Digital Age

We’d figured as early as February that Microsoft wouldforgo placing a next-gen optical drive in the Xbox 360 for a myriad of acceptable reasons, but we couldn’t help butkeep the nagging issue of disc space from lingering in the back of our minds. From the high-res textures fit for anHDTV to the higher polygon counts befitting a next-gen console, the space available on standard DVDs is suddenly inincreasingly short supply. So far we’ve yet to see an Xbox 360 game take up more than a single disc, but if the mostrecent issue of Game Informer is any indication, Microsoft may soonbe sweating their decision to pass up on a next-gen storage format.

The issue takes an in-depth look at all the features of the Xbox 360, and while GI is generally quite takenwith the 360’s performance, functionality, and especially its controller, they unearth some unsettling detailsregarding the console’s diminuitive storage capacity. According to Game Informer, nearly every developer theytalked to at X05 expressed difficulties fitting their launch titles onto a single disc. One unnamed yet “highlyanticipated” game in particular is said to currently occupy a full four 9Gb DVDs. Elder Scrolls IV immediatelyjumps to mind [UPDATE: or perhaps not, duuur], butany of those Japanese RPGs that Microsoft is alwaystouting are also likely candidates. Microsoft’s J Allard downplayed the storage issues, citing that improvedcompression rates in the future will allow much more data to be held on an individual disc, and that the pre-launchcrunch forced many current 360 titles to use space far more inefficiently than they would have otherwise.

Microsoft has already hinted that a future add-on maybe developed to allow the 360 to handle high-def movies, but that the device would be unrelated to gaming. Should thestatus quo remain unchanged, that means that Xbox 360 owners will be stuck with standard DVD media until at least thenext console generation, circa 2010. And, obviously, just because a title is relegated to multiple discs doesn’t meanthat it can’t be a great game—just look at Final Fantasy VII. But in this modern era, will consumers still putup with swapping discs mid-play? Games which are linear, such as Halo, may have little to lose by opting for amulti-disc format, but games which are, er… cubic, such as Grand Theft Auto, may take a significanthit in their ease of playability. All told, did Microsoft make the right decision when choosing the 360’s opticaldrive? If not, would they risk segmenting their fanbase by releasing a newer, HD-DVD enabled box in the future?