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Heavenly Sword has 10GB of sound data alone

ps3fanboy.com — What's that about Blu-ray discs not being needed? According to Develop Magazine, Heavenly Sword has over 10 GB of sound FX, with three and a half hours of music, 4500 different lines of dialogue, and an hour and a half of cut scenes recorded in eleven different languages.

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  • dafin0, on 10/10/2007, -62/+16well if they wanted it on DVD they could just remove all the other dam languages. all i see with games getting bigger on blue ray is longer loading times.
    i really think blue ray should stay as a movie thing only, because come on 8gb on dvd is alot...have u ever seen a game on computer taking up 8gb of your harddrive (the sims dont count :P)
    • micropizzle, on 10/10/2007, -4/+24Yeah, there are plenty of games that take up well over that now.
      • donkeydrop, on 10/10/2007, -0/+13Stranglehold on PC requires 15GB.
      • Saad85, on 10/10/2007, -3/+2wow, most appropriate title evar (with respect to hd space)

        EDIT: sorry, this was aimed at donkeydrop, hit the wrong button
    • consoneo, on 10/10/2007, -1/+9Are you guys forgetting the days when there were three and four CD Playstation games? I think you must be! :)
      • joeleslie, on 10/10/2007, -1/+2Final Fantasy IX FTW!
        • Tabris, on 10/10/2007, -2/+1No. VII.

          Not to mention every cool kid using Sephiroth as their in-game name for countless online games.
    • Tryleph, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3WOW and BC (with updates) tooks more than 10GB...
    • NgrHader, on 10/10/2007, -7/+4That's right I forgot how long my PS3 games take to load.....not
    • jrbrewin, on 10/10/2007, -7/+6the ps3 is already slow-ass at getting data from bluray in to the cell, don't make it decompress it as well.. argh!
      • Mrstupid7, on 10/10/2007, -2/+5Two totally different things relying on two totally different pieces of hardware.
    • MonkeyFit, on 10/10/2007, -2/+3Supreme Commander takes up about 7.28GB on my hard drive.
    • kaniz, on 10/10/2007, -1/+7Right, and 64k of ram is all we'll ever need also.
  • sponsoredveeka, on 10/10/2007, -9/+111Since ps3 disks are region free i think its a great use of the data to make one game for all countries in one disk.
    • Microdot, on 10/10/2007, -0/+17as well as lowering the cost of production.
      • mike17032, on 10/10/2007, -18/+6Except of course BDs still cost far more to produce than a DVD does, so it costs more in the end.
        • catharz, on 10/10/2007, -4/+16How many cents more is "far more"?
          • kenvsryu, on 10/10/2007, -5/+13fanboys have no sense.
          • jrbrewin, on 10/10/2007, -4/+3Bluray physical media costs are comparible to dvd production costs. However, there's been numerous stories in the media that licesnsing (for codecs and drm) costs are very much prohibitive compared to dvd.
        • Nobi-Wan, on 10/10/2007, -2/+10To be fair, a few cents per discs is actually a lot. Especially when you're manufacturing hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of copies.
          • kris33, on 10/10/2007, -1/+5Don't forget that they now can include all languages in one disc instead of seperate discs for each language. It is much easier and cheaper to manufacture one million discs with all languages than to manufacture and ship 10 different versions of the disc.
    • TheVigilante, on 10/10/2007, -6/+6They're not region free but there are only three regions so many countries fall under the same region.
      • shinythingy, on 10/10/2007, -0/+6Blu ray games are region free blu ray movies aren't
    • Nobi-Wan, on 10/10/2007, -6/+11They're lowering the cost of production for THEMSELVES. The lesser cost is not being passed on to the consumer. $60 for a game is *****, especially since it loses it's resale value so quickly.
      • jrbrewin, on 10/10/2007, -2/+8production costs for the physical disc, and production costs of a game, is not the same.
        • Ashkc88, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3And not to forget that some companies make up their losses in selling consoles by selling games.
        • Hellmark, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1But production costs of manufacturing the game disk does figure into the total cost of the production of the game. If they only have to make one master now, instead of like 8, its cheaper for them overall. They're basically saying though, "because we don't want to make a bunch of different versions for different regions, this new disk format is necessary" and wanting people to shoulder the cost of using the new format (which the bluray drive in the PS3 does cost way more than a DVD drive would have).
          • jrbrewin, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1i can't help but think the small costs of disc mastering are offset by the small savings of using dvd.
            they're all swamped by the huge costs of marketing spin, like this story anyway.
      • UberC, on 10/10/2007, -0/+6Factoring for inflation, games are still cheaper at $60 than they were in the early 90s.
  • estvir, on 10/10/2007, -40/+20So, the space is only needed for 'internationalisation' and you know, not really needed for the actual videogame, just sort of a 'marketing' reason?

    Rad, the X360/Wii are indeed doomed.
    • catharz, on 10/10/2007, -6/+1010GB was JUST for the effects.
      Try reading the original article: http://www.developmag.com/tutorials/28/Heard-About-Heavenly-Sword
      • BlackMask, on 10/10/2007, -7/+2lol you pwned him big time I see :P
      • jrbrewin, on 10/10/2007, -6/+5it's all marketing. that is why you're reading about it in the news. Ultimately this is just another mindless hack and slash, quicktime event game that has been padded out with more uncompressed data than is necessary, apparently just so sony can bash on about how much better the ps3 is than everything else in the world.

        yes, it's nice that internationalised speech is on there, but i can't help but think it's as much lazy programming, as it is marketing.

        e.g., look at how much speech and audio is on mass effect.. and that all fits to one dvd. oh, and it looks like an infinitely more interesting, in depth, compelling game too. :)
  • Azimuth1, on 10/10/2007, -68/+218Quote from someone on GameFAQs:

    Purposely leaving audio uncompressed just for the sake of taking up space is not really impressive, it's just Sony desperately trying to make Blu-Ray look like it's relevant to gaming.
    • coheedcollapse, on 10/10/2007, -38/+70Developers have already said that they're running into storage limitations when it comes to using DVD alone. Is that enough to make it relevant to gaming?

