Xbox 720 'will support Blu-ray, might not play used games' (Rumor)

[Completely Average]

A class 10 SD card reads at the equivalent of a 66x optical drive speed. Not only that, but they are also cached to the HDD.

A great test if you have time....run Ubuntu 11 from an SD card on your PC, and then run it from an optical drive. You will pull you hair out waiting for optical times in comparison.

Even games that I have downloaded on to my Flash Drives that are plugged into my 360 run faster than they do when they are running from the 360's DVD or the PS3's Blu-ray.

And a 50GB Bluray disk costs about $1 to manufacture.

How much does a 56GB Class 10 SD card cost?


Until it's down to the $1 range, it's not competitive. Developers won't support it if it cuts in to their profits, and neither MS nor Sony will support it if they have to give up royalty fees to cover the added expense. And I don't think anyone wants the customer to eat the added cost. Games cost $60 now at $1 per disk, how much would they cost if you added the price to SD cards to that?

[Cuguy]

And a 50GB Bluray disk costs about $1 to manufacture.How much does a 56GB Class 10 SD card cost?Until it's down to the $1 range, it's not competitive. Developers won't support it if it cuts in to their profits, and neither MS nor Sony will support it if they have to give up royalty fees to cover the added expense. And I don't think anyone wants the customer to eat the added cost. Games cost $60 now at $1 per disk, how much would they cost if you added the price to SD cards to that?

Closest estimate i have found is by the end of 2012 it should be 8 cents per GB for a class 10 sd card...so about 4.50 cents to manufacture. However, there would also be lower packaging costs and lower printing costs... so in the end, the price wouldn't shift IMO. Your physical package would be much smaller to ship the games in, closer to DS size. That in an of itself can cut off a good portion to make up the price of the sd card. There are ways they can make it work.I have worked in a production/marketing facet similar to this. The manufacturing costs encompass a lot of features.

[Soldier 95B]

Closest estimate i have found is by the end of 2012 it should be 8 cents per GB for a class 10 sd card...so about 4.50 cents to manufacture. However, there would also be lower packaging costs and lower printing costs... so in the end, the price wouldn't shift IMO. Your physical package would be much smaller to ship the games in, closer to DS size. That in an of itself can cut off a good portion to make up the price of the sd card. There are ways they can make it work.I have worked in a production/marketing facet similar to this. The manufacturing costs encompass a lot of features.

You also have reduced shipping costs (less weight) for the media to retailers, substantially. Some publishers will do disk exchanges for scratched disks under warranties. This too would save them warranty costs, shipping costs. It will also save them development costs, making it easier to develop games on. They won't need to develop around disk start up/slow down, moving to disk area.

Less space on retail shelves are needed as well.

Other than the CURRENT less expensive cost to produce a 25gb BD disk, the advantages are clearly in the favor of SD.

[itachi73378]

Correct me if I'm wrong but class 10 SD card have a transfer rate of 10Mbps.
On the other hand a 2x blu ray has a read speed of 72Mbps. How is the card better in terms of speed?

And at 8x speed a blu ray has 288Mbps!

[F34R]

Correct me if I'm wrong but class 10 SD card have a transfer rate of 10Mbps.
On the other hand a 2x blu ray has a read speed of 72Mbps. How is the card better in terms of speed?

And at 8x speed a blu ray has 288Mbps!

Seek times is what kills it. Those speeds are also "best case", and aren't consistent throughout the entire media. You'll have faster speeds closer to the center of the disc, while the outer "bands" will have slower speeds.

[Inzane2050]

SD Flash Class 10 is actually 10 megabytes per second; so that would translate into 80 megabits per second. "B"=Byte and "b"=bit. Bytes and bits can be confusing like that.

[itachi73378]

SD Flash Class 10 is actually 10 megabytes per second; so that would translate into 80 megabits per second. "B"=Byte and "b"=bit. Bytes and bits can be confusing like that.

An 8x blu ray has 36 mega bytes per second.
And a 2x drive has 9MB/s only 1MB/s slower

Another thing I will like to bring up is that most people completely ignore the increase in the texture sizes. So the extra speed is used just to keep on par with the last gen streaming speed due to larger textures and assets.

[SomaXD]

As long as movies are on optical, games will be on optical. it makes business sense to use BD drives as BD movie sales pick up steam. Both Sony and MS will use "its a media center" as a selling point once again...

Imagine the day when your PS next gen or Xbox next gen cant play your DVD's or Blu-rays, simply because games switched to flash and consoles no longer have optical drives.... yeah i dont see that happening. Adding an optical drive AND a flash drive? Costly. I dont see that happening either...

[mynd]

As long as movies are on optical, games will be on optical. it makes business sense to use BD drives as BD movie sales pick up steam. Both Sony and MS will use "its a media center" as a selling point once again...

Imagine the day when your PS next gen or Xbox next gen cant play your DVD's or Blu-rays, simply because games switched to flash and consoles no longer have optical drives.... yeah i dont see that happening. Adding an optical drive AND a flash drive? Costly. I dont see that happening either...

Winner!
It quite simple when you think about it.
Optical media player=optical game format.

