i think most games are going to move to digital download its much better and you can never lose the disk cause your game and cd key is store on there hardware cant go wrong that is why i love steam so much.
The problem is that right now the size of games seems to be growing much faster than average internet bandwidth. Sure, Steam's download is fine if your entire game is only a few gigabytes, but if we're talking about a 50GB Age of Conan install, that's an awefully big hassle to go through to get your game if you have to download it from scratch. I think the moment we start talking about more than an hour or two to download a game, you're already getting to the point that optical media presents less of a hassle.
USB flash drives will be passing blu ray here soon as far as cost+capacity goes. I think flash drives will be the next computer game. Or any game for that matter. It doesnt require an internet connection, just USB ports on a console/computer.
Playing: EVE Online Favorite MMOs: WoW, SWG Pre-cu, Lineage 2, UO, EQ, EVE online Looking forward to: Archeage, Kingdom Under Fire 2 KUF2's Official Website - http://www.kufii.com/ENG/ -
Let's just be clear here. A Blu-ray disc probably costs a few cents each to produce en masse for 50GB per disc, so unless someone here can show where one can obtain 64GB flash drives for far less than a dollar each, there will be no computer games on flash devices.
Let's just be clear here. A Blu-ray disc probably costs a few cents each to produce en masse for 50GB per disc, so unless someone here can show where one can obtain 64GB flash drives for far less than a dollar each, there will be no computer games on flash devices.
the cheapest 64gb (14 more then blu ray) usb flash drive is 125$. While Blu ray movies cost somewhere around 15-20$ (depending on the age of the movie). Unless there is going to be an advancment in disk technology, usb flash drives are going to be passing blu ray in the next 2 or so years. They will have double the space and be cheaper even father down the line. Flash/SSD technology is growing at a rapid rate. By the time SSD's catch up with HDs in spacxe and price, HDs will be obsolete and all the other technology based on SSD type technology will be ahead of disks. Disks, both dvds/bluray and Hard disks are going to be obsolete very soon.
Playing: EVE Online Favorite MMOs: WoW, SWG Pre-cu, Lineage 2, UO, EQ, EVE online Looking forward to: Archeage, Kingdom Under Fire 2 KUF2's Official Website - http://www.kufii.com/ENG/ -
Let's just be clear here. A Blu-ray disc probably costs a few cents each to produce en masse for 50GB per disc, so unless someone here can show where one can obtain 64GB flash drives for far less than a dollar each, there will be no computer games on flash devices.
the cheapest 64gb (14 more then blu ray) usb flash drive is 125$. While Blu ray movies cost somewhere around 15-20$ (depending on the age of the movie). Unless there is going to be an advancment in disk technology, usb flash drives are going to be passing blu ray in the next 2 or so years. They will have double the space and be cheaper even father down the line. Flash/SSD technology is growing at a rapid rate. By the time SSD's catch up with HDs in spacxe and price, HDs will be obsolete and all the other technology based on SSD type technology will be ahead of disks. Disks, both dvds/bluray and Hard disks are going to be obsolete very soon.
Blu-ray movies don't cost $20 because of the media though. Even if 64gb flash drives could be had for just $20 it would be $40 if there was a movie on it. The Blu-ray media it's printed on costs just a few cents, which means $19.98 goes to the studio/store and $0.02 goes to the cost of manufacturing. You'd have to get the cost of material and manufacturing down to 10 cents or less for a flash drive for it to be at all feasible to mass produce media on that format and even then I don't doubt that just the time it takes to flash 64GB of data to millions of drives would make it more costly than Blu-ray discs that are basically printed off a press.
If the production costs were equal, the fastest SSD's can write at what, 200MB a second - it would take 5 minutes to write each drive out with a movie. I'll give them the benefit and say this happens as part of the QC. This would still limit their production per day so vastly over Blu-ray discs which are manufactured with the data on them as part of the production process that costs could never compete.
Tvalentine, the problem is that your logic is heavily flawed here. You're comparing the retail cost of a piece of hardware (disc) AND a piece of intellectual property (movie) to just a piece of hardware (flash drive).
A blu-ray disc does not cost $30 to manufacture. That money is payed for the film, not the media.