      Oh wait. People like ignoring facts that go against their stubbornly ingrained beliefs.
      • mx3Taggert, on 10/10/2007, -22/+10use more then one DvD *gasp* i can recall installing a game off of 10+ floppies devs didnt complain about space then they just used more then one, problem solved.
        • catharz, on 10/10/2007, -7/+7And you swapped floppies while playing the game?
          While the developers can be sure the PS3 always has a hard drive, I don't want to be installing 20GB+ games on it.
          • jrbrewin, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1you obviously never played the likes of street fighter 2 on the amiga, did you?

            it got to the point where it seemed like swapping disks faster actually pulled off flaming dragon punches.
        • Ignathius, on 10/10/2007, -4/+9floppies? no. but i *have* swapped out CD's, on both PC and consoles, for several games.
          • thatsmyaibo, on 10/10/2007, -2/+9And why would you want to swap discs if you don't have to. I think it would be a step back to swap discs with todays technology.
        • Loonacy, on 10/10/2007, -1/+7With dynamic loading becoming more and more popular in games, it's becoming increasingly impossible to expect users to be able to switch discs to access more content.
          • jrbrewin, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1a good point. esepcially if you have shared assets across different parts of the game. you end up having to have textures and models stored on both discs.

            ultimately i think both arguments here are correct.
            a) compression is your friend, and ultimately compressing things as much as you can is good. Not only does it stop you becoming lazy, but it will also help you out when you start running out of space on bluray
            b) dvd will not be enough for games in the coming years. but there's a hell of a lot to be said for microsoft not picking hd dvd or bluray for launch on xbox360. but they really need to allow games to use the hd dvd (or ultimately bluray, if it does win the war) discs.
        • Rileyper, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Whats a floppy

          /sarcasm
      • ZeroIce, on 11/11/2007, -23/+13DVD isn't next-gen. Blu-Ray is.
      • masamunecyrus, on 10/10/2007, -8/+49Traditional DVDs can be up to 8GB. This game has its audio (maybe its video, too?) stored uncompressed and in ELEVEN different languages. If you were to only include one language and compress it, it would likely be outrageously smaller.
        • catharz, on 11/11/2007, -17/+3From the original article: "10GB of sound FX, approximately three and a half hours of music, 4,500 lines of dialogue"
          http://www.developmag.com/tutorials/28/Heard-About-Heavenly-Sword

          You don't want to be decompressing sound effects on the fly and compressed audio doesn't sound anywhere near as good as uncompressed audio. If I'm reading the article correctly, the 10GB doesn't even include all the voice acting.
          • Coded1, on 10/10/2007, -3/+5With today's technology that is not the case anymore. In proportion to the internal circuits of the PS3 the BluRay reader has no hope of being accessed for sound, video and textures simultaneously without seriously bottle-necking. Compression is not bad at all and can sound exactly as good as the original copy, it is called Lossless compression. Audio can be compressed similar to data files, around 50-60%*, going to lossy will give you a file around 80-85%* the size of the original. Going lossless will clear up some bandwidth for other access. Computation of the PS3 would eat any compression you could throw at it, I wouldn't worry too much about slowing the FPS with serious HIFI audio (I should hope anyway)

            * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio_compression_(data)
          • jrbrewin, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1you're suggesting that it's more strain for bluray to access uncompressed audio, as well as game textures, geometry and code, than it is to access compressed everything? more data = more time required to seek, and buffer it in.

            with the "supreme power the cell" surely it makes far more sense to stream in compressed audio (hell, even the massively out of date mp3 at high bitrate) and decompressed on the fly. it's not like decompressing audio is a cpu intensive job now, is it?
        • carpespasm, on 10/10/2007, -5/+28compressed audio, especially just plain speach can sound indestinguishable from it's uncompressed copy. there's a point where the human ear, no matter how much of an 'audiophile' you are, just can't tell any higher level of fidelity. and if the ps3 can't uncompress audio on the fly i feel sorry for it.
      • Proteus1935, on 10/10/2007, -3/+21as I was once in the business I can surely say that programmers don`t need storage space... designers on the other hand WILL ALWAYS run out of space no matter the media you give'em...
      • mike17032, on 10/10/2007, -15/+3Hows Madden working for ya on that oh so awsome PS3?
        • thatsmyaibo, on 10/10/2007, -1/+9I'll tell you when I don't buy the same game they have been feeding to you for the last 10 years while Madden laughs his way to the bank occasionally stopping for a hot dog.
        • Rileyper, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2I love the new madden 08 it plays great on PS3 and I tried it on xbox3 and it was great also.
      • zybch, on 10/10/2007, -8/+5Look, the only game so far where there was a concern about the storage limitations was the new Project Gotham Racing one, and even then, the developer came forward and stated that 'no, its NOT a limitation, its not true', someone was trying to start a rumor (I wonder who eh sony, nudge nudge, wink wink)
      • daridave, on 10/10/2007, -7/+7Please STFU.

        10GB of audio data, do you have any ideas how many HOURS of MP3 audio that could be? Seriously !? It's all stupid devloper lazyness. It's been like this since the PlayStation vs. N64 -- CDs versus carts. Yeah, everybody jumped on the CD's cuz it was better, but geez, people got lazy. Some guys with 32MB carts could do better work than ohters with two 700MB CD's.

        It's not all bad, though, because if you use more space, less compression, you somehow take less load off the processing power. But still...


        Besides, the game [demo] looks great, but 10GB of audio data? Is this a game or a freakin feature-length movie? LMAO... get real... they're doing it on purpose.
        • derkmerkin, on 10/10/2007, -1/+2Dont be retarded, of course they want this to be as close to a feature length movie! They hired the guy that did golem to do character acting didnt they? YES they are doing it on purpose they want a full HD experience!

          What games came on 2 cds that could have been done on 32mb (megabit not mega byte) carts? Yes there were crappy multi cd games, but that doesnt mean they could have been done on a cart.