[Inzane2050]

Nintendo is the obvious exemption from this yet once again

[SomaXD]

Nintendo is the obvious exemption from this yet once again

well yeah lol...nintendo was never a brand recognized as a media hub... theyve not made one console that could play DVD's (movies) let alone blu-rays. (Panasonic Q and Wii mods dont count) :P

However both the Playstation brand and Xbox brand are pretty much synonymous with movie player... id ask how many people here use either console as the primary movie player...

In fact i personally dont even own a dvd or blu-ray player, just my 2 PS3's and 2 360's that do everything i want and more for the entire house.

(also once again showing that both major consoles minus ninty, are in fact media centers for the home. and why i personally think it will be a loooooooooooooong time before we see one of the big 2 companies use anything other than optical.)

[Soldier 95B]

That's the thing though. We need to move movies to SD cards as well. It's time to dump this legacy optical stuff.

[sainraja]

That's the thing though. We need to move movies to SD cards as well. It's time to dump this legacy optical stuff.

That's not going to happen overnight..

If Apple enters gaming.....I can see them making a move like that. Sony or Microsoft won't be switching from optimal media just like that...

[Soldier 95B]

We have time. We don't even know when the next consoles are coming.

[F34R]

We have time. We don't even know when the next consoles are coming.

Next week.

[Danieljay]

no way i dont think microsoft would risk there console not playing used games now that would just be plain stupid. u cant borrow games off your pals or take a game to there house they would lose so much sales etc because some ppl buy used games because they cant afford it brand new etc...

[JVH]

Seek times is what kills it. Those speeds are also "best case", and aren't consistent throughout the entire media. You'll have faster speeds closer to the center of the disc, while the outer "bands" will have slower speeds.

I thought blu-ray had constant speed ? But DVD?s works like you explained. Not sure though.

[radgamer420]

I thought blu-ray had constant speed ?

Yep, youre right. http://www.gamespot.com/pages/profil...9&user=skektek

[itachi73378]

Yep, youre right. http://www.gamespot.com/pages/profil...9&user=skektek

So it seems my calculations were right. Even a 2x blu ray is almost as good as a class 10 card in terms of speed. Given that the next gen will probably use 8x drives, we are far ahead of the most expensive of SD card speeds.

Yeah I don't see the shift coming soon

[Soldier 95B]

So it seems my calculations were right. Even a 2x blu ray is almost as good as a class 10 card in terms of speed. Given that the next gen will probably use 8x drives, we are far ahead of the most expensive of SD card speeds.

Yeah I don't see the shift coming soon

Um no. Class 10 is closer to 66x.


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[itachi73378]

Um no. Class 10 is closer to 66x.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Umm no, 66x is the CD rom speed which has much slower data transfer rate.

[MATRIX 2]

Um no. Class 10 is closer to 66x.


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The minimum spec for a class 10 SD card is 10 megabytes per second.

The maximum data rate for a DVD at 24X is 33.24 megabytes per second.

The maximum data rate for a blu-ray disc is currently 12X which is 54 megabytes per second.

SD cards (or other flash memory) isn't going to eclipse optical media anytime soon in consoles, or movie/software distribution.

Especially since we are likely to have BD XL discs with the next gen consoles allowing for 100GB+ capicitiy discs to be used.

It is likely that the next generation consoles could have a 12X blu-ray drive allowing for 54 megabyte per second read speeds.

The sd cards that can exceed this speed (95 megabytes per second) are at the very top for use with high end DSLR's and video cameras.

A 64GB sd card with this speed rating has a MSRP of $499.99.

Obviously the selling cost for the manufacturer and the manufacturing costs are a lot lowers than this, but it will still be more expensive than current capacity blu-ray discs for some time.

You might see them replace optical media with the PS5 and other consoles in that generation, but the PS4 and next gen xbox will most certainly not be relying on flash media for game distribution.

That's the cold hard truth.

THy

[Soldier 95B]

I wish we were dealing with facts here. Oh well. Maybe in another lifetime.

[Cuguy]

I wish we were dealing with facts here. Oh well. Maybe in another lifetime.

Yeah, apparently he has an old source...

Source

The 600X cards cost $75 for 16GB, $125 for 32GB, and $270 for 64GB. The 400X cards cost $35 for 8GB, $50 for 16GB, $80 for 32GB, $180 for 64GB, and $300 for 128GB

Even still though, people are focusing on SD cards. Why couldn't the flash media be in some sort of USB 3.0 device on the next systems?

I just say, BR was hella expensive at the start... we can't write out SD/flash/CF or thumb drive style media delivery just yet.. especially with probably 2 more years for the price of media to fall.

As you can see from the quote above.. he said $499 for a high end card, but the CES this year is bringing out a 600x, 64GB for 270... no game has come close this gen for needing that space, even counting duplicate data on a BR disc.. 50 dollars for 16gb or 80 for 32gb 400x, still plenty fast enough for gaming/streaming... manufacturing costs on those don't have to drop that much further to be viable. Given that they are hovering at around $1 per GB right now and set to fall again at the end of this year.

[Inzane2050]

As prices do down for Flash, so do speeds increase for Blu-Ray. And there is no way Flash can get to $5 price point they need for the medium.