There has been a lot of talk in recent months about what’s ahead for the next generation in gaming, including getting rid of the generational model all together. While previous reports and trademarks filed have revealed the next Xbox could very well offer several versions of the new system – and one of the most prominent rumors being that one will be discless – one developer is coming forward saying he doesn’t think that’s going to be the case at all for either Sony or Microsoft.
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“I think they will have a discless version, but I think that for the next generation there will still be a version with discs,” said Cradle Games technical director Marc-Andre Jutras in an interview with GamingBolt. “There are a few reasons: not everyone has internet, and if you do have internet, a lot of people don’t have enough bandwidth to download 80GB per game. The current generation of games is huge. Not everyone can afford to download a game and its patches, there are still internet providers who have bandwidth caps. And if we have bandwidth issues here, you can imagine that it might be worse in other countries.
“The second issue I see is that if you go with a version of a console that has no disc, then why would GameStop sell those consoles? The whole market is you sell the games for profit. So you pretty much say, “hey, sell our console that makes you no profit, and sell no games”. So I don’t think you will see discs die this generation. But one thing I would like to see is, because right now I have issues with Blu Rays, they are slow to load. So that’s why in the last generation of consoles, you have games with long loading times, and the games needing to be installed.”
Keep in mind, this is just one developer’s take and there is a lot of evidence speaking to a discless system. With various reports stating that one of aforementioned models will take a completely disc-free route, it is interesting to see how at odds some of these rumors are with each other – and many of them from trusty sources.
He did touch on what he thinks would be the smart go-to, including going the cartridge route or USB keys. “One thing I would like to see, is some games should be able to be offered on cartridges or USB keys,” he said. “For developers when we end up trying to ship games on a disc, it’s pretty much always the same issue, you have not have your game ready ahead of time by two months, so they can be pressed on disc. I think the issue of having a disc or a USB key or a cartridge is pretty much the same. I could see that printing Blu Rays takes time, just to do it properly. Flashing a USB key with an existing image on the other hand is much faster.”
Thoughts on the next generation? Join in on the conversation in the comment section below! You can also hit me up over on Twitter @DirtyEffinHippy!
