Mandatory installs for games becoming huge!

[Kev]

I was looking at a comparison video today of bioshock on the ps3 and the 360 (http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3169860). Apparently, bioshock will need around 5gb of hard drive space for the install before you can even play the game.

I recently upgraded my ps3 hard drive to 320gb but if I hadn't I'd be struggling to squeeze everything into 40gb. Metal Gear Solid 4 took up 4.6gb as well. I've checked the back of some of my games and some only need a few mb whereas some need a few hundred megabytes.

Does anyone know why developers need more hard drive space? Is it simply to save time reading from the disc. If so, surely they can give users the option of saving to hard drive for some features or reading from the blu ray disc.

[Bex]

With more hard space being needed due to game installations, I'm surprised Sony released a PS3 model with a smaller hard drive to be honest.

When the games are taking up that much space, it seems rather ridiculous to me. More so because they're that size as much or more than a normal DVD. Brings into question the quality of the blu-ray disks for me, if they need an "install" where as the 360 versions don't.
Maybe I won't be getting another PS3 soon. If I want to take up 5GB of space and spend time installing a game, I'll get a PC game thanks.

[QueenB]

And that's why I'll stick with my 360 thank you very much ;).

Quicker loading is great, but it actually scares me a bit at how much the PS3 needs to "install" to do so :s.

[Kev]

And that's why I'll stick with my 360 thank you very much ;).

Quicker loading is great, but it actually scares me a bit at how much the PS3 needs to "install" to do so :s.

Yeah but this is the problem which will hurt the 360 later. Several developers have come out already and said that they are finding it hard to develop for the xbox 360.

for example, this week the developers of rage said


The pc is limitless in the amount of data you can put on it. The PS3 (http://www.qj.net/Rage-s-hindered-development-is-Xbox-360-s-fault/pg/49/aid/124061#) has about 25GB. But the Xbox 360 roughly has 6 to 8 GB of data. We're hoping we can squeeze the game down to two discs for the 360 version.

The larger game installs make certain features load quicker, apparently. Also, with so much extra data the ps3 allows developers to add many more features. Metal Gear Solid 4 is probably one of the best recent examples of a game which uses most of the disc.