• Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!

Can we talk about PS4 disc-based games and storage space?

V

Velkyn

Member
Seriously, what’s with this? I own about 10 PS4 games on disc, and my console is getting to the point where I can only have 2-3 games installed at any given time. I got my copy of FF XV this week, and was treated to the perplexing message that there wasn’t enough disc space to boot the game disc. Then, I sat through a disc install, the patch install, and a third install once I actually booted the game. Even after clearing some space, I’m using about 340 GB of space. The biggest offenders are the games I own on disc. I think Doom is actually sitting somewhere around 58 GB, Uncharted 4 around 40ish GB, and Dark Souls 3 at about 30 GB if I remember correctly. And then in my digital collection, Alien Isolation is somewhere around 19 GB or something? It just seems like PS4 discs are download keys at this point, and we’re just getting the digital copies no matter what.

Considering that the promise from Sony this gen was to be digital friendly, it’s pretty ironic that the biggest file sizes on my console’s HDDs are from the disc-based games I own. When you couple this with the huge day one patches you always have to download and the ridiculous 50 GB buffer the PS4 imposes on you, it feels like we’re all being forced to drop money on external drives or bigger upgrades to the internal PS4 drive. I already did my time juggling hard drive space when PC drives were small, I shouldn’t have to take a step back in time and do it again on my home consoles.
 
Yep was complaining about this today. The last of us had 45GB for the file so I deleted it.i have like 35 ps4 games and haven't even played half of them.
 
wait FFXV is over 300G? LOL



but i do think it is good to reduce noise level. however it would have been nice if they allow users to choose if to full install or not.
 
You do realize Digital and Disc based are the same size, right OP ?

In-fact, for digital you actually need more space than the actual game itself, since it needs room to decompress. With the disc, at least you have the ease to delete the data and reinstall it by just popping the disc back in and not have to download the same 50+ GB all over again. There's other advantages like disc based games getting cheaper sooner, some of the PSN prices are still jacked up.

I'm glad consoles aren't going fully digital yet.
 
Can't say that this has been an issue for me since installing games from discs is super fast on PS4. If I had to redownload 60GB everytime though...
 
toleoring said:
wait FFXV is over 300G? LOL



but i do think it is good to reduce noise level. however it would have been nice if they allow users to choose if to full install or not.
Click to expand...

Nah, it's pretty beefy though. I meant that I have about 340/400 GB used on my system storage right now. I think the file size is about 70 GB or something?
 
Delete games you have on physical support if you don't play them anymore, it helps with HDD space managment.
 
chandoog said:
You do realize Digital and Disc based are the same size, right OP ?

In-fact, for digital you actually need more space than the actual game itself, since it needs room to decompress. With the disc, at least you have the ease to delete the data and reinstall it by just popping the disc back in and not have to download the same 50+ GB all over again. There's other advantages like disc based games getting cheaper sooner, some of the PSN prices are still jacked up.

I'm glad consoles aren't going fully digital yet.
Click to expand...

Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but when I used to buy games on a disc, the game was actually on the disc and didn't need to install shit anywhere.
 
The benefit of having a disc is to let you reinstall and delete games in a much more flippant manner than having to download it again. I just wish you could choose to delete just the main install and not DLC or patches.
 
It's the same size whether it's digital or physical.

But this is why I buy the majority of my games on disc. At least with a disc, it doesn't take long to reinstall the game if I ever want to go back to it (patches are a different story). PSN's inconsistent, sometimes painfully slow, speeds would make it a pain in the ass to constantly delete and reinstall digital games.
 
LewieP said:
Those games take up the same amount of space if you have the digital versions.
Click to expand...

I think he's arguing that there's no point in having a Disc if it's just going to serve as a physical CD key if the install sizes are the exactly the same as digital.
 
My issue with discs began in the last generation. Buying a disc and popping it into a console has you end up waiting for about an hour to play it.

You may as well have gotten a digital download. Discs tend to go on sale and you can buy them used, but the install and patching is ridiculous.

The benefit for a disc used to be you could just pop it into a console and play a game. You can't do that anymore. I don't see the benefit of having discs outside of a collector's desire.
 
Velkyn said:
Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but when I used to buy games on a disc, the game was actually on the disc and didn't need to install shit anywhere.
Click to expand...

That's a whole different topic ..

At the very least you're not experiencing lengthy install waits like XB1 has, with PS4 most games take only a few seconds to be able to start and install in the background as you play.

Game installs serve to improve performance and load times, the disc drives on both consoles are way slower than their HDDs and it's not like installing is a new trend. A good majority of PS3 games required installs, in fact in those cases you'd just sit and wait up to 20 minutes (remember DMC4 ?) before you could even get to the main menu.