From Blu-Ray.com: According to the Blu-ray Disc Association, the overall cost of manufacturing Blu-ray Disc media will in the end be no more expensive than producing a DVD. The reduced injection molding costs (one molding machine instead of two, no birefringence problems) offset the additional cost of applying the cover layer and low cost hard-coat, while the techniques used for applying the recording layer remain the same. As production volumes increase the production costs should fall and eventually be comparable to DVDs. (http://www.blu-ray.com/faq/#bluray_pricing)
According to this site here, as of early 2007, blu-ray manufacturing costs for dual-layer 50GB discs was about $2.25 each for large volumes, and being two and half years and a huge amount of volume back, that's bound to be considerably more than they cost to manufacture now. Let's just assume that cost though. Can you show me ANYTHING that suggests 64GB flash drives can be manufactured for anything even remotely close to $2 a pop? I seriously doubt it. That price will continue to drop as well, even if capacity won't go up. If they do hit DVD prices ($0.50 each according to the latter link), that puts them even farther out of the range of flash manufacturing costs.
Comments
The problem is that right now the size of games seems to be growing much faster than average internet bandwidth. Sure, Steam's download is fine if your entire game is only a few gigabytes, but if we're talking about a 50GB Age of Conan install, that's an awefully big hassle to go through to get your game if you have to download it from scratch. I think the moment we start talking about more than an hour or two to download a game, you're already getting to the point that optical media presents less of a hassle.
USB flash drives will be passing blu ray here soon as far as cost+capacity goes. I think flash drives will be the next computer game. Or any game for that matter. It doesnt require an internet connection, just USB ports on a console/computer.
Playing: EVE Online
Favorite MMOs: WoW, SWG Pre-cu, Lineage 2, UO, EQ, EVE online
Looking forward to: Archeage, Kingdom Under Fire 2
KUF2's Official Website - http://www.kufii.com/ENG/ -
Let's just be clear here. A Blu-ray disc probably costs a few cents each to produce en masse for 50GB per disc, so unless someone here can show where one can obtain 64GB flash drives for far less than a dollar each, there will be no computer games on flash devices.
the cheapest 64gb (14 more then blu ray) usb flash drive is 125$. While Blu ray movies cost somewhere around 15-20$ (depending on the age of the movie). Unless there is going to be an advancment in disk technology, usb flash drives are going to be passing blu ray in the next 2 or so years. They will have double the space and be cheaper even father down the line. Flash/SSD technology is growing at a rapid rate. By the time SSD's catch up with HDs in spacxe and price, HDs will be obsolete and all the other technology based on SSD type technology will be ahead of disks. Disks, both dvds/bluray and Hard disks are going to be obsolete very soon.
Playing: EVE Online
Favorite MMOs: WoW, SWG Pre-cu, Lineage 2, UO, EQ, EVE online
Looking forward to: Archeage, Kingdom Under Fire 2
KUF2's Official Website - http://www.kufii.com/ENG/ -
Blu-ray movies don't cost $20 because of the media though. Even if 64gb flash drives could be had for just $20 it would be $40 if there was a movie on it. The Blu-ray media it's printed on costs just a few cents, which means $19.98 goes to the studio/store and $0.02 goes to the cost of manufacturing. You'd have to get the cost of material and manufacturing down to 10 cents or less for a flash drive for it to be at all feasible to mass produce media on that format and even then I don't doubt that just the time it takes to flash 64GB of data to millions of drives would make it more costly than Blu-ray discs that are basically printed off a press.
If the production costs were equal, the fastest SSD's can write at what, 200MB a second - it would take 5 minutes to write each drive out with a movie. I'll give them the benefit and say this happens as part of the QC. This would still limit their production per day so vastly over Blu-ray discs which are manufactured with the data on them as part of the production process that costs could never compete.
Tvalentine, the problem is that your logic is heavily flawed here. You're comparing the retail cost of a piece of hardware (disc) AND a piece of intellectual property (movie) to just a piece of hardware (flash drive).
A blu-ray disc does not cost $30 to manufacture. That money is payed for the film, not the media.
From Blu-Ray.com: According to the Blu-ray Disc Association, the overall cost of manufacturing Blu-ray Disc media will in the end be no more expensive than producing a DVD. The reduced injection molding costs (one molding machine instead of two, no birefringence problems) offset the additional cost of applying the cover layer and low cost hard-coat, while the techniques used for applying the recording layer remain the same. As production volumes increase the production costs should fall and eventually be comparable to DVDs. (http://www.blu-ray.com/faq/#bluray_pricing)
According to this site here, as of early 2007, blu-ray manufacturing costs for dual-layer 50GB discs was about $2.25 each for large volumes, and being two and half years and a huge amount of volume back, that's bound to be considerably more than they cost to manufacture now. Let's just assume that cost though. Can you show me ANYTHING that suggests 64GB flash drives can be manufactured for anything even remotely close to $2 a pop? I seriously doubt it. That price will continue to drop as well, even if capacity won't go up. If they do hit DVD prices ($0.50 each according to the latter link), that puts them even farther out of the range of flash manufacturing costs.
Digital copies are the future, you can see big retailer companies already shifting in that direction (eb games per example).