Well this might encourage more content though… having space for extra content or even better texture. I Just wanted to say that Blu ray will still replace DVD as games like Shogun 2 have huge files (2 disc and 10gb Directx update). and also used Steam.

Bring on Bluray…

Must be nice to live in Fantasytown, but the mean Aussie Internet connection speed as at Q4 2012 was 4.4Mbps. There are many more people with <4.4Mbps connections than those with faster connections. Consider if you will those poor souls such as myself who are stuck with less than half that, and most of them won’t see anything better for 10 years.

Sounds like we’re in the same boat – I’m lucky to get 1.5Mbps, but I don’t have any problem downloading games.

I’m pretty sure you’ll get your physical manuals whether or not your game comes on 3 DVDs or one blu-ray.

Remember when you could play tex murphy over 7 cds?

Being 50gb (theoretical was at 400gb last I heard) the blu-ray definitely has a place in the pc gaming world, when all our textures are 1024 at low res (2048 as std) and EVERY character in a game has a unique high def voice, when we are using big data crunching for our 3d engine (see http://www.euclideon.com/ and watch the vids) our sizes of our games will expand especially with increased details et al. if we use uncompressed (or very little compression) for hd video that space gets chewed up very quickly.

I think it’s definitely an option until high capacity flash (100gb or over) becomes feasible, thank goodness hd-dvd didn’t make any impact.

Of course, if it were a more financially viable and desirable option, companies would already be switching to blu-ray as its mode of storage. They not, and given that the PC market is shifting more to digital sales, I wouldn’t expect them to any time soon. Thankfully.

That’s just bluray in general. Bluray has no standard and Sony just keeps upgrading and changing things requiring new software and firmware in the case of bluray players. Heck some of the older bluray players can’t even play newer blurays. It’s part of why I wanted HDDVD to win the war at the time, because they had completed the HDDVD standard so it wouldn’t have been in constant flux.

Unfortunately, it’s a bit of a chicken and egg scenario with PC Blu-ray drives. People aren’t buying them because of a lack of PC software that comes on Blu-ray discs yet software companies aren’t using Blu-ray discs for installation media because because of the low install base of Blu-ray drives. Eventually, something has to give.

Another suggestion I could see implemented is having the special editions of PC games use Blu-ray for installation media (much like how the special edition of Quake 4 came on DVD whereas the normal edition had multipe CDs – I believe it was 4).

silenceoz:
I have a BR player in the PC.
I buy most of my favourite shows in BR because they look so much better but I don’t expect it to be wide spread enough to be used for games

What type of player software do you use?

I have a Blu-Ray in my old computer, I didn’t bother with getting one in my new machine. I have 8 movies on Blu-Ray, I’ve only ever watched 2 of them, the others wont play, at least they wouldn’t last time I tried. From what I can tell they keep doing something to the format so that the PC software has to be constantly updated to play newer titles. Each new release of the player software seemed to have less features than the version before. I may be paranoid but it all stank of Sony putting the boot into PC’s. It’d be interesting to know if the PC’s they make have the same problems.

shlaimon:
My disc drive is only used to install windows.

I don’t even use mine to install windows as there is a tool that Microsoft provides on there site to install windows to a USB drive.

Every install is digital download for me. Even if I get a copy from the shop, all I do is ad the CD key to Steam or origin and let it download, this way its all up to date and ready to go.

As for which way the retail copies should go. It would be hard to push people in the direction of a Blu-Ray drive. I really think that with USB drives dropping in price we could start to see these used in a few years or in the next console cycle. Simple easy and you just plug it in and away it goes.

Time will tell.

USB keys as DRM is as old as USB its self. its nothing new and no doubt it will happen if games are released on USB memory. as for cost factor there is one with DVDs and Blu-ray + the time it takes to write the media, while this is true as well with USB memory some drives may be quicker on the write status than DVD’s and Blu-ray, buying the drives at wholesale will also cause the cost of the drives to drop..

Hell I got a better idea, Start distributing the games on SSD drives, Every PC then has an external 2.5″ Bay dock that you just hot swap SSD’s out of with the games ready to play, no installation required.

It’ll be a while yet before we’re at a stage where moving to bluray would be a smart move and anything could happen between now and that time. The next gen consoles will be the real pusher if PC games go to bluray and even then at first they’ll give the option between a multi DVD version or a buray version just like they had previously with CD’s and DVD’s.

DRM!!!!!

I can see UbiEaBlizztivision jumping on this opportunity to develop their own proprietary DRM systems which would require the USB stick to be connected at all times (and also still need a constant internet connection, just cos they can). So now instead of just needing a disc for installs you would need to have all your game USB sticks ready to swap in whenever you want to play.

Another seemingly good idea subverted into DRM hell all to easily.

PalZer0:
As I noted in the article, most retail PC games are also released on PS3 which uses Blu-ray as the standard disc format. This means it would be easy to factor in PC retail units when making orders for Blu-ray discs as they can be combined with PS3 retail units.

This might actually make sense if the production cost of the retail packaging + disk wasnt approx $0.12 a unit (so basically nothing in the grand scheme of things).

Having boxes split over manufacturers as a result of different media actually allows for more ordering flexibility, possibly lowering costs and lowering manufacture time (Though we’d never see that saving knocked on regardless).

Mmmm universal Win 7 installer on USB. Optical drives are now obsolete.

Of course, I do have pity for those who have been stooged by Telstra in Australia, but you can’t expect a minority of a minority to have much impact on worldwide distribution trends.

Having said that, you can’t microwave an internet connection to make sweet lightning, but you CAN do that with an optical disc.

[X][X][X]

Not required. If you can’t afford a decent connection you can deal with having to swap discs a few times, as chances are updating your optical drive and paying more for games is not going to be your thing either.