'One Blu-ray may be insufficient for next-gen' - Square

[Smokin Shadowz]

Even with a massive 50GB capacity, Square Enix thinks Sony's disc format may not be sufficient enough to store next-gen games on a single CD.

 

 

Yoshihisa Hashimoto, the chief technical officer at Square Enix and the producer of that gorgeous Luminous Engine E3 tech demo, told RPGSite that Square had its CG Works team create a CGI version of the demo first to use as a target for the real-time demo shown.

He goes on to reveal, interestingly, that the power of the processors used allowed for assets from the CGI video to be carried directly over to the real-time demo, and this is a practice he thinks could be possible in the next generation of games.

 

"That's what we're expecting to do," he said. "For the backgrounds used in this - the mountains, the houses - we are using exactly the same assets as are used in the Visual Works CG version."

 

But he goes on to say that storage space for visuals this detailed - even on Sony's mighty Blu-ray format, could be an issue.

 

"Of course, it's too massive of a data to use in a game as-is, but I think the look and feel will probably remain. If we had time, we could've compressed the data even smaller. We didn't have time to do that, so we just used the same master data - but it can definitely be reduced."

 

When asked if storage space could be an issue with Blu-ray discs (which currently store 50GBs of data), Hashimoto replied, "Yeah, that could be a challenge. There's a possibility that just one Blu-ray may not be sufficient.

 

"We have to really consider the mechanism of compressing the data carefully," he said.

 

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/356096/one-blu-ray-may-be-insufficient-for-next-gen-square/