The current solution is not full proof, but it's definitely better than before.
 
Velkyn said:
Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but when I used to buy games on a disc, the game was actually on the disc and didn't need to install shit anywhere.
Click to expand...

Game is still on the disc, it just needs to copy to the hard drive before playing it. Unless you want your load times quadrupled, or more.
 
Every time I finish a game I know I'm not gonna replay for a significant amount of time I just delete it. What's the point of keeping games you are not gonna play on your console, especially if you have them on disc? Besides, most of the PS4 games on disc can be reinstalled pretty quickly anyway.
 
Doom digital takes up 75gb on my Pro. I wish I could disable installing multiplayer patches lol.

Infinit warfare plus MWr together are over 100gb

I put in a 2TB HDD and I have 39 games installed including some smaller PS+ games and Journey and I have 670gb of free space.
 
sym30l1c said:
Every time I finish a game I know I'm not gonna replay for a significant amount of time I just delete it. What's the point of keeping games you are not gonna play on your console, especially if you have them on disc? Besides, most of the PS4 games on disc can be reinstalled pretty quickly anyway.
Click to expand...

I...haven't finished most of the games I mentioned in the OP.
 
Kureransu said:
I think he's arguing that there's no point in having a Disc if it's just going to serve as a physical CD key if the install sizes are the exactly the same as digital.
Click to expand...

I get that, but it's not rational.

Disc drives are way too slow for the functions of modern games.

I have no idea why people are obsessed with spinning disks. Optical media is horrible.

If you have a disk, you have reselling, lending and collecting rights. That's pretty nice.
 
SG-17 said:
The benefit of having a disc is to let you reinstall and delete games in a much more flippant manner than having to download it again. I just wish you could choose to delete just the main install and not DLC or patches.
Click to expand...

This x1000

I did that with PS3 games, delete the install, but keep all the patches

If you could do that on PS4 it would be a game changer for me
 
Isn't the blu-ray drive a bandwidth bottleneck so they store everything to the HDD to speed up streaming/loading?

Something the ps3 found itself doing a lot last gen since it was the only console with a (slow ass) blu-ray drive.
 
Kureransu said:
I think he's arguing that there's no point in having a Disc if it's just going to serve as a physical CD key if the install sizes are the exactly the same as digital.
Click to expand...

Velkyn said:
Bingo.
Click to expand...

If so, that's still some pretty flawed reasoning. Not everyone has a great internet connection to download the games from PSN(or XBL/Steam/Nintendo Network). Not to mention that PSN is wildly inconsistent.

And as mentioned before, it's MUCH faster to install from a disc than download from PSN, so it's worth it for that alone for people that like to revisit games.
 
entremet said:
I get that, but it's not rational.

Disc drives are way too slow for the functions of modern games.

I have no idea why people are obsessed with spinning disks. Optical media is horrible.

If you have a disk, you have reselling, lending and collecting rights. That's pretty nice.
Click to expand...

It's not like being forced to have a huge buffer on your console's system storage is objectively any better than optical media.
 
I dont understand why this happens. I may have like 50 GB but cant install a game much less than that because of storage issues.

I have a 2 TB HDD that I wanted to return because of spending too much this month, but I'm highly considering just using it because I dont know if 500 GB will suffice.

I dont mind deleting a bunch of old games, but Im incredibly unsure if I can last the whole generation doing this.
 
Blu-ray load speeds suck ass especially compared to an HDD. Installing the game to an HDD makes far more sense for performance hence why the PS4 and Xbox One both do it.

The disc is essentially just an outdated storage medium that acts as a key once the data has been transferred to the HDD.
 
Mass Effect said:
If so, that's still some pretty flawed reasoning. Not everyone has a great internet connection to download the games from PSN(or XBL/Steam/Nintendo Network). Not to mention that PSN is wildly inconsistent.

And as mentioned before, it's MUCH faster to install from a disc than download from PSN, so it's worth it for that alone for people that like to revisit games.
Click to expand...

If that's the case, why is so much of the current system reliant on you putting a disk in and downloading stuff? If the current system worked like PC games used to (Put disc/s in drive, run installer, play game), this thread wouldn't exist. Modern consoles are more like: Insert disc/Download stuff/Install stuff/Install more stuff/Download a patch
It's starting to make less and less sense.
 
Velkyn said:
If that's the case, why is so much of the current system reliant on you putting a disk in and downloading stuff? If the current system worked like PC games used to (Put disc/s in drive, run installer, play game), this thread wouldn't exist. Modern consoles are more like: Insert disc/Download stuff/Install stuff/Install more stuff/Download a patch
It's starting to make less and less sense.
Click to expand...

