The Mouth: Why the Xbox 360 needs a Blu-ray drive (but will never get one)
Would the 360 benefit from having a Blu-ray drive?
Who needs Blu-rays, honestly?
Once again we find ourselves arguing over yet another problem that seems to get the fanboys foaming at their mouths: DVD capacity. Anyone with a PS3 sat under their TV will already be reaching for their smug-o-meter in preparation for shouting at the top of their lungs that their console of choice will not have to worry about this particular problem… for this generation, at least. It turns out upcoming Konami title Castlevania: Lords Of Shadow will ship on two DVDs and, yes, only one Blu-ray. But, at the end of the day, is this such a big issue?
In some ways, yes, it is. Greater storage space simply leads to better games – higher resolutions, cleaner sounds and music – developers just have more to play with. DVDs have been around for a great many years now, and with all their improvements – dual layers, flippers etc – they can still only reach a significantly smaller capacity than a Blu-ray. What’s wrong with having games on more than one disc? Well, there’s nothing wrong. But how many developers are willing to put their games over two discs as opposed to simply downsizing something and squeezing it onto one? I’m not sure, but there must be some sort of cost issues with stretching a game across two discs – perhaps it’s Microsoft’s way of justifying publishers making money off DLC. If they physically can’t get the information on the disc, of course it’ll be available to download.
There’s a large issue here and one that’s not likely to see a resolution – there’s no way Microsoft would risk fracturing the user base with yet another 360 SKU – but it’s probably safe to say that more and more games will start needing more and more storage space. Should we expect this to be the norm? Probably, but at least we won’t get as fat as our PS3 counterparts – they never have to get up off the sofa. We will, and we’ll be all the better for it.
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Sorry but disc swapping is so 1999, I have both consoles and it is only my friends on 360 who keep me from moving to ps3.
I own both systems, but your last sentance “Probably, but at least we won’t get as fat as our PS3 counterparts – they never have to get up off the sofa. We will, and we’ll be all the better for it.” Dumbest thing I have ever heard. Walking back and forth from swaping discs would burn about half a calorie. Heres an idea wanna lose weight don’t use the swap disc excuse, might as well use the kinect excuse you’ll burn far more calories flailing your arms and legs around.
weak. that’s why they wont change because you kiss their ass for them screwing you out of a hd drive
It is needed but M$ will always say it is not. Like they did with HDMI, WiFi, charge and play (oops they still insist on a separate cost for that ability), online play (oops they still charge for that), upgrading to any hard drive (oops not possible). Need any more examples? How about denying the whole RRoD fiasco for almost a year then instead of a recall, they expand their warranty (and still deny it)? Sounds like M$ has their head up their own arse too far to see daylight, or at least how much they rip un informed people off.
i would care if games where one more than one disc. im not lazy and i can get up and change the disc. i think the next xbox should use some that can hold more data. but not blu ray. maybe hvd or something like that.
Wow, pretty pointless article here. You acknowledge in the beginning of your write up that this is a subject that gets the fanboys going; yet you still chose to write an article offering absolutely nothing new to this ongoing debate, and nothing that at least 10 million PS3 fanboys have not already pointed out. You could have just saved yourself some time and saved your readers time by simply saying, FYI, I side with the obnoxious PS3 fanboys on this one. After reading your opinion piece here, that’s about all I came away with.
I guess you just felt like rubbing it in the faces of 360 fans that you think 360 needs a bluray drive, but will never get one.
An article on why the 360 DOES NOT need a bluray drive would have been far more interesting since we NEVER see one written, and there are far more reasons why it does not, than there are reasons it does.
This article is fail. Your primary reasoning for the 360 not having blu ray and being ok with it is that its more exercise. The reason most PS3 users dont get off the sofa is because they’ve probably been at work all day, and are enjoying their evening. Of course they will need to get up to switch out the game for whatever blu ray movie they’re about to watch in 1080p
“PS3 sat under their TV will already be reaching for their smug-o-meter in preparation for shouting at the top of their lungs that their console of choice will not have to worry”
lol:P
i love my PS3/Beast so much!
Easy solution would have been to use Hd DVD as a games media, but it’s Microsoft we are talkin about.
They will keep on denying the storage problems.
Who needs a blu-ray??? You need a Blu-ray bro, that’s why you’re writting this, there are tons of games that already had that issue, and microsoft knew about it, so meaning you preffer to pay for content that was supposed to be on disc as a DLC…
What happened to the content in lost planet 2, , and we got to get it as a DLC for sale sooner or later, or a special edition ala resident evil 5… Why didn’t Microsoft took HD-DVD, they built a HD-DVD add-on for movies knowing they were rooting for Digital distribution, that really makes no sense and that really made toshiba look bad, it offered more space than a DVD and it was cheaper than a blu-ray at the time, so please… Why did you think Sony used DVD for PS2 besides the standard blue disc, for games of mass development, that’s why Sony is using blu-ray for PS3, you’re an ignorant bro, I’m sorry to say this, but I got to repond that way!!!!
respond*, sorry, bad spelling
got to love it how every time this comes up people mention size limitations but some how magically forget that bluray has a extremely slow read / write time compare to DVDs!
that is why so many ps3 games require a lengthy sizable installation, and that is also why even after the installation games running off the PS3s HDD load slower than the same game running off a 360 DVD disk!
honestly how hard is it to get up, and change the disk?
id much rather have fast load times and have to change a disk or two ala mass effect 2, than have ridiculously long load times like MNR or worse have to wait 20 minutes for the game to install after each level ala metal gear solid 4!
get up and change the disk, or a 20 minute HDD install. hmmmmmmm hard decision!!!!!!!!!!
not too mention constantly installing games on the HDD, sooner or later your going to run out of space and will have to upgrade your HDD which is more money down the drain!
nothing worse than spending 120AUD to buy a game, get home than find out you cant play it because you ran out of HDD space and dont want to delete anything.
i know which one id pick!
According to Wedbush’s Michael Pachter, most of the Xbox 360 methods sold during the month had been actually these older, discounted models.