Xbox 360 Discs Won't Hold GTA V?

Ok firstly EPIC's Mark has officially stated that not only will UT3 be on the disc but ALL the content the PS3 and PC has had including some extra stuff AND will look better on the 360 version...On ONE disc.

At present there still is NO game on the PS3 that beats 360 games because of the space that is available, people are still waiting and when a developer says 'Wow we need more than 50gb...' What the problem is here is you are giving too much space for the developers to play with meaning longer waiting time for games.

Sure I will hold up my hands and say yep DVD 9 discs are in most cases not all that for gaming this gen but considering what developers are able to do thus far 360 games are looking pretty damn good take Gears of war for example and COD4 and PGR4.

Then look at Gears of war 2 and other great exclusives out this year on the DVD 9 disc.

Only 1 Japanese developer has needed 4 discs but I personally dont see a problem in swapping discs especially when you can play for like 10hrs or more on each disc.

Overall its upto the developers and Microsoft to sit down and talk about this but if I remember correctly a year or 2 ago there was a highly impressive game that was just an example of a very small level that actually fitted on a FLOPPY DISC! It only took like a 128kb or so in space.

Also lets not forget XNA and future tools that could mean highly impressive games using less space.

Well, its Microsoft’s fault technically for rushing a little bit to market and having to use Standard Storage Media instead of a HD solution,

But as with all problems they can be overcome,

Although 4 years for GTA 5 really you should be looking at the time difference between GTA 3 and GTA 4 as VC and SA were using the same tech as GTA 3 so any sequels on 360/PS3 will most prob use the same engine and already created models and textures and brands and plenty of created stuff so GTA 4: Next One will be to GTA 4 what VC and SA were to GTA 3

I expect to see GTA 4 spin offs in 2010/2011 but I wouldn’t expect a GTA 5 until again 2 years into the NeXboX or PS4 Life which I would reckon to be launching 2011 so looking at a 2013 GTA 5?.

Using the period twixt San Andreas and GTA4 as a yard stick to predict then next GTA is all wrong. Firstly, you ought to be comparing the time between GTA3 and GTA4. Either way, we're talking about completely different engines on new hardware, not to mention that the new engine had to be a ground-up development because the previous engine was middleware (Renderware) that is now dead.

Some may argue that Vice City and San Andreas weren't "new GTAs", but I think the GTA buying public would say otherwise - they did after all pay full ticket for those GTA3 "instalments". So I think that comparing the period between GTA3 and Vice City and then to San Andreas - one and two years, respectively - is more realistic.

Houser has got to be referring to DLC as the way "round this issue" for new instalments. What else could there be? Multi-disc installed to HDD? Oh, not all 360 have HDD.

Let's consider DLC; Regardless of whether the next "new GTA" is an instalment or a new engine, most of GTA4's 9GB is assets - sound, art, models, maps and scripts for missions and animations. Those are assets that would be replaced for an instalment using the same engine, but set in another city with new characters & story.

Would the next *true* instalment of GTA (i.e. not just a handful of new maps/missions) be a download in excess of 9GB? That's a pretty hefty download, in danger of threatening some player's monthly transfer caps even.

No, I think "GTA4 Vice Andreas" will still be in a box, on shop shelves inside 2 years, and the PS3 version will be held back by the lowest common denominator.

You know what I find extremely confusing? How is it that PC games are still on CD/DVD...Crysis is on one disc...Why don't PC games developers have issues?

Also just checked at it looks like MGS4 is a 10hr game...50gb of space used for a 10hr game? *Slaps forehead*

MGS4 10 Hours long? Since when has fanboy speculation become fact?

Well I went by this I really hope I am wrong as a game like that should be a lot longer than around 10hrs.

http://www.mcvuk.com/news/30306/Metal-Gear-Solid-4-rated-15

I just checked the BBCF Website and Gears of War had a running time of 1 hour 35 mins, Is that how long gears of war takes to complete, or do you think it might be the cutscenes?

I'm with Super n co on this one. This is a worrying trend of developers wanting an infinite amount of space for their games (to realise their uber game wet dream), when what's available is probably fine. It seems they don't want to work within limits anymore.

This sounds just that chap from Epic, people who've had so much freedom with lofty spec PCs, that they find Wii development hard just because its not the latest wizzy ball of wax. Frankly, this is just pathetic.

Why don't they just come out and say it, that there will never be enough space to create what they want to create. Hideo Kojima has more or less said this much, even though it was about MGS4 and Blu Ray...and that's on a 50gb dvd.

Want more space, just use more discs or learn to work within limits, simple solution.

GTAV probably won't be out until we all have Xbox 720s anyway.

Exactly.

And Kojima even stated that 50gb wasn't enough for MGS4 he had to actually 'cut' things out...Truely amazing that...

It isn't a worrying trend that developers need more space, it's just a simple fact of life. Even the mighty Nintendo have struggled with space recently - I believe Smash Bros caused them some issues due to the sheer volume of content!

I agree about the multi-disc solution though, some games can easily be split across discs if required but not all games are suited to that solutions. PGR4 for example wouldn't work if you needed to switch discs depending on what city you wanted to drive/ride in. MGS4 however would be fine.

yes after all the first (psone) MGS was on two discs.

50gb is way too much space for a game to be taking up.

But 9gb is really too little.

What takes time with a game isn't trying to figure out what to fill all that space up (though some dev's seem to be doing that, they should be shot) it's trying to pack it all into a small space.

The PS1 did fine with it's CD drive, even with games pushing 4-7 discs. I do think though that in 2 years time with the next installment of GTA running on the gta4 engine there will be trouble hitting that 9gb envelope. The important thing about a GTA game is a lot of the space is taken up with textures, models and radio stations and sound effects and relatively little with video and speech (no pre-rendered videos and short enough cut-scene audio) so changing discs while giving complete freedom to wander isn't as much an option.

Of course they can compress down the textures and god knows the radio stations can be compressed further... but there comes a point where you are making serious enough compromises, maybe even cutting features to do that.

Why do PC games still come on dvd... because you download big fecking patches off the internet. The battlefield games and Unreal Tournament games are renowned for patches rivaling or larger in size then the original game media size. You can also get away with very expensive compression on pc's (long load times, long install times) and you generally use lower detail textures because the average pc isn't up to scratch with the average console (last 2 years anyways)

Thats what you got out of the guy's comments? That developing on Wii was too hard? Sounded more to me like he was flat-out not interested. Frankly, if I were Epic I wouldn't be either. Other devs (like say, Rare, or R*) might be more inclined...

Because PC games get installed on your pc and so can be compressed on to fit on the DVD. When you install the game on your PC the files are uncompressed.

I'd imagine the way around the DVD 9 problem would be either some super compression with a really fast decompression technology or installs on the 360 HDD. I'd think they would be going for the later option and there will be games with HDD Required sticker on them

Compression is already being used. Almost every game on disc is compressed in some way, CD, DVD or Blu-ray. This is because CPUs can de-compress data faster than optical drives can serve it up.

The 360's 12xDVD drive would take about 9.7 minutes to serve up all 9GB stored on a disc. The 360's CPU can shift 51.2 GB of data around per second. That's over 3,300 times as fast.

Multiple discs installing to hard drive is the only future-proof way to remain on DVD. Disc swapping won't work for large sandbox games like GTA IV or Burnout Paradise.