Sony and Panasonic Teaming for Blu-ray Disc Successor

It looks like after just a handful of years, Sony and Panasonic are already looking for bigger, badder storage options, as the two companies have combined forces to develop the next generation of optical discs.

Blu-rays are currently capable of holding 50GB of data on a single disc. The proposed new and improved discs will hold up to 300GB. What Sony and Panasonic are calling the "new standard" is expected to be released for professional purposes by the end of 2015.

Just how practical this could be for the next generation of gaming remains to be seen. With console hard drives capping out at 500GB (at least by default at launch), it's unlikely we'll be seeing any of these 300GB discs hit our particular genre any time soon. That said, the practical applications are quite interesting.

Both Microsoft and Sony will be using Blu-ray drives on their respective next-gen consoles, which is great. However, the amount of data that could be stored on discs like these 300GB ones in development could alter the landscape of both games and movies alike. There would be less need for compression, everything would have better image and sound quality, and there could even be room left over for a host of extra content all on one disc.

Fortunately it's not a problem we'll have to worry about just yet, but with the emergence of 4K, bigger discs could be a major part of the industry by the next next generation.