iDs Rage Requires BluRay For Best Graphics? WTF?

While on the road to my grandfathers 95th birthday I read an article on my iPhone from Gamastura entitled "QuakeCon: Carmack Talks Blu-ray Advantage Over Xbox". The jist of the article as I understand it is that apparently iD's new game "Rage" won't be as good on the PC and 360 because of texture and audio compression.

Now to some people they might be turn this into a PS3 vs 360/PC debate, myself however I have to wonder what the fucking hell anyone should give a shit about whether the data is compressed or uncompressed. Why? Well great games are those that are fun to play. Compressed or uncompressed data has nothing to do with gameplay.

I will tell you what isn't fun though... load times for games, and I can fucking guarentee you that if iD thinks that Rage will be a bundle of joy because of a lack of data compression, what won't be fun is the end user waiting minutes on end for the dammed game to page from the optical disc to their machine, and then their machine trying to figure out WTF to do with all this data. I already hate the amount I have to wait right now for my console games to load, nevermind when I have to page down gigs and gigs of data for a mission environment. I can just see it now, players impatiently waiting as they watch their screen say "Game Loading... estimated time for completion, 30 minutes".

But maybe iD will suprise us and in between load times we can play one of their older Quake or Doom games and completely forget about the fact that this wonderfun technological triumph that is Rage is loading in the background. Then while you are in the middle of a rocket jump, your screen will flash over and say "Rage is now loaded" and the player will respond with "Rage... what the hell is Rage, I was playing Quake! Get me back to my game before that newb guns me down!"

So now Rage loads up and we go and play, shoot shoot, drive your vehicle... let the system page the data as we travel in a fast moving vehicle, surely we won't mind a second or two of lag for the opportunity to see a spec of dirt in such fine HD glory will we? I don't know about you, but I hated Oblivion on the 360 because of this, so I am just dreading the fact that I will be trying to play an action game with any sort of paging going on.

Maybe I could be wrong. But I have a sneaking suspicion I will be right and in the end if iD does go down this route we as the consumer will suffer from broken promises and another boring tech demo of engine technology.