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Kojima: Blu-ray isn't big enough for MGS4
Author: Joe MartinPublished: 3rd March 2008
Kojima says that there isn't enough room on a Blu-ray disc to contain all the awesomeness of the game.
Speaking in a Kojima podcast, Ryan Payton, one of the key producers at Kojima, said that there wasn't enough room on the game discs for Japanese and English versions to carry the languages from other versions.
Interest piqued, Famitsu followed up on the comments and asked head-honcho Hideo Kojima about space concerns. Hideo gave the following reply:
"For us, we're not still not satisfied with the quality we can do. You know, there's not capacity space...There's not enough space at all. (laughs) ...There's not enough space. We always talked about where to cut and what to compress."
Blu-ray discs currently offer around 50GB of space for the PlayStation 3, but apparently that just isn't enough for some developers.
Is Kojima just being greedy about it all, or is the 50GB cap a legitimate concern for developers? What do you think the final game will play like when it's out? Let us know in the forums.
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Comments (56)
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QFT
besides, Orange Box is like what? 25 GB? thats 5 games, so even if MGS4 is as big as 5 games it would only fill half of that 50Gb avalaible on blueray.
99% of developers are still having difficulty finding enough content to fill a dvd, so i agree with BioSniper, but me also thinks that all the cut scenes must be pre-render HD video.
I mean, the 3D world plus all the voice acting can't be that big........ 15-20GB tops, unless this game is meant to be more of a movie than an actual game
Seeing that I have seen some gfx demos with audio, that are less than half a meg and look near realistic!
I think they can improve on the compression of textures by a fair ammount without effecting the image quality toomuch, not as is the PS3 would not be cabable of uncompessing these on the fly.
the orange box was only 7GB on the 360, so there is no way in hell that it was 25GB on the PS3 unless it was uncompressed and if that was so the loading times were awful compared to the 360, and also it was the pc install that was around the 27GB mark.
QFT +whatever we're on
I remember the PR bullshit before the PS3 was released about how they were filling the disks already, which was only because they weren't compressing the data so much and had to repeat data on some games like oblivion.
=P
Bear in mind it would have to have even more cutscenes that DMC4 for it to even get close to filling the disc too...that amount of movie isn't a good thing for what should be a game and not a film.
Might? No need for "might", it will be awesome, no doubt about it. Have you even played the last 3-4 games in the series?...
"Tactical Episode Action". Seen on the front cover. of all MGS games. So these cut scenes are
needed because they need to fit this game into the storey line of all other MGS, such as MGS1,2 and 3.
as well as keeping its own storeyline...
For those complaining about the size. I'm not a fan of XBOX as it is, and If the MGS4 wasnt a PS3 Exclusive,
I'd be disappointed that the PS3 Version has to have its graphics downgraded by compressions, due to the
XBOX's lack of handing this.
Well, it's more of will it be awesome enough to meet the inflated expectations.
This is the problem when developers start to become celebrities, some handle it well, like Will Wright, from what I've seen he's very down to earth, but then others turn out like CliffyB. I don't really know what Kojima is like though, not really followed the hype for the game so haven't come into contact with his ego much.
Well firstly, it's espionage not episode, but more importantly, they don't need FMVs, MGS has worked fine without them in the past by using the engine to do cut scenes. Cut scenes using the engine instead (and from what I've seen it's very pretty anyway so there's not a huge advantage to having FMV) take up a lot less room, I know I'd rather have a better game than cut scenes that are slightly prettier.
when did compressed mean lack of/ or poorer quality, It means smaller in size.
If you compare the 360 & PS3 version of the orange box, they nearly look the same (the 360 has the better frame rate) the 360 verison was only 7GB compressed and the PS3 version was nearly 25GB uncompressed.
I hate fanboys talking crap they no nothing about, its like saying if you compress/decompress anything you destory the quality of that media, and before you bitch back I have both of these machines.
Fanboy much :p
I played the first two games and thought they were good - not as good as everyone said and not as good as some other games of the time - but still damn good. As I say though, I'm holding off on setting a fixed opinion until I see the full MGS4 - maybe we should both do that?
I also think Flibblebot is right about the devs as celebrities. Wil Wright has handled it very well. Peter Molyneux too (he was just always like that) and Sid Mier. Miyamoto has too.
I'm not taking advice from someone who can't quote the word espionage correctly or spell the word Story at all.
and what do you think was i'm talking about? for sure not a console version... you confirmed what i said with your 27GB remark.
The point was simply to show that no game out there will exceed the size limits of a blue ray disk in 2008 / 2009... the orange box is 5 games.. not 1... and only takes half of the space avalaible on a blue ray disk... so MGS4 would have to be the size of 10 Games to even fill it, but not even then would it exceed the size avalaible.
