set to last us another 5 years that the storage medium they chose is the right one.