          Geez the jump to conclusions mat must have been a huge underground success on digg.
        • msgyrd, on 10/10/2007, -1/+110gb of audio is well beyond the requirements of a feature length audio track for a movie.
    • elvenseven, on 10/10/2007, -22/+29According to a a staff who is believed to be on the developing over at the official Project Gotham 4 Racing forums, they are having problems fitting all the data of the tracks which was unveiled at today into the game.

      He writes: "You won't see different times of day per city because this involves recreating all the textures again (one for day and one for night). Whilst this wasn't a problem for our dev team, it was a problem fitting all this data onto a single DVD. So we've worked around the problem by providing different lighting models per city. For example, Macau is always in the daytime, but if you play it during a storm everything looks darker and more foreboding. If you play during a blizzard then things are slightly tinged blue and everything seems more frozen. Of course, playing this track in sunshine will make everything appear bright and yellowy."

      http://www.xbox-scene.com/xbox1data/sep/EElVluEyuAUsdHibuj.php
    • rootstyle, on 10/10/2007, -7/+40Yes, the gameFAQs forums are the gospel of correct information :p ***** dude, the gameFAQs forums may be worst for fanboy fighting than Digg, and thats tough!
    • naden, on 10/10/2007, -8/+25"Quote from someone on GameFAQs:"

      And in other news .. some guy that is a cousin of some friend of a friend of mine who might work on Heavenly Sword reckons your talking ***** !!
    • catharz, on 10/10/2007, -19/+12But uncompressed audio also sounds 10x better than compressed audio.
      Go into a hifi store and compare a SACD or DVD-Audio CD to the highest quality MP3s. It's like comparing 1080p to 8 bit graphics.
      • spartan018, on 10/10/2007, -4/+20There is such a thing as Lossless Compression, you know.
        • catharz, on 10/10/2007, -8/+5And how much space would that save? Even if it could get 50%, you'd still run out.
        • catharz, on 10/10/2007, -3/+4Actually, I checked the specs. FLAC can compress up to 58%, so you might get the audio down to 4GB.
          • derkmerkin, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2that would leave the xbox with 3 gigs of space, not much for a game
      • netkid91, on 10/10/2007, -5/+14Why can't they just use FLAC? Sounds just the same as uncompressed audio and takes up less space. Stop being a douche.
        • catharz, on 10/10/2007, -15/+5lol, do you even have an idea how much higher the bitrate of PS3 uncompressed audio is?
          FLAC is ***** in comparison.
        • salmonmoose, on 10/10/2007, -2/+4Urm, FLAC can deal with anything the PS3 can output, and in fact more, the limiting factor here would be the sound device on the system, not the codec.

          Unlike MP3, FLAC, and it's cousin Vorbis, were designed from the ground up to work as high-end audio solutions. There is no reason to be using FLAC for anything except studio audio and archival, where repeated recompression degenerates sound, Put to the a blind test - vorbis at a medium to high bitrate is all you need for a game. It's likely the audio engine of the game processes the audio itself to add environmental effects, which would easily mask any artifacts in the audio.
        • offput, on 10/10/2007, -1/+2repeated recompression cannot degenerate the sound because it's lossless. to say otherwise is foolish. Also, most games now support multi-channel sound, something which FLAC doesn't not currently support very well. Meridian Lossless Packing (the compression used in DVD-Audio) supports lossless multichannel but its licensing is costly.
    • aegis9975, on 10/10/2007, -3/+18I'm going to start quoting anonymous people on Digg when I go to other sites.
      "Quote from someone on Digg:"
      • iceblademan, on 10/10/2007, -1/+2Quote from someone on Digg:
        "Kevin Rose. Cats. Sony is teh suxx. Woo Apple! Ya, Wii!
    • mjn23, on 10/10/2007, -4/+4I can tell you for sure that the audio is still compressed. It always is at least somewhat. 5.1 or 7.1 uncompressed files would eat up 10gb like it was nothing.
      • zybch, on 10/10/2007, -3/+3Bollocks! You got proof to back that up??
        No? Didn't think so.
      • infotech1, on 10/10/2007, -4/+4uh try common sense?
        3hours of music + over 11 hours of cutscenes, and the 4500lines. would be well over 10gb if it was uncompressed 7.1, you would be looking at over 50gb.

        High quality audio isnt small even if it is compressed, same goes for these higher res textures etc, DvD's were getting filled up with last generation games, they are clearly too small for this generation.
    • bhowell, on 10/10/2007, -2/+14Wouldn't uncompressed audio make for longer loading times? More to read from the disc?
      • atma, on 10/10/2007, -7/+4Absolutely. Couple this with the fact that the PS3's drive is significantly slower than the 360's (PS3: 9 MB/s, 360: 15.9MB/s), and you're just asking for high load times. Personally, I'd be much more willing to swap discs occasionally than endure higher load times all around.

        That said, the PS3 still beats the 360 on a number of features (better HDMI spec, forced HD bundle, etc.).
        • catharz, on 10/10/2007, -3/+9The stuff on the PS3s drive being slower has been debunked multiple times.
          They're actually very comparable in speed.
          • atma, on 10/10/2007, -4/+6I'd like to see a source on this, as the fact remains that a 2x BD-ROM is slower than a 12x DVD-ROM.
          • catharz, on 10/10/2007, -1/+82x Blu-ray Drive (72Mbps(9MB/s))
            Single Layer (2x CLV) - Constant Linear Velocity (Same speed across entire disk)
            Double Layer - Couldn't find any data but no games have been released on a double layer yet.

            Entire Blu-ray Disk is read at 9MB/s.

