ershin,

I'm impressed that you freely admit not knowing much about programming/game making. Too many people on the Internet will pretend they are experts in everything or that expertise doesn't matter. That said, I want to reply to your comment about "sloppy programming"[1].

This is an issue that's been debated for a long time (probably since the second computer was built). It's a perennial source of debate, where each generation of programmers gets older and complains that the younger ones are sloppy and are spoiled by having machines with more storage and faster processing than "back in the old days".

In some cases this is a valid complaint. For example, my family's first computer ever was a Mac that had a 33 MHz processor and 4 megs of RAM. Yet if you sat it side-by-side with the something sporting the latest Intel/AMD chip and 2 Gigs of RAM, both would run their respective OS and apps like word processors about as quickly. For more info, one topic to look up is "feature creep".

On the other hand, console and arcade games rarely suffer from this. This is because the developers are targeting one specific machine, and they know the exact specifications of it. This has two implications:

(begin list)

1) They can make very specific optimizations for the machine they're targeting. In contrast, PC developers only tweak things more generally, because they can't spend time writing optimizations for each of the near-infinite hardware configurations that exist.

2) They can tune the game to use 99.999% of the machine's resources. This is related to the first point, but also has to do with the nature of system software on consoles vs. PCs. On a console, system software is designed to play games really fast. Sure, you can (for example) download something over XBL while playing, but the primary goal of any firmware or OS on a console is to make sure your framerate stays high and your controller responds quickly. PCs aren't as good at this, as their OSs are designed to balance machine resources between all programs running, and then your antivirus will decide it's time to do a scan, and oh whoops it looks like your videocard's driver has decided to cause a crash here.

There might be more, but those are the two things that immediately came to mind. And like some others have said:

-Kojima's team knows what they're doing. MGS4 will be optimized all to hell before it ships.

-The space used by the game code in a modern game is tiny compared to the space used by graphics, sound/music & video.

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Footnote:
[1] I don't know if I could be called an "expert", but I do know more than the average person about this. My knowledge comes from being a student studying computer science.

solar_blitz: I dunno, I think the disk switch actually increases the intensity. You're like, "Holy crap, it's really coming along... I'm switching disks!"

That impression may be tainted by the way that every two-disk RPG has a really dramatic plot twist right at the end of the first disk.

Thanks to Azu and 60fps for clearing up a very opinionated and vague article full of more speculation than fact.

To build on what mikey said, there are probably many many people who couldn't tell the difference between the compressed form of graphics, textures, etc. (or perhaps they don't even have a TV with 1080i to show it on?)

And yes, David Hayter FTW. MGS is one of those series in which the english voice acting is as good as or better than the japanese.

Now what I worry about are the loading times. Konami's software engineers are some of the best in the business, but 50 GB of data... it's not all going in at once, but it's like... How much data will appear onscreen and how much RAM is going to be used?

All you need is the english vo anyway. David Hayter FTW. :-D

I was on the Playstation forums a couple days ago and they were talking about this. Some were claiming that Kojima said the same about the DVD, but when people looked at the disc, 60% of it was uncompressed music.

I don't know if that is just people talking out of their asses, but most people there were convinced Kojima (for whatever reason) does not like to compress stuff.

"My headlines are never incorrect. "

In this case, it is.

The headline shouldn't be "MGS4 doesn't fit on Blu-Ray," because that implies it's coming on a different medium, or that the game can't be released due to not enough storage space.

The correct headline should be, "MGS4 compressed to fit on Blu-Ray" or "MGS4 originally over 50GB in size."

Proppat, all cutscenes in MGS4 are REAL-TIME cutscenes, none of them are pre-rendered or pre-recorded. So it doesn't really matter if the game runs in 1080p or 720p, the cutscenes would still be just the same (other than the resolution, of course, which doesn't affect the amount of data needed for the cutscene, since the voice files etc. would still be the same size).

"Does anyone know if the Metal Gear Online demo is included on the disc? "

Metal Gear Online 2.0 Starter Pack will be on a separate disc, since it didn't fit on the same disc as the "main" game.

"Will a firmware update be enough to allow the PS3 to play 100GB Blu-ray discs? Are you sure it isn't a limitation of the lens?"

It's not a limitation of the lens. At first Bluray players only supported 25GB Blurays but with a simple firmware update they could be made to support 50GB Bluray discs. The same applies to 100GB discs (and possibly upto 200GB 8-layered discs, but I haven't heard about a confirmation about that, just speculation).

"He's basically saying 'we are too stubborn to use two discs, so we are giving you a lower quality version for one disc'."

