The thing about storage is that the moment you're coming up against its limits in regular usage, it's time for an upgrade. That doesn't mean it won't do, it means it's time for an upgrade.

DVD will do the job. It's time for something bigger anyway.

PS3 games require an install because the size of a disc doesn't tell the whole story - the speed you can access it is much more important. Blu-ray is considerably faster than DVD simply due to a higher data density, but both pale in comparison to even a poor hard drive. Streaming data off of either a DVD or blu-ray is a bad idea.

What blu-ray or hard-drive?

Installing from blu-ray onto hard drive.

Using the hard-drive as benefits,it decreases load times,it keeps consoles cooler and quieter,thus extending the chances of console life.
It also allows you to use one disc,even if a game ships with 2 or 3 disc's. Blu-ray is just more space,it also uses a different coloured lens/laser,that reads slightly faster,but not by much.
The xbox has shown blu-ray is not needed on the current gen of consoles,games are fine without it...plain and simple.

This.

Well clearly not because your arguement was that what's the point of blu-ray if you have to install onto hard drives anyway?? Point being you don't have to install onto hard drives, therefore it's not useless. Never mind one of the biggest selling points was that it could play blu-ray movies as well as games, and it was actually pretty price competitive with other blu-ray players (even Sony's own blu-ray players). Not to mention it started up a hell of a lot faster than the old blu-ray players, and has all the online functionality that some of them lacked back then.

If streaming data off a dvd or blu-ray is a bad idea,then why is PS3 using it? It sounds like your saying that using the hard-drive makes more sense.Which states my point.
As for more space needed yes,but with what games are like on the current consoles it not a big issue...Like i said 2,3 disc's = more space,that then is transfered digitally and magnetically to the hard-drive,meaning you only need one disc because the hard-drive has given you the extra space. Also about the data speed,todd howard said he prefers xbox..it's smoother...which means the data being read from the dvd or hard-drive is fine. If disc space/DVD's was such a problem right now with the current gen of games,all or most xbox games would come with 2 or 3 disc's...and they don't,it's only the odd one or two games that have...But the hard-drive solves the problem,you have the extra space + you still get to use one disc.

Spoken like a true 360 user.

Problem is Microsoft sold many 360's without hard drives and mandated developers cannot require it for use. Bet they wished they never did that.

Yes thats true,but not the point now. Sony made a big mistake using blu-ray,it caused them to lose money,it cost them at the start of the console race,and it cost PS3 users more money too.

When I bought my PS3 slim it was cheaper than when I bought my 360 at launch. So it cost early adopters more money not people buying the console now.

And yes, there are still a lot of 360's out there without hard drives so it is still a point.

Forza 3 for 360 required an install of the second disk to the hard drive to access the full content of the game, and that's a racing game, no huge open world or anything which makes me wonder...

But back to the point I tried to make that was ignored earlier unsurprisingly.
Why does everyone care so much about such a non-issue? I could understand a reasonable discussion about whether it will or will not be on multiple disks, but come on now....seriously....this is a little outrageous for such a topic.
*remembers what forum this is* Oh yeah...

Data being read from the DVD only is not fine, as evidenced by the frequent load pausing Oblivion suffers and just generally longer load times. Just because something's a bad idea doesn't mean it's not done - it's a bad idea but at the 360's launch there was no alternative. For most games all loading takes place either in one big chunk (The "loading screen") or the majority is and the rest is streamed in in the background before it's needed. Open world games can't do this, they need a lot of data and they need it 5 frames ago, and you simply can't get either the read speed or the seek times from an optical disc. It's not even a point worth debating, the numbers speak for themselves.

As I previously stated, you don't need to be over the limit consistently for it to be time to get a new medium. That's a terrible idea. You upgrade just before you absolutely require it, not a year after you absolutely require it - and we're getting close to absolutely requiring it in some cases.

While installing a game to your drive does fix the issue (What's that, advantages of a console? You're slowly dwindling to nothing?) it also adds complexity, and in the case of the 360, actively locks some users out. It's not a viable solution, especially given the pathetic sizes and insane prices of 360-brand drives.

I feel I should reiterate for effect: You don't wait until something has failed before you replace it. You replace it when it's about to fail, or showing signs of failure. DVD has not yet failed, that does not mean it is not time for a replacement.

Why is it so important that your opinion be accepted as gospel by everyone else here. Stop preaching.


Actually it's only 4.16 gigs on the disk and 4.79 installed.



...and it will have long since been deleted.

Personally I don't think that Skyrim will be on two disks for the PC and that is my opinion as it is yours that it will be. Neither one are facts so please stop presenting it as such.

this is a sore spot for me. the developers should tell microsoft to go [censored] themselves. seriously, why is a developer supposed to handicap a game cause a few people wont go out and get a harddrive for their 360. let them swap disks and deal with load times.........dont punish everyone else for it.

Couldn't agree more.

Most likely not, they would probably just use Mutli-discs if they used that much space.
Also, it would take FOREVER to install.

Lowest common denominator = 360

limit 12gb's

So yeah there is your answer, the weak holding back the strong.

That's not entirely true. The game COULD have more than 1 disk if the game was too big. It's been done before (Final Fantasy XIII 3 discs for Xbox, 1 disc for PS3). Also, games have been made that have "extra content" installed onto a second disc... my example is obviously Forza Motorsport 3. It has extra content for the game.

IMO I think that there is no reason not to have a HDD for the 360 unless all you do is play Kinect. If you're into videogames like Skyrim will be then I think you ought to have a HDD already anyways.

Funny, I posed this question around the time of the game being announced and I got laughed off at suggesting it be on multiple discs.

All that said, the game will most likely be on one disc or it will have installable content similar to any recent Bethesda expansion.

The problem with open world games is you can't just swap discs somewhere, as it's all open. Unless they had something like interiors and dungeons on one disc, and the erest on another, but that's just stupid.



The problem with the HDDs is that Microsoft massively overcharges for them. And the only ones you can get are made by Microsoft, so they can charge whatever they like.

There is a very pressing reason not to buy a 360-brand drive: If you don't like being scraqed for money. The price/GB of those drives is absolutely unacceptable.

This topic makes no sense. HD-DVD is dead so expect no more prints on that medium ever. Further more, 9.4 GB is more than enough. The only advantage a PS3 has with blu-ray is that developers don't have to compress and on top of that, ps3 uses an install for games wich is generally accepted bij users. When you look at an avarage game, it only takes 8-9 GB and that is also for PS3. Games developed for PS3 exclusively are somewhere between 14-18 GB but that is because they don't have to look at compression so much. When you compress games, textures, audio, movies etc. you can still shrink it a lot.

Graphics don't equal space so don't worry

Actually, a Bethesda game can't be compressed much more than it already is. Most of a Bethesda game's assets are already compressed and they get uncompressed (textures) at runtime or are used in their compressed format(mp3's, voice files). 50 hrs of uncompressed audio would take up over 26 gigs of space.

Case in point: Oblivion 4.16 gigs on disk and 4.79 gigs installed. That is a difference of only 630 mb.

The majority of size attributed to a Bethesda game is Voice files and Textures and they account for approx 85% of the total size of the game.

Did not know that. In that case, Microsoft should allow installations.... that way the game can be placed on two discs...

There's another, even more important point - if you've compressed everything, you must decompress it. On the fly. While running the rest of the game. The harder you compress something, the harder it is to decompress, and in an open world game where realistically that resource was needed a few frames back, you don't have the time.