            12x DVD-Rom Drive SL (9.25MB/S-15.85MB/s(AVG ~8x(10.57MB/s) DL (4.36MB/s-10.57MB/s(AVG ~6x(7.93MB/s)
            SL(DVD-5) 12x Max (5-12x Full CAV) - Constant Angular Velocity (Speed Varies from edge to edge)
            DL(DVD-9) 8x Max (3.3-8x Full CAV) - Constant Angular Velocity (Speed Varies from edge to edge)

            SL DVD is 1.57MB/s > SL Blu-ray
            DL DVD is 1.07MB/s < SL Blu-ray

            Majority of 360 games are on DVD-9.

            source: http://forum.beyond3d.com/showthread.php?t=42157
            Further sources are quoted in the article.
          • atma, on 10/10/2007, -9/+3I'm not really convinced, as this is likely just a forum member gathering data and misinterpreting it.

            I'm a bit more persuaded by Todd Howard from Bethesda Games: "Drive speed matters more to me [than capacity], and Blu-ray is slower," Howard told EGM. (http://www.joystiq.com/2007/01/17/ps3s-blu-ray-drive-speed-could-be-reason-for-oblivion-delay/)
        • Rileyper, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1OK you know that large file for the game, IT PREPARES the load while your playing the level before, so the load time won't take long.
      • narcosis219, on 10/10/2007, -2/+2No need to spend time decompressing, and you get higher quality.
        • bhowell, on 10/10/2007, -0/+9I'd imagine that the PS3 can decompress audio much faster than the BluRay drive can read uncompressed audio, but I don't have any figures on that.

          I remember that a dev for City of Heroes (MMO PC game) said that they compress their data files because it's faster to read the smaller files and decompress them than it is to read the uncompressed files on most PCs. I'm guessing that the same idea holds true for the PS3.. the BluRay drive is slower than a hard disk and the processor is probably faster at decompression.
          • staticneuron, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2Actually the ps3 is reall good at streaming data. I am not to sure about audio, but it seems to be the case for other assets in the game.
      • fuzzynyanko, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2Depends on how the audio is used. If you have the game loaded into memory and/or hard disk, streaming a long audio file from the DVD disc won't hurt it. If you are constantly loading stuff while the game is going on, sure, there could be problems. Uncompressed "CD-Quality" audio is 44.1 khz, and I think it requires like 176 k/sec. A lot of the usual sound effects aren't very long and could be loaded into memory.

        However, the compression argument is pretty good because you can load an audio file right into RAM and nowadays MP3 playback uses less than 1% of the CPU's power, especially with a well-designed OS.
    • ChrisWickenscom, on 10/10/2007, -10/+2It's PAINFULLY obvious that most people know NOTHING of audio.
      Compressed audio will always have degradation in quality when compared to the uncompressed format.
      BUT besides that, WHO SAID THEY DIDNT COMPRESS THE AUDIO IN THE FIRST PLACE?
    • grumbel, on 10/10/2007, -2/+2The thing where Bluray is a huge advantage is when you want to pack multiple languages on a single disc. Sure, DVD is enough for a 30h game that only comes with english, but when you also want Spanish, French, German, Japanese and maybe more on the same disc you might run into issues very quickly.

      So its not like the space on Blurays can't be used for something useful, its just that those uses are mainly secondary and not critical to the main game.
    • Konrad9, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1The Halo 1 DVD was completely full of data... but 75% of it was uncompressed music.
      Just because you can make a disc use X amount of space doesn't mean you have to or that you can't compress it.
    • charlescheese, on 10/10/2007, -1/+3Then why is Epic already saying they can see filling an entire BluRay disk with user created maps for the next Unreal Tournament?
  • Eslamicolt3, on 10/10/2007, -27/+7The truth is for the most part, no Blu Ray for the ps3 is not "needed". But only in the same way that a powerful gpu and ram aren't "needed" on the Wii. Yah twilight princess is really fun but it looks ***** ugly on a nice tv. The 10 gigs of audio can be compressed down to 1 gig on the 360. Personally, I'd rather listen to the uncompressed soundtrack though on the ps3.
  • LiquidChimera, on 10/10/2007, -22/+67I don't see any issue here, I bought the PS3 for a all around high-def experience and now with Heavenly Sword I get uncompressed audio along with 1080p visuals. That's awesome!
    • Nightspark, on 10/10/2007, -12/+12High quality audio is good, but lossless compression doesn't sound any worse than uncompressed audio.
      • vashmyvindows, on 10/10/2007, -11/+1"lossless compression doesn't sound any worse than uncompressed audio."

        A reasonable observation.
        • catharz, on 10/10/2007, -9/+5But 100% inaccurate.
          Go do a comparison between any compression format (lossless or not) and SACD or DVD Audio.
          The difference is staggering.
          • mywhitenoise, on 10/10/2007, -5/+4These people just don't get it.
            A CD only holds stereo or mono channels, an SACD and DVD-A hold way more information, in separate audio channels. Better yet, listen to a fan-made DTS CD, and compare it to an SACD/DVD-A master. ***** compression.
          • zybch, on 10/10/2007, -3/+4Sorry, but leave the DTS "lets bump up all of the low end frequencies, that ought to trick stupid people into thinking DTS sounds better" ***** out of this!
          • Mrstupid7, on 10/10/2007, -1/+2Monster Cables make your sound sound better too. Here's something for you. http://www.referenceaudiomods.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=NOB_C37_C
        • Teej, on 10/10/2007, -2/+12Catharz, you seem to be missing the point. A lossless compression format by its very definition is just that: lossless. It will not sound ANY different to the source material. I could encode any SACD with a proper lossless codec, and it would sound exactly as the same as the original.
        • catharz, on 10/10/2007, -8/+2@Teej

          I'm not missing the point. You're right, audio compressed with a lossless compression algorithm should be the same as the source. But there are two big problems.

          First, there is no compression codec currently available that can compress (lossless or otherwise) a 7.1 audio stream at the same bitrate and frequency as the source (SACD, DVD Audio, HD-DVD or Blu-Ray) with 7.1 audio and a sampling frequency of 176.4 kHz (note "sampling frequency", not "audio frequency").

