Andre Vrignaud, who works in Microsoft’s Game Technology Group kicks off a new blog this week. Among his first posts is an entry questioning Sony’s assertion that Blu-Ray will be necessary for the next generation of gaming. He references a quote from Sony’s Kaz Hirai, stating that the new games could require as many as 40 to 50 gigabytes, which would theoretically necessitate the amount of storage that Blu-Ray can offer.

To counter this, Vrignaud cites a report from Gamesfirst that claims that Xbox game sizes have only increased 77% since the console’s launch in 2001. According to their survey, the “average size of Xbox games in 2001 was 1.81 gigabytes…3.2 gigabytes by 2005.” Average, though, is not the same as the maximum size. Among the largest games on the Xbox were Halo 2, Jade Empire, and Ninja Gaiden Black. On the Xbox 360, one of the larger games is Rockstar’s Table Tennis, weighing in at over 7 GB.

While game size grew 77% on the Xbox, consider the Playstation 2. When the Playstation 2 launched, a majority of the launch titles were CD based, maxing out a 700 MB. Now, a majority of the PS2 games are DVD titles. Among the largest titles are Metal Gear Solid: Subsistence and Xenosaga II. Games like Grandia III have had their releases split across 2 DVDs. If one adds that one extra year as a data point, game sizes have grown at an even larger rate than suggested by Gamesfirst. The Playstation 2 model suggests that while not everyone will take advantage of all the space available, some of the high profile games will.

There are some other considerations that may have made developers try to stay under 4.7 GB, rather than take advantage of a full dual layer disc capacity. Dual-layer disc manufacturing increases cost. While not a huge factor on the Xbox or the Xbox 360, on the Playstation 2 this is a fairly large difference. This may have been a factor in Game Arts deciding to split their game across two DVD-5 discs instead of a single DVD-9.

Another factor would be layer changes. In a game with discrete levels that load, this might not be an issue, but with larger game worlds that stream content from the disc, this can become problematic. Consider the issue with the Prey demo on the Xbox 360; on the PC, the demo weighed in at about 450 MB. The Xbox 360 was almost 200 MB larger, mainly because of file management issues with optical drives. With Blu-Ray, these issues are mitigated somewhat. There are still layer changes, but with 25 GB per layer, this is less of an issue.

While game textures and code may not increase heavily, one would expect cut scenes file sizes to balloon out heavily on the Playstation 3. The higher resolutions that are supported by the console will require higher file sizes. While cut scenes are considered the bane of many gamers, something to skip through, they are going to be a source of content bloat. The Blu-Ray format will handle this better, and with greater fidelity than a DVD-9.

So, at the Playstation 3 launch, content formats won’t matter that much. It will take time for developers to adjust to the new format. But considering the life-cycle of previous consoles and the fact that content tends expand to fill available space, one would expect content size capacity to make a difference after a few years. 40 to 50 GB games may not be commonplace. It is more likely that gamers will see games hovering around the 10 to 15 GB mark, assuming the Playstation 3 gains enough market-share to make developing this exclusive content worthwhile.