Wouldn't say I was a fanboy, but I think Snake Eater is one of the best games I have ever played. (Although nothing will beat Goldeneye + Mario 64) ;)
I can't see it being worse than Snake Eater, but yeah I agree, lets wait for the final product. :)
i have heard that some developers arent botherin compressing games as they have so much room available, V V lazy, processer speeds are so much quicker than read speeds on any format so compression isnt only a space issue its also a load issue.
dnt think HF2 is a great example, its alot shinnier than the first but the levels are all v blocky and the number of poly's has to be pretty low and even transparent effects are pretty basic and simple. dnt think the textures are that complex at all and wud b simple to compress anyway
Why would either territory want the language from the other region?? Who cares that they both don't fit??
Also many people here are talking about FMVs but it's just speculation. Since they didn't use them in the previous games I don't see why they would need them now.
It's not for the customers benefit... it's to save money. If they author a new Blu-Ray master plate for every territory then it's much more expensive.
Shoving it all on one to make a single version for the world is all they can do to save money.
The 64k demos are usually using procedural textures, most likely the same for the demos under a meg too. There aren't any "hard" textures in these demos, they're created on the fly when the program runs. Can't really compare it to AAA games that have hundreds of textures of different resolutions and models.
But I do agree, if they are having storage problems with a 50gb disk, then they are definitely doing something wrong.
Commpression by its very nature reduces quality, how much depends on the type and amount of compression done. Audio compression is the worst of all next to video and still's, I have all thresystems and I use them in a home heater filled with quality equipment which has each been preffesionaly tuned to output natural AV. Thus far the PS3 has stolen my heart, with 7.1 uncompressed audio and 1080p video in quite a few games it's my favorite system, also if you've ever done a compressed/ uncompressed comparison on good equipment then you'd know there's no match.
Even if they're doing multiple language versions on one disc, that's still no acceptable reason that it should take up more than 50Gb of space. It just smacks of lazy programming to me.
Games tend to use both types: lossy for those assets where detail isn't an issue (textures viewed from a distance, for example) and lossless for those assets where detail is an issue (textures viewed up close)
If all compression was lossy, zip files wouldn't work!
How could you not like David Hayter? The English voice acting for MGS IMO is awesome, although I'm not against allowing people to hear the original Japanese voices. I attempted to play Eternal Sonata with the English voices, as soon as I heard the main girl's voice I was very glad I could switch to Japanese.
but cant see why this game shud exceed the 50GB blu raw capacity when so many games on 360 do fine with 30gb with no word of capacity problems
I was talking generally and I agree that the English voices in MGS are above average.
Where did you get that 30gb from? Xbox 360 games come on standard DVDs so that's 8.5gb at most. Unless you count games that come in multiple DVDs.
Kimbie
What about the question of splitting it on two discs?
The final fantasy series, the original MGS, DMC-3, there are countless games on multiple discs.
So what's the big deal?
I get that its the death for a PC version but I don't think MGS has ever been on the PS3 in the first place.
And I thought that MG3 was PS3 exclusive-- but Microsoft would be stupid to not develop a blue-ray drive for Xbox.
Anyrate--
back to my point:
Why aren't multiple discs an option?
First off, the BR standard has been out quite a while now. They knew the limitations of the media and so if they did indeed have to toss a bunch of content to make it fit then they are really poor at managing resources. Also, it doesn't seem like the different voice audio files should take up any significant amount of room.
That, plus the fact that no other platform has BR capability means that if they really do need all that room they are cutting their market by at least half by being on the platform with the smallest installed base.
The reason it is taking up so much space is because he doesnt want to compress anything. Why compress it when you can get away by not compressing it?
Im sure all the audio is uncompressed.
I think the reason they wanted both languages on each disc is so that they wouldnt have to manufacture different discs for the different regions. If both languages were on the disc then only one type of disc would be made. Thats what I think.
Why do you guys complain that they are wanting this game to be very high quality?
Maybe because this now basically confirms that the game for sure wont be done on 360?
One, non-compressed does not mean higher quality, just more bloat
And two, that also means it will not come to the PC either, since how many people do you know who have BR-ROM drives in their PCs?
Or, this could all just be marketing BS, in which case if there is any justice in the world they will flop horribly
Can someone explain to me why anyone who isn't completely crazy and isn't just trying to consume space would use PCM vs a lossless compression?
I say it once again, the better format lost yet again.
There's no way in hell a game would suddenly REALLY require 50+ GB. No way. During the last 10 years the size has grown from 700 MB CD to max 8 GB Dual-layer disk and no suddenly this? Yeah right. Make code that sucks less and try to get the game published already.
With a game like metal gear though I would have thought that there would be much more environment/effects sounds than talking (although thinking about it they do natter on over that voice com thing).
As for not wanting compression, what's wrong with compression? You can get information of the disk much faster as the drive has to read less information off, and because of the high power of the PS3 it can decompress it very quickly. There isn't really any loss in quality either, it's just being lazy.