Blu-ray and Games Development

Andy Lee takes you through how the new Blu-ray format affects games developers.

It has been over 10 years since the original Sony PlayStation was released in Europe and games have been developed for the unit ever since. This was the first console to use CD technology and its huge capacity (at the time) of 700MB. The year 2000 saw the launch of the DVD (capacity of 4.7GB) powered PlayStation 2 and now in 2007 we will see the next generation PlayStation 3, based on the new revolutionary Blu-ray Disc technology (with an amazing 25GB disc capacity).

As games have developed and improved so must the technology and Microboards Technology UK have been at the forefront in supplying the games developer industry in Europe, with the most cutting edge technology since 1998. Not only have we supplied our own range of innovative CD/DVD duplicators, printers and publishers, but also we are one of the few suppliers of the Sony approved duplication towers from Hoei Sangyo along with the approved submission media from the inventors of CD-R technology, Taiyo Yuden. These game submission approved towers, manufactured by Japanese firm Hoei Sangyo, use a DSR 4000 series of CD or DVD tower duplicator in conjunction with Hoei’s own DPM 88 software. Since the PlayStation 2 is still enjoying a huge and growing consumer base – the opportunities for developers are still excellent and Microboards can still offer submission equipment for this machine directly to developers.

2007 is a very exciting time for gamers and developers alike as the PlayStation 3 is released to provide fans with the next generation, High-Definition gaming and overall entertainment system. At it’s core the PlayStation 3 has a Blu-ray drive which will enable the user to play PlayStation 3 games and watch Blu-ray disc movies in high definition quality.

For developers working on new titles for the PlayStation 3, Microboards now supply the first multiple drive Blu-ray duplicator towers on offer in the world. These are available in 4 and 10 recorder configurations, with a 160GB hard drive for disc image storage. Microboards can also offer the single Pioneer BDR101 recorder as well as TDK BD-R and BD-RE Blu-ray disc media for use with this equipment.