Posted Tue Oct 17, 2006 at 11:12 AM PDT by
Responding to criticism of the PS3's adoption of the Blu-ray format, Sony worldwide studios boss Phil Harrison said it's the only format capable of delivering the amount of data that PS3 games use.
In fact, according to Harrison, PS3 game titles will soon exceed the capacity of the BD-25 discs they're being packed on to at launch.
"Already, (with) our launch titles, we're getting up close to the 25GB limit that we have on our Blu-Ray discs this year," Harrison said in comments first published on the Three Speech web site. "Next year we'll raise that to 50GB, and I'd expect that we’ll be getting close to that in the fairly near future as well."
So what is Sony packing on to PS3 games that so far exceeds the 10GB data capacity of PS2 games?
"It's not just about graphics," said Harrison. "It's about 7.1 audio, it's about speech, it’s about having up to 1080p movies built into the game; it's high res textures, it's animation, it's everything that goes into making a very rich and varied next-gen experience. Partly it's visual, partly it's sound, and partially it'll be down to gameplay benefits as well - more levels, more detail, richer experiences."
Sony has come under fire for its adoption of the Blu-ray format for the PS3, which critics have argued is an attempt to force adoption of the next-gen DVD format for movies. Blu-ray is also blamed for the high cost of the system, and for causing production delays resulting in fewer shipments at launch to the U.S. and Japan, and a delayed launch in other territories.
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