Bluray for games?

[Narradisall]

This may seem like a stupid question, but having a chat with a tech guy at work this week he was thinking of getting a bluray player for his PC. As he reckons (and I kinda agreed) that likely games will all end up on Bluray at some point, so you might as well upgrade on the way.

What do you guys think though? I recently got a laptop with a Bluray for roughly this reason (thinking 4 years lifetime on the thing), but it died on me and got sent promptly back to hell, oh and the Bluray software out there right now is shit.

[Jackel]

Personally I bought a blu-ray player for my PC but not for games, for movies.

If you don't intend to use it for movies, don't buy it yet..wait until games actually come out on blu-ray (if ever) so that it'll be cheaper.

Unless your laptop is shit for compatibility, you'll be able to upgrade it as well (so unless you have a use for it now..don't buy it).

[Hexxagonal]

It took forever to get games to switch to DVD from CD. I think it will be faster this time, but by then blu-ray should go down. I completely agree with Jackel. Only get it if you love movies.

[roboninja]

I see digital distribution taking over for games before Blu-ray gains the required marketshare for publishers to actually release games on them. I could be wrong, but I do not see it happening any time soon.

I have not bought a Blu-ray drive for my PC because I already have the PS3 for playing movies :)

[hunterx280]

EDIT:
BAH! It looks like others beat me to it!

It took forever to get games to switch to DVD from CD. I think it will be faster this time, but by then blu-ray should go down. I completely agree with Jackel. Only get it if you love movies.

If blu-ray is anything like DVD, it's adoption for PC games will be slow and very late. Considering how slow the movie adoption is and how pricey they are currently? I think DVDs and digital distribution will be the way for a few more years now. By the time they do use them blu-ray drives will be cheap like DVD drives are now. Hell, you can get a blu-ray reader for $100 these days. I think a pure reader will be pretty cheap in another 2 years.

BAH! It looks like others beat me to it!

[GigaFuzz]

It has already been said, but it took some regions far too long to switch to DVDs. Europe was a few years ahead of the US which didn't switch until what, a couple of years ago?

You should be safe with a DVD drive for a few years yet.

[Narradisall]

Well I may hold off on a bluray player for a while then. I can get one for £100 but I'd be mainly using it for games not films so unless they plan to move games to bluray soon I doubt I'll bother

[Narradisall]

It has already been said, but it took some regions far too long to switch to DVDs. Europe was a few years ahead of the US which didn't switch until what, a couple of years ago?

You should be safe with a DVD drive for a few years yet.

You reckon we'll get 4 years?

[GigaFuzz]

You reckon we'll get 4 years?

Probably. If not, by the time games are using Blu-ray, the drives will be like £20-30.

Looking at my collection, it seems games started switching to DVD around 2004/2005. Wiki says DVDs came out around 1997/1998 which gave it around 7-8 years to make the transition to games.

[Chris_D]

I think nearly all new games will at least have an optional digital distribution method, if not digital distribution only. Therefore, developers will have to factor this in when they package the assets for their game, and presumably will keep it to at least the 10 - 20 gig. Anyway, as long as games can fit on 2-4 DVDs I can't see publishers bothering with a blu-ray release. And, by the time that changes (5-10 years) it will probably be digital only on PC.

Summary, unless you want BR to watch movies, or a BR burner for backups, then don't waste your money.

[J Arcane]

There are STILL games released occasionally on CD instead of DVD for PC.

I'd say you're safe on Bluray for a long time to come.

I rent a lot of movies, but they're all Redbox DVDs. Just isn't much reason for me to bother.