Sony Working on Blu-ray Successor – Are PS4 Discs Soon to be Out-Dated?

Sony and Panasonic have announced that they’re aiming to develop an optical disc which can hold at minimum 300 gigabytes before the end of 2015 as a successor to Blu-ray, which can currently hold up to 50GB in their dual-layer format.

This comes after Sony stating that 4K movies – with over four times the resolution of 1080p video – could take over 100GB of space to hold.

What do you think? Are these 300GB discs really necessary or will the optical format be obsolete in the future, making way for streaming and downloading with higher speed internet?

50 gigabytes of space doesn’t seem like a big limitation but games such as Metal Gear Solid 4 and The Last of Us were said to take up the majority of a dual-layer Blu-ray, so who knows what the future could hold?

Just look at the Xbox 360, which after just a few years into its lifecycle had to employ mandatory installs and multiple discs due to the size of certain games, could we face a similar challenge with both PS4 and Xbox One?

Let’s hope not – we don’t want our tech to feel as though it’s already obsolete just a couple of years after purchase, particularly when we don’t expect to see a new system until closer to 2020.

Source: BBC

41 Comments

  1. The Holographic Versatile Disc format is just sitting there, with demonstrated capacities of up to 5TB. Just no one’s using it, which is a bit daft. Don’t think Sony were involved in the development, but it’s pretty much ready to go as far as I know.

    • Problem is disks like that will need brand new machines to manufacture them and write data to them, so the added cost of production and development of new machines makes it not very cost effective at all. Especially since consumers wouldn’t be willing to pay extra for the tech.

    • Who is writing this tripe? Come on, this crap is obviously link-bait.

      This is NOT a consumer product, it’s designed for the data archive market. What next? PS4 disk format obsolete because someone’s invented a 600TB Tape-streamer?

      • please explain why optical media with a capacity of 300Gb would be for the data archive market. There are already vastly superior options for mass data storage for those who want it

      • I think HG is referring to Kris’s mention of the HVD. Surely Sony would want to retain control over a new format, especially if it’ll be compatible with Blu-ray, DVD and CD disks.

      • While HVD may have been designed for the data archive market, does that mean it can’t/won’t have consumer appeal? SMS messaging was designed for engineers to quickly relay messages to one-another… Also I’m not sure it’s all that kind to dismiss somebody else’s opinion as “tripe” and “crap”. Live and let live and all that. :)

    • I believe the HVD is an expensive format, and this article mentions another format that is much cheaper to make.

  2. Maybe a BD drive could read these new discs, making it not a problem? Sorry if this makes me sound stupid I really don’t know much about these things!

    • Unlikely I think. I read that Panasonic have developed a 100GB BD disc, but needs a special type of player.

      • Indeed, BD-XL … triple layer discs are 100Gb and quad layer discs are 128Gb.

    • Nope, the reason Blu-ray discs can hold more data than a DVDs is all down to the light the laser uses to read the discs. Blue light has a higher (so thinner) wave length than the red (if I remember right) light used for DVDs so the track of pits and troughs the laser reads can be closer together. A higher capacity drive would have to use a spectrum of light with an higher wave length.

  3. I still think optical format will be around for a while longer because internet speeds are so slow. Companies have to manufacture for the lowest spec of consumers,

    I’m also wondering if Sony, with it’s 10 year lifecycle of its machines, will be looking to make the blu laser tech a primary part of the disc reading .
    Especially as they are announcing this just now. We’re seeing from the interviews with the Sony guys after E3 how long the PS4 has been in the planning, i’m guessing this concept has been “all part of the plan” for a while (to quote the joker)
    Good news I say but I could be proved wrong, who knows

  4. It takes ages for a format to take hold, only recently blu-ray has gained a hold and will overtake DVD sales this year. Blu Ray has been out for 8 years.

    By the time this new disc has any chance to get a foothold internet speeds should be extremly fast – we’ve gone from 56k modems to 100 meg fibre optic lines in the space of fiften years.

    • Still large parts of the UK are on 8mb BB at best, some still only have dial up as an option, it will be a while before everyone is on fibre, let alone what ever the next speed of BB is.

      • We were only upgraded to 8MB broadband this year, been stuck on 2MB for as log as I can remember. The internet speeds where I’m from are never going to be as fast as they are elsewhere, I read in the local paper not that long ago that we could expect fibre optic by 2015! I’d welcome a new format with open arms if that truly was the case.

  5. The internet can barely handle current movies and games at a decent speed, by the time it’s improved, 4k will put it back to ground zero, or worse. We definitely need physical media, probably at least for the next decade.