          Second, any compression algorithm that could decompress that much data on the fly would drag any current gen (and probably next gen) system to its knees.
        • zybch, on 10/10/2007, -1/+7catharz, please go and do some googling about lossless compression. You have no freaking idea what you're talking about!
        • catharz, on 10/10/2007, -2/+3@zybch "catharz, please go and do some googling about lossless compression. You have no freaking idea what you're talking about!"

          Yup, checked wiki and you're right. FLAC can handle anything that the PS3 can dish out.
    • Scottuary, on 10/10/2007, -3/+12Not to be a down liquidchimera because I own a ps3 and I'm really looking forward to Heavenly Sword. But Heavenly Sword runs in 720p.
      • mywhitenoise, on 10/10/2007, -3/+4Are you sure? I'm pretty sure they were making a big deal about Heavenly Sword and Lair being in 1080p/
        • catharz, on 10/10/2007, -1/+3Nope, I'm pretty sure Lair is 1080p and HS is 720p.
  • UtopiaInTheSky, on 10/10/2007, -23/+6510 GB of sound? Yes that's not necessary. Perhaps they should use some compression. 10 GB of sound is just silly.
    • donkeydrop, on 10/10/2007, -5/+23NHL 2007 has 1.6GB of audio. That's one language, with compression, and for a sports game. For 11 languages and in an RPG 10GB is small.
      • UberC, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2It's not an RPG but your point is taken.
    • thatsmyaibo, on 10/10/2007, -4/+5Why compress when you don't have to? They have the space for it.
      • AscendoTuum, on 10/10/2007, -2/+7Well, it's not just about the space, but also about getting the data from the disc to the hardware. => It's faster to transfer let's say 10MB than to transfer 50. That can make a difference.
    • uradox, on 10/10/2007, -3/+1Thats the thing I agree with, theres no need.
      Theres no need to parade around saying how they 'needed' the space either but they choose to go that one step more :)
      • Rileyper, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1So you like hearing the same song over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over hey look i beat the game... lets play again hey the music sounds fammiliar and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over!!!
    • iceblademan, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Hmm. I seem to remember the days when a full 1 MB of RAM was considered a wasteful investment. 10 GB isn't that much in the swing of things, pal.
  • JohnFrazee, on 10/10/2007, -10/+0check out "nova now" : http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sciencenow/3410/02.html
  • jdoc, on 10/10/2007, -21/+9Source of the article: ps3fanboy.com
    uhh....
  • alfredGamulo, on 10/10/2007, -18/+9its all the languages that are taking up the space...

    waste of space, great excuse to get bluray i guess. if you're multilingual.
  • xlent, on 10/10/2007, -9/+12hrm maybe it has to do w/ the 11 different languages? they could just have 1/2 language per region that would almost make some sense.
  • da_bradler, on 10/10/2007, -21/+72so 10GB divided by 11 (since I only speak one language) = ??? less then one GB of audio... wow that's slightly over a CD's worth of audio... *yawn*
    • netkid91, on 10/10/2007, -8/+10Wow, why are you being dugg down....sony bury squad out today?
      • catharz, on 10/10/2007, -8/+6They're being dug down because the article says 10GB is taken up by FX.
        If I understand that statement correctly, the voice acting is in addition to that.
        • Myonosken, on 10/10/2007, -2/+2Nah you understood wrong man. Its 10GB WITH languages.
    • Shoey, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1While I agree that the number of languages are a big factor in the size, sound effects themselves don't need to be translated. So there is likely more data than that that you will take advantage of.
    • Harbinger67, on 10/10/2007, -1/+14Yes, they had to record sword clashes and the howls of monsters in eleven different languages.
      • jedikv, on 10/10/2007, -1/+5what "le roar as supposed to just "roar"?
    • pseudo.hero, on 10/10/2007, -4/+1This is totally just a fluff piece, they did the same thing with lair a few weeks ago on how much space it's using. Too bad early reviews are saying thats all it really has going for it.
  • knodi, on 10/10/2007, -24/+8And the dialogs still sound gay.
  • HouseofEl, on 10/10/2007, -13/+23If that's uncompressed, then it's stretching the truth. A lot of games would have similar stats if they didn't use compression. This isn't a knock on the PS3, this is a knock on the guys trying to fill up space and their egos. It's not horrible, but it's sort of like filling an entire CD with an uncompressed piece of a symphony or something. Sure you can do it and the quality will be great, but why? It's just not needed.
    • thephantom1492, on 10/10/2007, -3/+1there is some lossless format, some simple one offer a 4:1 compression with absolutely no loss... so... it's not a quality issue, but really a stupidity from the guys that decided to use non-compressed or very poorly compressed format
  • totorototoro, on 10/10/2007, -14/+9I think its a great trend. I'd love to replay games like Final Fantasy and KOTOR with uncompressed voice and other audio, and look forward to seeing it in all the new games coming out.
    • Cthalupa, on 10/10/2007, -3/+23Why? Even high end studio equipment won't show a difference in sound between a flac file and uncompressed audio. Your home theater certainly won't. Your home theater will almost certainly not sound any different playing a 256kbps mp3 or ogg vs a flac file. It is wasteful, increases loading times, and artificially raises the amount of data on the disk.
      • totorototoro, on 10/10/2007, -9/+1But the dialogue/audio in PS2/Xbox games was massively compressed, and I'm sure it is on the Xbox360 and Wii as well. Of COURSE there isn't a big difference between FLAC and uncompressed. Are the other consoles using FLAC? or even 256kbps MP3? Are they even using 64kps MP3 audio for dialogue?

        They have the space, and they recorded the data uncompressed. What is the problem with using it? Do you have proof they are affecting the load times detrimentally in this case? And who cares about the amount of data on the disk?
      • catharz, on 10/10/2007, -7/+2"Your home theater will almost certainly not sound any different playing a 256kbps mp3 or ogg vs a flac file."

