Hacker News Reader

Comment by cgh | Hacker News Reader

Like the OP says, for people serious about audio and video quality, they will buy Blu-ray (or whatever physical media replaces it) for a long time to come. The bandwidth simply isn't there otherwise.

That said, I agree with you that the future is not with physical media - that's very obviously the case. But the future isn't here yet.

> Linux versions of most games, isn't some far away dream, it's here.

That's absurd. There are no AAA titles available on Linux. Newell's prediction might seem more realistic if Ubisoft, Rockstar, etc. jump on board. Maybe it will happen if a viable Linux-based console came around.

View on HN

I'd say the bandwidth is easily there for Blu-Ray. I can download a 40-80gb file on BitTorrent pretty easily if its well-seeded. What I can't do is legally buy a Blu-Ray, and have it downloaded at Blu-Ray quality to me from any vendor.

Which is absurd because the first thing I do with all my Blu-Rays is rip them losslessly to MKV files on my server.

easily? Maybe in some really well-off parts of the world. Blu-Ray bandwidth is between 20-30mbps, and where I live you can't get anything higher than 10mbps, and even that is lucky,the highest option most people can get is 4-6mbps. I purchase all of my films on BluRays - the quality is there, the media is forever mine and not bound to any subscription, I mean I am pretty sure we will get there eventually,but until you can get 100mbps fibre connection to everywhere it's impossible to phase out physical media.

Would it plummet if your neighbours did the same?

Where I am its popular for whole villages to decide to lay fibre and they set up little trusts to do just that and they even get grants from the government. And they have really great speeds, but at some point their bundle of fibres meets a switch.

> There are no AAA titles available on Linux.

Other than the Valve games Linux will soon get Metro: Last Light and Football Manager 2014. Almost no AAA games so far, but it is to be expected that AAA producers are generally slower and more conservative.

Not to mention that AAA games take 2-3 years to produce, whereas Steam Linux has been out for only 6 months. There's a lot of inertia to overcome.

Exactly. You cannot expect AAA games to come anytime soon on Linux.

AAA games can be ported from Windows to Linux in a matter of days if they already work well in Wine. When they don't, extending Wine to make them work is vastly cheaper than you probably think.

Running in Wine is not porting. It is using a intermediate layer. Porting means native code.

Wine absolutely can be a porting tool; Codeweavers offers porting services using this exact technology: http://www.codeweavers.com/services/

From a technical standpoint, Wine is extended to make the game work, that version of Wine is bundled with the application, and a script is included to run it without further user involvement.

I don't get why people still insist this sort of port somehow doesn't count. If it runs at full speed, shows up as a "Linux game" under Steam, and the user literally can't tell the difference, what does it matter?

Limbo did that and its performance was awful. No thank you.

Why does it matter if that compatibility layer sits in a system-wide library or in application code (as anyone would add if writing a program to target multiple kinds of system)? Wine is not an emulator, it's a free re-implementation of the windows API that runs on Linux.

Using WINE is not porting, it does not run natively, and this is not what Valve recommends to do.

It does run natively. You don't think it runs in an emulator, do you?

You lose a lot of raw performance with wine. Left 4dead ran on wine at probably half the framerate of the windows version. No thank you.

Let's not forget Wargame: European Escalation, which is far from being an indie game. Probably close to a AAA category.

Serious Sam 3 is another game which is not exactly AAA but very close to it.

I would say the Wargame franchise also counts as AAA. Other than that, you are correct :)

People serious about audio and video quality dont run stuff from their all in one pc based player. They have dedicated, high quality bluray player and cd players. And like someone mentioned bluray is not going anywhere for the masses. Too expensive, not practical, in the end convenience trumps all.

>Maybe it will happen if a viable Linux-based console came around.

Eh, isn't that what Valve's Steambox is: a Linux based console?

I thought bluray was already abandoned. I never see blurays for sell in display ends anymore, Walmart has basically been forced to refocus on third-world-style living in suburban USA.

Where are you? They're as available as DVDs at most big-box, media, and electronics retailers in urban and suburban locations across the midwestern US, at least. Wal-Mart, sure, but also Target, Best Buy, Barnes and Noble, Fry's, most independent stores that sell, resell, or rent movies, and Red Box rental kiosks. They're also available from chain drug stores like Walgreens and CVS. Smaller and rural locations tend to have smaller selections, but that's true of most any product type.

Honestly, the only retailers that come immediately to mind selling DVD but not Blu-ray are gas stations and truck stops.

In Europe they are everywhere.

I still use DVD and am starting to have problems, because the new titles at our library are mostly Blueray.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com