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multi-disc games?

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Kulock:
Not to mention you've got to organize the game so that the data is correctly split across at least two discs. That often requires a lot of data duplication, which can make a game that might've fit in 2.8 Gig into a 3.7 Gig game, which would still require compression or a third disc. For RE, it's easy to split the games up since there's two character quests, each one with unique FMVs, but imagine FMV-heavy games that are fairly non-linear, it really creates some design issues when a gamer could, at any time on any disc, go here and do this, go there and do a sub-plot, or go over there and play a complex mini-game, these things not only probably requiring voice samples to be available, but often FMV.

For instance, if you remember it, think back to FF7. On Disc 3 the Golden Saucer is unaccessible. Was that necessary for the plot? I don't think so. It's so they didn't have to keep the extra FMVs and data on that third disc and would have space for what they needed for the ending (and what non-linear action that was still possible even then). Splitting up the data over multiple discs can physically affect gameplay anyway. That's part of the reason why the GC gets the shaft on complex games being ported over, some games would need some physical restructing in order to work right for a multi-disc format, and that's expensive to a developer.

If the discs were dual-layered (like many DVDs), this wouldn't be an issue, cost would still be there, but the data would always physically be accessible by the game, even if it needed extra time to tell the laser to switch layers back and forth. But sadly, the GC doesn't seem to have any ability to read dual-layered discs, from what I remember of the interviews. It's a shame, but it's a fact of life. Unless someone (Factor 5, I'm looking at you ;D) works out a compression technique that can kick GC discs up to at least 3 Gig losslessly (This would probably have to be in addition to the DivX functionality they've already worked out, as well), unless a game is specifically designed for the Gamecube like RE or RE0,  developers are either going to compress it down to one disc, or not port it at all. But I agree, some games like SSX Tricky and Tony Hawk could have the extras on a second disc that gamers just pop in when they want to watch them. You don't need the game data on the disc as well when you're just watching skater videos or developmental videos.

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