A decade ago, 1TB was an inconceivable amount of data. Nobody could use that much space. What was wrong with the 700MB provided on your average CD? Don’t you know you can fit like, 1000 songs on a 4GB DVD?
Well, times have obviously changed. And today’s times have called for a new data storage disc. Sony and Panasonic are teaming up to give the world what they want.
In the near future, Sony and Panasonic should release a 300GB disc. Within a year or two of releasing that 300GB disc, the companies expect to release 500GB discs as well as a 1TB disc.
The 300GB discs aren’t expected to arrive in 2014, although they should arrive in 2015. The discs will be double-sided, with each side having three layers. Fortunately, the discs will use the same laser wavelength as Blu-ray, so we don’t need any major technological innovation between now and then.
The discs are called Archival Discs and they’re so close to being released that the companies have even created a logo, which you can see at the top of this article.

When Archival Discs are first released, you won’t be able to buy them at your local Wal-Mart. The discs will likely be marketed to data centers and those with large data storage needs – like the film industry.
More importantly for average people like you, the high capacity storage discs should be ready for widespread use by the time the next generation of consoles rolls around. This data storage jump is way larger than any jump between previous generations. Between Playstation 2 and Playstation 3, for example, we jumped from 700MB CDs to 4.2GB DVDs.
Between Playstation 3 and Playstation 4, we jumped from 4.2GB DVDs to 25GB.
A jump to 300GB, 500GB, or 1TB would give developers amazing opportunities. How big could your game world be with 40 times the space of previous generations?
I’m extremely excited for the future of PC gaming.