        That's funny because my cheap-ass surround sound system has no problem showing up massing differences between OGG, MP3, FLAC, CD and SACD (uncompressed). SACD sounds so much better the others aren't even in the same league. They're like listening to 8 track tapes. And SACD quality is what they're talking about when mentioning uncompressed audio on the PS3.
        • catharz, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1Take it back on FLAC (haven't listened to 7.1 196kHz on it).
          But ogg, mp3 and CD don't have anywhere near the sample rate of SACD.
        • Myonosken, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1I love how you've posted this hundreds of times and now have had to go and respond to them all because you made up ***** about FLAC.
      • Dgen_X, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2what...this won't sound good on my 15 year old tv with mono sound?

        you sir are wrong! 10GB of sound through one speaker makes a BIG difference....sheesh
  • Cthalupa, on 10/10/2007, -12/+21Uncompressed audio is retarded. You can make a lossless file that sounds just as good on the best of stereo equipment, and even a high end home theater is going to be indistinguishable on 256kbps vs uncompressed or lossless.

    They're leaving things as they are simply to take up more room
    • rootstyle, on 10/10/2007, -4/+15256kbps vs uncompressed with what magic codec? I hate to start a ***** storm argument but even 320kbps MP3 vs Uncompressed audio for music is distinguishable on a 'high end home theater'. Listen closely for the cymbols, high hats, etc. And we're talking about 48kHz sampled audio, not 44kHz like your MP3 / CD collection. I'm not advocating uncompressed audio, but I would certainly prefer lossless audio to 256/320kbit aac/mp3.
      • catharz, on 10/10/2007, -5/+3Even on low end home theatre my GF can tell the difference between 320kbps and SACD two rooms away. And she's as tone deaf as they come.
        • Teej, on 10/10/2007, -2/+3Then what the ***** encoder are you using Catharz? Blade?
        • catharz, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3Actually, it was the ogg encoder build into MythTV.
          But the difference between CD and SACD (on a dual-format CD) was just as apparent.
    • netkid91, on 10/10/2007, -8/+2THANK YOU! You are exactly correct, hell, most people can't distinguish 128KBps MP3's and 256Kbps MP3's! So yes, they are just doing this to fill up room, since they could just as easily use....hmmm....FLAC?
      • mywhitenoise, on 10/10/2007, -2/+2128kbps ***** sucks, dude! 192 is fine, but ***** 128!
        • louiedog, on 10/10/2007, -1/+3I have a friend who gets 5+ new CDs a week. For some reason he sees no value in getting good audio hardware though. He claims he can't tell the difference between 128 and 256 mp3s. It drives me nuts that he has such ***** $15 pc multimedia speakers. A lot of people are like that. They just don't seem to care and don't think it's worth the investment. People like that are in the majority.
    • MrSidnet, on 10/10/2007, -3/+1Because there's a lot of high hats half-life/quake/doom .
      I'm just stating, not hating.
      • KyleMistry, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4You'd probably be surprised at how instrumental game soundtracks are becoming.
    • bignerd, on 10/10/2007, -2/+5Good God, I'm so tired of fanboys blindly claiming that blu-ray is "not needed." I mean seriously, if thats the case DVD's aren't really needed. Hey, let's just compress everything and put it on CD's. Yeah, I don't don't mind swapping out 20 disc's.. LMAO, are you guys serious? If you prefer one system over another system then fine, but arguing that a new technology is not "needed" really makes you look like a fanboy! Hell, my car air conditioner isn't needed but its hella convenient. I can think of hundreds of other things that "aren't needed" but definately improve the quality of the product (whether it be only quality of the product or quality of life). Hell, I bet three quarters of you guys complaining about blu-ray would tear your house apart looking for your TV remote before you get your lazy ass up and manually turn the channel. Man, I guess Sony was just being greedy and forcing unwanted technology on me when they included that remote with my TV...

      Also, remember that we are paying the same price for a blu-ray game that you guys pay for a dvd based game, with more storage. I think the people need to change the question from "Why Blu-Ray?" to "Why NOT Blu-Ray?"
  • sirius2k3, on 10/10/2007, -9/+4it is possible to put more than one disc in a single case right?
    i'm sure i've seen that being done somewhere before.

    (im just playing devil's advocate here. anyone who can't see that blu-ray is the way, is just silly.)
    • WhereAmI, on 10/10/2007, -2/+2Sure, you can go ahead and play muti disc games. We handled it with FF on Playstaion, why should we care now on this new generation of technologies?

      Still can't find disc 3...can't play it now...:(
      • razorswc, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1Maybe you should take better care of your stuff
      • derkmerkin, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1amazing that in the same post you say that multi disk game are fine and then say that you lost a disk and now you cant play it... just retarded, you can PLAINLY see one of the many advantages to blu-ray and still say its just fine.

        new generations of techology... what is it good for absulutly nothing..
        NOT /borat
    • sirius2k3, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3well with a linear/story driven game like FF, its ok.
      But who wants to have to change discs when they want to play different maps in an action,racing or FPS?
  • Piggycow, on 10/10/2007, -15/+19It's pretty sad when you brag about the size of a game... I could record 12 GB of uncompressed audio and stick it on a blue ray disk say I have a record but it would still be utter crap..
  • eightframes, on 10/10/2007, -17/+2two words sluts.
    mass effect.
    plenty of audio and dialogue in that one.
    • WhereAmI, on 10/10/2007, -5/+3yeah well your a whore