Umm... Hello?!?! Kojima has nothing against having multiple discs. Just look at Metal Gear Solid & MGS3: Subsistence. There's probably just other things to consider. Like, for one, the package already comes with two discs (MGS4 & MGO 2.0 SP). Adding yet another Bluray for some content, which might only use a fraction of the space available, will cost them more than it would be worth maybe adding half an hour of gameplay.

Besides, haven't you ever heard of games that have had content cut out since it didn't fit a DVD? Most games have to cut something out, sometimes the reason is money, sometimes the lack of time (publisher wants game to be out at certain time, so there might not be time to finish every feature, so it gets cut out) sometimes the lack of space on the CD/DVD/Bluray.

And yet another thing to consider. Did Kojima have to cut out stuff that they had already made? Or did he have to cut out some stuff he had PLANNED for the game but couldn't do because the Bluray ran out of space? Developers have to make some sacrifices with pretty much each and every game. They can never quite achieve all the goals & plans they set out to achieve. Plenty of developers have admitted that not everything has made into the game, for some reason or another.

I also call BS. This is just a scare tactic to try to get people to ditch the idea of a potential port to 360.

This article doesn't properly tell what Kojima was referring to.

The full interview explains that he only took out the Japanese voice options in the U.S. and European versions and I assume English may not be in the Japanese release.

None of the actual game content was removed. The only thing they did was compress a few things, but the VOICE ACTING was the only space issue.

There's something anti-climactic about a scene that goes "Oh my god, the world's going to end. Plz insert disc 2, kthxbai".

Iadien:
"What were they trying to do? Were they trying to fit uncompressed audio on the disc? haha"

Heh funny you should say that - I remember that being one of Sony's selling points for the Blu-ray format. In fact, as I understand it, current Blu-ray movies *do* have uncompressed audio.

"Kojima-san said the quality of the game would have been better if there had been more space."

That's a totally unreasonable statement. Games with multiple discs are hardly a bold and unprecedented move. He's basically saying 'we are too stubborn to use two discs, so we are giving you a lower quality version for one disc'.

Couldn't he use 2 discs then? I mean, sure it would cost more money, but this is a huge AAA title. He wouldn't have to worry about money

I'm pretty sure this is more one of those cases of "Holy crap, we can do anything and not have to bother compressing any video or audio! It'll look great and save us tons of time!" Then in retrospect, they end up with a core game that takes up about 5gb and then a bunch of 1080 cut scenes. Then take into consideration the other possible resolutions, 720 and 480, and you've got a cut scene masterpiece (if you're into that thing) that takes a retarded amount of space to hold.

There's no way to ever know for sure, but it would probably fit on the 360 if they just included the lower rez video and compressed the video and audio.

I think it would look bad...as Blue-ray is supposed to be the format of next-gen...and so early in Ps3's life there already is a game that requires two discs...I think Konami wouldn't mind putting it on two discs..But you think about it, the Sony head honchos aren't really going to fly with that so easily..

...

...You know that's actually an excellent point. MGS games have a history of being refined and re-released down the line.

I don't even know why I'm so impassioned about this to begin with; I don't have a PS3 nor do I plan to buy one for a long time. I guess the series is just important to me and I want it to do really well, even if "I" won't be playing it right away.

Just put it on multiple discs for PS3 if one disc is an issue. e__e

I'll bet windstar's point about the blu-ray discs is the case for MGS4: they're probably trying to fit MGS4 onto a 25-ish GB disc. It would really only need 2-3 DVDs for equal capacity. However, I think this might still be enough for Konami to avoid a 360 port at least for now.

"The quality of the game would have been better if there had been more space"

I think the quality of the game would have been better if efficient programming was more of a concern. While it's very impressive to hear that they put SO much content into the game that even a Blu-Ray disc wasn't sufficient, it's also disappointing, and sounds to me like the "sloppy programming" being predicted a couple of years ago. (http://www.gamesfirst.com/?id=1132)

I refuse to believe that they could not have fit everything they wanted to on one disc, by simply taking the time to figure out HOW.

Okay, so the game isn't going to be as good as it should be... that sucks, I guess.

"In a recent interview, the creator of all things Metal Gear says that his team had to compress a lot of data and cut quite a bit of content to fit it all on a single Blu-ray disc."

My headlines are never incorrect.

Also, this does NOT mean MGS4 is impossible for Xbox 360. Remember, the original Metal Gear Solid was two discs. I don't care if I have to use a couple extra discs to play it; I will.

Yeah so, before hearing this news I actually somewhat believed the rumor that it was going to come to the 360 eventually.
Of course, now I surrender. I'll have to buy the PS3.