Sony and Panasonic have developed a new optical disc technology that will allow the layer capacity of Blu-ray to grow from 25GB to 33.4GB.
Blu-ray.com reports that existing Blu-ray hardware, including disc players like PS3 and Blu-ray burners, would require only a simple firmware upgrade to utilise the technology.
The site also says it’s likely that the Blu-ray Disc Association will evaluate the proposed layer capacity increase for inclusion in the Blu-ray spec later this year as Sony and Panasonic are two of the group's core members.
While the Blu-ray format allows developers to fit vastly more information on to discs than is possible on DVD, Konami’s Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns Of The Patriots was the first PS3 game to use a full 50GB dual layer Blu-ray disc. Game designer Hideo Kojima said that his team had to compress numerous elements to make it fit on the disc, and expressed his desire for the format to offer greater storage capacity.