      ....
    • skunkworker, on 10/10/2007, -6/+6Well look at what you get in mass effect, some the worst 3rd person shooter graphics ive seen and boring gameplay
  • mxpx720, on 10/10/2007, -8/+51wait a second.... my ps3 plays games too???
    • vagarach, on 10/10/2007, -6/+4Dude, just *imagine* all that gaming you have missed out on! run to the store double quick!
      • TheG2, on 10/10/2007, -6/+2Ha ha, I love sarcasm.
        • thatsmyaibo, on 10/10/2007, -2/+2Great because you're post was awesome and brought some substance to this thread!
    • MonkCanatella, on 10/10/2007, -3/+3Waiiiit a second dude! Like, I totally haven't heard that joke before!
    • jedikv, on 10/10/2007, -2/+1The cell doesn't just figure out the meaning of life you know.
  • Jaysunli, on 10/10/2007, -3/+8The MultiLanguage release is obviously a major factor in all this space being used. That doesn't prove that Blu Ray is needed it just proves the developers are pretty smart to use it for something useful and maximize their profits.
    • Cthalupa, on 10/10/2007, -4/+2The multilanguage support really isn't the determining factor, unless coupled with the uncompressed audio. You could have a multilanguage dvd with compressed audio and be fine.
    • uradox, on 10/10/2007, -1/+0Spot on
  • sponsoredveeka, on 10/10/2007, -6/+6I don't think sony is pushing anything blue ray for gaming. I mean come on you guys see it everyday that blue ray outsells hd dvd. I think its only a matter of time before universal turns to blue ray, and microsoft will release another add on.
  • charliespopcan, on 10/10/2007, -6/+1I heard that Metal Gear Solid 4 has around/more than 10 GB of sound as well..
  • Obsession88, on 10/10/2007, -12/+1Yeah but it's not that fun of a game.
    (Ps I'm a Sony fanboy btw)
    • catharz, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4And you're determining this from?

      The only playable demo out there is over 12 months old.
      • mushroom, on 10/10/2007, -2/+2Seeing how the ps3 was release in November and its August now, over 12 months old?
        • catharz, on 10/10/2007, -1/+3What, you think they don't start developing games until the console is released?
          They had dev consoles to developers a lot more than 12 months ago.
  • Natetendo83, on 10/10/2007, -2/+10meh, if you have the space might as well take advantage of it
  • iamsamsamiam, on 10/10/2007, -7/+12If you are a card carrying member of the English speaking Aryan race, maybe the 11 languages don't seem like a big thing. But in the European region alone there's more than half a dozen distinct languages.
    and having uncompressed audio isn't a bad thing. better than an mp3 any day.
    • xlent, on 10/10/2007, -2/+6thats very true i never considered that, however, how did those Europeans get along prior?
      • catharz, on 10/10/2007, -1/+2They brief periods of peace with lots of war in between.
    • bignerd, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Great point!
  • LordSkywalker, on 10/10/2007, -9/+1711 languages take up 10 gigs. That means English would average 900 or so megs. Take that uncompressed audio, losslessly compress with something like FLAC, and the "OMFG!! 10 GIGABITES" claim gets knocked down to about 400 megs.
    • Scottuary, on 10/10/2007, -4/+2Well not all 10GBs are spoken audio. I bet less than half of that is spoken audio. So you can't just go and divide 10 gigs 11 ways. Supposedly there is over 4 hours of cinematic, composed music.
    • nigh7dagger, on 10/10/2007, -2/+4Halo 3 will have, if I remember correctly, 50,000 lines of spoken audio and it'll be on a regular DL DVD. That's in addition to the myriad of sound effects and everything that makes it a game.
  • B52doc, on 10/10/2007, -12/+710 gigs of muzac? Heavenly Sword's digital penis must be huge.
  • Bossman1086, on 10/10/2007, -9/+11Sorry, but we've heard this many times before. Every time it's come back false. People feel the need to justify the need for Blu-Ray. Each time it turns out to be buffer data, an outright lie, or during the development process before compression is applied.

    But anyways, it's a region free disc. This is including multiple languages. It would fit fine if they didn't put it all on one disc. So really, blu-ray ISN'T needed.
    • Promantarius, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2Well, it may well be completely pointless for this game, but the size of the disk does open up several opportunities. Aside from being able to create more art and sound for a game, you could also release multiple games on a single disc or even have a copy of the DVD-quality movie the game is based on (or hell, a HD copy?)

      Multiple discs is more expensive to manufacture, and more complicated for users. It's better to keep things simple where you can, so it's a great idea to have the space for the future. I'd agree that it's mostly unnecessary at this point though, but it still beats multiple DVDs.
  • GerbilSoft, on 10/10/2007, -4/+17"It's like comparing 1080p to 8 bit graphics."

    I don't quite see how you can compare a display resolution to a color depth. Unless you mean "comparing modern computer graphics to 1980's computer graphics", in which case you're still wrong because there's lossless audio compression, such as FLAC.
    • catharz, on 10/10/2007, -2/+2Yep, and didn't realise (until following up some posts here) that FLAC could handle 7.1 @ 196kHz.

      Some times on Digg you can actually learn stuff! :)
  • DavidGX, on 10/10/2007, -7/+4Talk about wasteful. Buried.
  • iStunT, on 10/10/2007, -2/+9Wow... must be pretty good quality sound then because i have 35 DAYS worth of music on itunes and its not even 10 GBs..
    • infotech1, on 10/10/2007, -2/+1Wow you must keep your music in terribly compressed lossy formats.
      i have liek 5 days of music and its well over 30gb, nothing below 128kbps mostly 320kbps+
      • johnnliu, on 10/10/2007, -1/+4Do you wear designer headphones or something? How can you tell the difference when you are listening to your ipod on the bus/train/road?
  • sevireen, on 10/10/2007, -4/+3so every 360 game is coming out on 1 disc with no problem(except blue dragon(3 discs))
    until i see a couple more 360 games attempt or come out on 2 discs i don`t care if u can fit 20gb of uncompressed audio on a blue-ray , cause the dvd-dl is doing quite well rite now
  • gothsquirrel, on 10/10/2007, -2/+3WTF ok so if i don't compress my music on my pc i would be using well over a TB for my mp3 collection so i don't care how much space they are using. It just means that they arn't using there space very well.
  • AARGH2K, on 10/10/2007, -2/+3Wonder how much Sony kicked back to them for that comment. Since Lair is no longer going to be their next AAA title. It's down to HS this season.
  • mike17032, on 10/10/2007, -2/+6Who gives a ***** how many hours of music are on it? Cant the PS3 handle custom soundtracks streamed from your computer?
    • Dgen_X, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1well yeah...but does the latest Nelly track really fit into say...one of HS's cutscenes?

