Mandatory hard drive installs on consoles?

[shadow skill]

Does anyone here have a problem with console games requiring people to install game assets to a hard disk to improve load times? One of the main draws about consoles is that one may immedeatly begin playing a game without having to trudge through long installs. Personally I am indifferent to the whole thing because I am used to PC game installs and understand that the games will continue to get bigger and bigger. But I can see how this prospect may annoy some console gamers.

Thoughts?

 

[Katana314]

It's pure computer physics. Your question is "Should games start having worse graphics?"

My answer: Yes, it's getting a bit ridiculous.

 

[Kermi]

I don't think the install time is really an issue that will deter console gamers - I think I'd prefer to sit there installing DMC4 on my PS3 for 20 minutes to cut loading times. There's definitely been games that would have benefitted from being installed or at least caching data on a consoles hard drive (Mass Effect is a pretty obvious one - sadly Microsoft's persistence in marketing to the casual gaming market means most games are going to be built on the possibility that someone without a hard drive will play them due to the Core/Arcade SKUs but hopefully they'll give up on this and let more publishers start slapping "HDD required" stickers on their packaging).

The only thing that bothers me is that installing content onto hard drives eats HD space - DMC4 for instance is 5 gigs, which may seem like a drop in the ocean to a 40 or 80 gig PS3 hard drive, but imagine if I had to do it on my 360? I only have 10 gigs of space left, having not yet upgraded to a 120 gig (something I will be doing fairly soon, I imagine).

I think the main inconvenience here is that if we start seeing games that have 5 gig installs, we're going to max out our hard drives in anywhere from 2-10 games, which means deleting installed content to free up space for other installed content. Granted you can switch out hard drives fairly easily on both the PS3 and 360, but I'd really rather not have to.

 

[shadow skill]

It's pure computer physics. Your question is "Should games start having worse graphics?"

My answer: Yes, it's getting a bit ridiculous.

I had not thought of it quite that way but I think you may have touched on something interesting. I don't think it is a question of having less graphical prowess, I think the issue here is that there is no balance between how the game looks and what is actually happening on screen. Even if one decided to freeze graphics levels at the level that Crysis set what if a developer wanted to create a game where you had 10000 characters on screen, perhaps simulating some epic battle. Should the developers not attempt to implement an engine capable of making the battle possible, not because it simply exceeds the hardware's capacity by leaps and bounds; but because the only way the game would run smoothly would be to have it install assets to the hard drive which would take time to install?

 

[shadow skill]

I don't think the install time is really an issue that will deter console gamers - I think I'd prefer to sit there installing DMC4 on my PS3 for 20 minutes to cut loading times. There's definitely been games that would have benefitted from being installed or at least caching data on a consoles hard drive (Mass Effect is a pretty obvious one - sadly Microsoft's persistence in marketing to the casual gaming market

The only thing that bothers me is that installing content onto hard drives eats HD space - DMC4 for instance is 5 gigs, which may seem like a drop in the ocean to a 40 or 80 gig PS3 hard drive, but imagine if I had to do it on my 360? I only have 10 gigs of space left, having not yet upgraded to a 120 gig (something I will be doing fairly soon, I imagine).

I think the main inconvenience here is that if we start seeing games that have 5 gig installs, we're going to max out our hard drives in anywhere from 2-10 games, which means deleting installed content to free up space for other installed content. Granted you can switch out hard drives fairly easily on both the PS3 and 360, but I'd really rather not have to.

Good point about eating space Kermi, this is where Mirosoft kind of fell flat on their face by choosing a proprietary mechanism for their hard drive. Its obscenely expensive compared to upgrading the hard drive on any PS3 model. Now there are games like Burnout which requires the hard drive for at least part of the online experience.

Personally I am glad that I got my hands on a 60gb ps3 as I have yet to fill it granted I don't really use the multimedia capabilities of the machine all that often.