or i could have one 1 tb blu ray thats really expensive http://hardware.slashdot.or...
of course that was 2 years ago

@catguykyou
My internet connection is average. I can safely assume majority of north america is, too. The issue isn't whether or not you download the game before launch, during launch, or after... you still have to download. In that period of time I'm downloading a big game, other things that I could do online would be greatly limited 'cause the game download takes up too much resources. For example, when I was downloading left4dead 2, my usually fast chrome browser would suddenly slow down so much to a point that I'd just close it down. I had to chose between pausing the game download and play bad company 2... I can't do both at the same time. With physical media, just pop it in the dvd drive and install away.

Large capacity media has more of an effect on the Music and Movie industries than video gaming. DD has it's place and advantages as does streaming HD video. For the most part, streaming HD video looks good, but it still uses compression to get the product to the consumer. A 1 TB disc would give a higher level of quality for HD video without having to use any or high levels of compression. Video games would also benefit by allowing for higher texture bit rates for future definition gameplay. Just because you can compress it doesn't mean you need to if you don't have to.

" $150 a month for an ultra fast 50"

Damn its expensive over there.
Here in the Netherlands you can get 60mb for 50 Euros = 69.47500 U.S. dollars.

"The same people who doesn't want to pay $150 a month for an ultra fast 50 Mb fiber optic line just so it doesn't take a two whole weeks just to download a 1 TB file."

I pay almost that much for 3mb where I live :(

"The new disc's recording layers are about 2.5-times as thick as they need to be to be compatible with Blu-ray specifications."

Why does this new disc have to be compatible with bluray spec? The current bluray spec for movies seems to be just fine. I dont see a reason this cant be its own spec for straight up data.

Companies have been working on increasing the density per layer since optical discs came out. Just because we have a consumer level of CD/DVD/BD doesnt mean there cant coexist the non consumer grade optical formats. It isnt like they are trying to challenge each other.

As far as digital dist...its coming more and more each day. When you download something to the hdd it now has become physical if you think about it. It isnt like we are playing fully streaming games with no physical or logical copies of the data.....not yet.

There's something else that everyone seems to be forgetting here. Sony already tried doing digital download only for a system and it did not succeed like they wanted it to. This was with the PSP Go system. They had some success with it but not the raging success that they wanted to get and it's simply because consumers like to get physical things when they make purchases.

Steam is all well and good but it is not the mainstream delivery system for games and will not be for a very long time. Consumers love their discs too much.

We're two generations away from a 1TB game. The only thing you'd use a 1TB optical disc for right now is physical storage (emptying the contents of your 1TB backup hard drive onto a disc so that you can store a new backup on the hard drive).

I used to think that we'd start to see crazy realistic worlds once the hardware would support it, but the truth is that developers just don't want to spend the time. They'd never fill a 1TB disc (that's 25 MGS4 games, btw).

What WILL happen is the creation of procedural worlds. Take GTA4, for instance. The devs really only allow you to enter buildings that will eventually have some sort of mission connection. They didn't want to build EVERY interior. BUT, down the line, they'll take a game like GTA4, build it just like GTA4, but add procedural interiors so that you can actually enter EVERY building. You'll be able to break into homes and kill people sleeping in their beds, walk in on a woman showering, etc. How? Because the game engine creates those parts FOR the devs. All you'll see at this point is a slight increase in texture space requirements (to prevent the cut-and-paste feeling you'd get with repeat textures everywhere), but it still won't approach 1TB.

what happens when the game you bought on disk breaks or stops being read?

Most companies that sell game DD have commented that if they go out of business that they will unlock all their titles so you don't have to be online to play it. Now assuming the game stops working on your system...well its the same as if your physical disk doesn't work. I would assume because this would be for consoles we would get better support than what you assume. Do you really see Sony allowing a game to be sold by them that doesn't work on your system?

"higher quality with no restrictions for a cheaper cost with dd"

1. dd is in no way or form have higher quality than Bluray. bandwidth and uncompress sound says hi!
2. no restriction?? connection speed, bandwidth, DRM don't ring a bell?

aside from being weightless compared to optical media, DD is currently not having any advantage over optical media especially Bluray!

@catguykyou So I'm suppose to believe that a company going out of buisness is going to take the time to unlock all of their existing games because they promised, c'mon. I use steam, I like it, but digital distribution is still a long ways off from being the main source of distribution. I still rather get physical copies of games, then download them. The games I usally get from dd are usually on sale i.e. l4d2 for $18, same for borderlands etc, etc. That is the only factor that will make me choose dd over physical copies.

damn its crazy! I guess here in Sweden we are lucky.
60-100Mbit/sec is like $50 a month here...

Yea but what if you want to play one of your games at a FRIEND. He has to download it too? I honestly don't see a future yet in DD as discs are still the easy way to go.

you just back it up to a memory stick before you go over. I do it all the time with steam games.