  • reed311, on 10/10/2007, -1/+8This is a poor comparison. Uncompressed video is incredibly huge, but is not necessary. There is no difference in compressed audio. Yeah, you'll have your nerds whining about bit rates but there really is no difference.
  • Antimatter3009, on 10/10/2007, -2/+6Have fun loading it all off the disc.

    Seriously though, I'm not willing to say it's worth however many hundreds of dollars between the drive and the discs themselves just so I don't have to switch out a disc once or twice per gigantic game (of which there aren't many anyways).
  • MikeMasters, on 10/10/2007, -7/+1TAKE THAT M$ . .. . . . wait i own that too . . . . guess i win either way. . . . ME FTW
    • NiGHTSChao, on 10/10/2007, -0/+5LYKE I TINK I IS CLEVUR LOLZ
      ME FTW
  • Drewsufer, on 10/10/2007, -5/+5Innovation and Gameplay > Visuals and Sound
    • NiGHTSChao, on 10/10/2007, -1/+5Sorry, you are incorrect, Graphics -intertwined- with Sound and Graphics = good game
      Would you want to play twilight princess with NES graphics? Probably not, how about Halo with Heretic/Doom graphics?
    • Promantarius, on 10/10/2007, -1/+5I believe you're underrating the effectiveness of visuals and sound in games. In any game that attempts to revive re-enact recent history, visuals are incredibly important. Many people would find it difficult to become immersed in a WW2 game that had Goldeneye graphics with today's standards.

      Sound is incredibly important in video games, perhaps more so than innovation in some cases. It can enhance game play dramatically with a vocal story, auditory cues based on music intensity to warn you of upcoming conflict (Halo style), sound effects let you figure out exactly where an explosion occurred, etc. It's really oversimplifying things to say that two portions of a game are more important than two others, they all combine to make a good game.
    • wilsonthecat, on 10/10/2007, -0/+0Try the demo of Heavenly Sword and you'll see it is innovative with its visual styles. The game play is Street Fighter II style combo moves but the graphics/sound are definitely what we've been waiting for with next gen consoles. Not
  • OutlawAdidas, on 10/10/2007, -3/+1so the other 15 gb goes to CGI.

  • s1mph0ny, on 10/10/2007, -3/+6This just in: It takes more than 1 dvd to hold 11 games.
  • Pikachelsea, on 10/10/2007, -3/+8And remember kids, the more gigs of sound, the better the game. ALWAYS.
    • NiGHTSChao, on 10/10/2007, -2/+3I fail to see any piece of text that states this makes the game better

      I'm sure if I said how many polygons and sound bits are in Halo 3, you'd get fanboys fapping away as a result
  • eltomate, on 10/10/2007, -2/+0They had better have voice acting for every possible dialog scene if there's that much data.
  • davidjay247, on 10/10/2007, -2/+1Wait, an hour and a half of recorded cutscenes in 11 languages? As in, prerendered? I thought we were past this already. I call *****.
  • Thundercracker, on 10/10/2007, -3/+210GB???

    wow, someone needs to learn to encode in something better than .WAV
  • OutlawAdidas, on 10/10/2007, -2/+2***** this, they better have people speakin in Klingon, elvish, and 1337 speak
  • clempka, on 10/10/2007, -2/+6If it's fully uncompressed sound on the disc, then won't it take longer to load? I think the experience of the user (ie: no load times) should come before bells and whistles like fully uncompressed sound. I suppose uncompressed sound could be considered user experience, but most people (especially people who use the speakers built into their TV) will not notice the extra quality at all.
    • Abomonog, on 10/10/2007, -2/+0No, because then the CPU doesn't have to decompress the files. The only tradeoff here is disk space VS. a quality difference only a trained musician would hear if the sounds were played on a top of the line sound system.

      Ogg or the Lame MP3 format would be better. (Lame is the name of the codec, not a comment on quality)
      • Promantarius, on 10/10/2007, -1/+2Well he has a point actually, uncompressed sound would take longer to move from the disk to memory than it would take to move compressed sound and decompress it in some scenarios, especially since discs are fairly slow at read still. Add to that attempts to load upcoming geometry, textures, etc, and you're in for a particularly unpleasant time whenever beginning a level. If it was streamed through during game play it probably wouldn't be as noticeable.
      • Guspaz, on 10/10/2007, -2/+3Well, since RAM is at a premium on the PS3 (just 256MB of system memory, IIRC), you don't have much room to store uncompressed audio. Either you load it in advance, which WILL significantly increase load times due to having to read much more data at the same speed (or you can load less OTHER data, but then you're compromising in a really bad way), or you try to stream it off the disc at runtime, which is also non-optimal due to the relatively high latency of optical formats...

        So it's a lose-lose situation for loading the stuff. The PS3's optical drive doesn't have very high throughput to begin with, so loading uncompressed audio will take longer unecessarily.

        Besides, this is the PS3 we're talking about here. Cell processor, remember? Developers can't figure out how to properly use all the SPEs, but one thing they're very good at is decompressing audio. So, there isn't really any overhead if you're not borrowing existing processing time, because they've probably already got an SPE dedicated to the sound system.
  • TheGrizah, on 10/10/2007, -1/+3Does that mean the game outputs with the same audio technologies that HD-DVD, and Blu-Ray movies have adopted?
  • infotech1, on 10/10/2007, -1/+0Did anyone stop and realise that this most likely is compressed? they would not be using raw audio.
    You also have to remember you cannot compare this to your crappy mp3 collection. They are using 5.1 or 7.1 channels and i would assume some form of lossless codec like FLAC etc.

    Stop hating just because audio in xbox360 games has to be compressed to hell just to fit some graphics in.
    Lossless audio > 128kbps mp3s every day of the week.
    • Guspaz, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Sound effects (and dialogue) are usually monaural and positioned in 2 dimensional space, making a surround sound environment. Only the music might possibly be in a surround format, and that still doesn't account for 10GB. And the idea that they HAVE to use lossless compression is silly; WMA9 is perceptually lossless at much lower bitrates.
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