Sony has received its share of criticism over the inclusion and adoption of Blu-ray DVD technology in their PS3. However, Sony has indicated that PS3 games are not only close to maxing out the 25GB capacity of Blu-ray based games, Sony is on the verge of actually surpassing the maximum limit. Phil Harrison, Sony,s worldwide studio head, said to EuroGamer that, "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."
Harrison continued to bolster the decision to go with Blu ray by pointing to the necessity of having a high storage capacity for the more complex PS3 games. He said choosing the Blu ray format had nothing to do with Sony,s agenda to make Blu ray the standard for next gen DVD movies. "It’s got nothing to do with movies. DVD is not sufficient capacity to power the kind of data consumption, or to feed the data consumption needs of Cell and RSX–just purely as a gameplay device, we need Blu-Ray to supply the kind of data that PS3 games use."
In addition, Harrison said the high storage limit of the Blu ray disk would also be used for other aspects of the games. "It’s not just about graphics. 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 [on Blu ray]."
But in saying all of this, Harrison backtracked a few steps and said that while the capacity for 25GB games do exist, it doesn,t necessarily mean that all games will fill the limit. "Not every game is going to fill 25 or 50GB. I completely accept that – but there will be games that require that this year, and will push that further in years to come."