    • Bingo! Look at how the infrastructure is going. Teflon won’t mind me highlighting his current situation with broadband. Grabbing games from Steam has to be strategically managed as the connection is in single figures. The worst bit? Tef’s in the South East, I believe! Not to far from one of the major capitals of the world for god’s sake.

      Then there’s me. In Wales. We throw sheep for fun and cook our children for Sunday Roast. What am I on? (many have asked ;-)). Well, with regards to the internet, it’s 80 Mbit. Until this hilarious disparity is addressed, we’ll be on physical media for a long time to come.

      • Also factor in how long it will take for the masses to afford or want 4k capable devices, tv’s etc and you got another decade to play with. hell, people are only just beginning to realise that 1080p HD isn’t futuristic.

        I expect some of the ground in the next gen tech spec for TV and the next next gen consoles like ps5 was lost due to the industry really really trying to force 3d onto people who had no interest, justified or not.

        until consumers can see a genuine reason to buy new stuff, from argos or lidl for under £200, there is no room for the upper echelons of the tech porn junkies to get better and better stuff, at least without paying for it through the nose and risking backing a horse that’s awesome but DOA.

  6. Its all good and well saying “Digital downloads are the future” But until I see HDD companies releasing 100TB HDD’s at a price that one could afford without winning lotto, I’m not sold on the digital future.

    A 3TB HDD (pretty much the biggest HD on the market at the moment I think?) would hold only 30 4K movies… Not really that many in the scheme of things, then lets add games and music and photos… That 3TB won’t last long.

    The idea of digital downloads seem to be outpacing the growth of storage capabilities of HDD’s, and then there is the topsy-turvy world of internet connection speeds but thats another story…

  7. To sell 4K TVs the manufactures need 4K content and that’s not going to happen over the internet at current average speeds.

  8. I don’t mind having my games across 2 or 3 disk. I miss those PS1 Final Fantasy days :)

    • Those were the days indeed xD

    • Gosh, that brings back memories of 1997. Having to swap discs in the PS1 was a novelty and quaint at the same time. I couldn’t imagine a current gen console requiring disc swaps, that would be like, well, like 1997 all over again.

      • Yes, but if that was what it took to ensure the game was at it’s best possible, I could live with that. Certainly downloading 100GB of data (digital version) would be worse for most internet connections. I think :)

      • Swapping disks was fine when I had a PS1 and live at my folks house still where my PS1 was in my room and I only had to reach out and swap disks. Now I would have to get up, walk about a meter, crouch down and THEN WALK BACK. UNACCEPTABLE.

      • ABLOKECALLEDDAZ – A metre?! A metre?! I think that would contravene your human rights.

  9. I think Blu-Ray will endure until at least the autumn years of the next generation. Most consumers aren’t ready for another step, DVDs still sell too well, but there will always be enthusiasts around to lap up new technology. At least blu-rays have been a big success, I’m not sure the PS3 would’ve sold so well if blu-rays had gone the way of the laser disc.

  10. ignoring internet speeds for a moment:

    It’s all very well and good having an optical format that screams about the sheer amount of data it can hold, but you’ve got to pull that data off the disc and in past that’s where the trouble has been.I was a MCD owner and said hello to loading times on a console,game would often ‘pause’ whilst laser searched for the sampled cheering in say senis Soccer or any FMV clip in a finishing move in a beat-em-up etc.

    Saw the PS1 see 2D games with longer loading times than Saturn due to lack of onboard Ram, the PS2 had a DVD drive but horrendous loading times on some games compared to the Xbox, 360 had a high speed DVD drive compared to PS3’s sloth like Blu ray drive, but still suffered on games like B.K:Nuts And Bolts.Never had a Neo-Geo CD but heard loading times were horrendous.

    Any future console with higer capacity optical drive going to be looking at factors like:cost of new optical drive technology, speed of the drive, heat generated, how realiable it is, how much Ram can be given as a ‘buffer’ etc etc.All pushes hardware prices up and causes headaches for the engineering dept etc and for what?

    So developers can add even more lengthy ‘watch’em once’ intro’s and cut scenes?.Sure bigger disc’s are great for GOTY editions where you can fit the game and all DLC on 1 disc or putting ‘bonus’ content on there in form of other games as we’ve seen on PS3 releases like MOH/Dead Space 2, Doom 3 etc.

    I’d hope we see established formats survive long enough that they can offer faster drives at cheaper prices, rather than future consoles jumping on a new tech band wagon and consumer sat there installing games or watching loading screens all the while wondering just how long before drive burns out….

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