14th March 2024, 8:38 AM
https://www.livescience.com/technology/e...000%20DVDs.
It looks like we're entering the petabit era thanks to this. On the one hand, we were finally reaching the point where games couldn't even fit on an Ultra 4K Bluray, but on the other hand, PC game makers never even bothered making the jump from DVD to Bluray, much less 4K Bluray. I found this out in a rather disappointing moment when I opened a physical copy of Doom Eternal and found a circular piece of cardboard stuck to the spindle where a disc should have been. It had my online activation code on it... in the Bethesda launcher... I didn't buy a physical copy of anything. I bought a space-eater. They couldn't even bother to spend the piddling amount of cash it would have taken to just mint a bluray disc. I get it. Very few people have a Bluray (or higher) disc reader on their PC, but I DID buy a physical version, and those people who don't have something to read the disc would still have that activation code to use, so no one's missing out.
So there it is. I'm glad that new tech's coming along, but let's face facts. Both Sony and MS have every intention of releasing "discless" consoles ONLY for their next generation, they won't be adopting this new tech. PC game makers will also be ignoring it. The movie industry never even managed to get 4K Blurays to surpass Bluray sales, nor Bluray to surpass DVD sales, and the physical medium industry has recently had a lot of factories get shut down because physical movies are becoming a "niche interest" product. If no game console just runs these out of the box, that built-in set of devices people already own to play it won't even be there.
I predict this format will exist purely for professional archival purposes, like for long term storage of security recordings or off-shifting server backups. This will be the new tape drive, and nothing more.
It looks like we're entering the petabit era thanks to this. On the one hand, we were finally reaching the point where games couldn't even fit on an Ultra 4K Bluray, but on the other hand, PC game makers never even bothered making the jump from DVD to Bluray, much less 4K Bluray. I found this out in a rather disappointing moment when I opened a physical copy of Doom Eternal and found a circular piece of cardboard stuck to the spindle where a disc should have been. It had my online activation code on it... in the Bethesda launcher... I didn't buy a physical copy of anything. I bought a space-eater. They couldn't even bother to spend the piddling amount of cash it would have taken to just mint a bluray disc. I get it. Very few people have a Bluray (or higher) disc reader on their PC, but I DID buy a physical version, and those people who don't have something to read the disc would still have that activation code to use, so no one's missing out.
So there it is. I'm glad that new tech's coming along, but let's face facts. Both Sony and MS have every intention of releasing "discless" consoles ONLY for their next generation, they won't be adopting this new tech. PC game makers will also be ignoring it. The movie industry never even managed to get 4K Blurays to surpass Bluray sales, nor Bluray to surpass DVD sales, and the physical medium industry has recently had a lot of factories get shut down because physical movies are becoming a "niche interest" product. If no game console just runs these out of the box, that built-in set of devices people already own to play it won't even be there.
I predict this format will exist purely for professional archival purposes, like for long term storage of security recordings or off-shifting server backups. This will be the new tape drive, and nothing more.