PS4 games don't download the game if you put the disc in. They install from disc

It's exactly like the PC example you mentioned
 
Yes, disc and digital take the same amount of space.

Not pulling data from the disc during gameplay allows the games to be programmed a certain (better) way. Cuts down on heat, power, and failure rates.

Regardless, just giving us codes would be dumb as hell, people have slow connections, or bandwidth limits, and being able to install off the disc helps them a lot. (It WOULD be better if the disc came with a code too, which is what truly unlocked the license, so I wouldn't have to even put in the disc anymore, but whatever)

The PS4 comes with 500gb standard, which is pretty generous, and is super easy to swap in a new HD (I have a 1TB hybrid).

I would say (with kindness, as I suffer from the same issues) that maybe you should delete a couple of the big games and focus on one at a time to both give yourself some extra room, and to clear out the backlog a bit. I find when there is too much on my drive at once I will sometimes get paralyzed.
If that's the case, why is so much of the current system reliant on you putting a disk in and downloading stuff? If the current system worked like PC games used to (Put disc/s in drive, run installer, play game), this thread wouldn't exist. Modern consoles are more like: Insert disc/Download stuff/Install stuff/Install more stuff/Download a patch
It's starting to make less and less sense
Click to expand...
.

Thats just day1 patches and stuff. The game installs off the disc.
 
YianGaruga said:
PS4 games don't download the game if you put the disc in. They install from disc

It's exactly like the PC example you mentioned
Click to expand...

Well, in the FF XV example I mentioned it was: install/download 8gb patch at hilariously slow speeds despite my actual connection speed/install yet more shit once I actually launched the game.
 
Velkyn said:
Well, in the FF XV example I mentioned it was: install/download 8gb patch at hilariously slow speeds despite my actual connection speed/install yet more shit once I actually launched the game.
Click to expand...

Its stupid but if you put the console in rest mode it usually downloads a lot faster.
 
Velkyn said:
Well, in the FF XV example I mentioned it was: install/download 8gb patch at hilariously slow speeds despite my actual connection speed/install yet more shit once I actually launched the game.
Click to expand...

Well PC games have patches too last time I checked. If you don't want the patch just go offline and/or cancel the download
 
I wish they would let us keep patches on the system while deleting the main disc install. It would save a ton of space and I wouldn't need to worry about downloading 10+GB again when I feel like playing something. Whether that is possible with the file system and how files are overwritten, I don't know.

At least give us a filesize of the patch.
 
How they ever thought 500gb HDD's were acceptable is beyond me, at least the XBO has USB HDD support.

The lack of space stops me buying more PS4 games.
 
Velkyn said:
Well, in the FF XV example I mentioned it was: install/download 8gb patch at hilariously slow speeds despite my actual connection speed/install yet more shit once I actually launched the game.
Click to expand...

That issue isn't related just to disc based games though, if you go digital you'll be downloading the whole 50GB + 8GB on the same slow connection. Your arguments against using discs are amplified twice or more if you stick to all digital :p
 
Well, first of all, what you called "disc install" of FFXV was only a small portion of the full install. It installs just enough that you can boot up the game and play that Free Combat mode or whatever it's called but it still continues installing the rest of the game after that. The same happens with most games, though some games that aren't open world games can make it so that they install the first level or two so that you can at least start the game proper and then it keeps installing in the background while you get through the first chapter/tutorial/whatever.



Second, as annoying as it can be to sit around installing disc based games, it does wonders to lengthen the life of your PS4's blu-ray drive, so a small annoyance might be a big money saver in the long run since your blu-ray drive won't break as quickly.
 
What are the chances we can move to memory cards instead of discs for physical games on future systems? Wouldn't that alleviate some of this stuff? Will be interesting to see how this plays out on the Switch, though I assume they made that decision based more on the fact that it is a console/handheld hybrid.
 
alr1ght said:
I wish they would let us keep patches on the system while deleting the main disc install. It would save a ton of space and I wouldn't need to worry about downloading 10+GB again when I feel like playing something. Whether that is possible with the file system and how files are overwritten, I don't know.

At least give us a filesize of the patch.
Click to expand...

I hate so much about the PS4 OS. Virtually nothing about it feels advanced to me at all. It's gotten better since launch, but I wish we had the option to do stuff like this.
 
The only advantage physical has left is price. It makes noise, takes the same space and that disc switching, oh my I can never go back.
 
But I remember some saying why do some of you guys need more than 500GB of space...

Many of us have been complaining about this since day one. 500GB was too small to start with. They should have had a 1TB option from day one.

I have to continue to give props to MS for allowing external harddrive support to play games.

IMO 2TB is the minimum to not have to micro manage installing, deleting games.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Can we talk about seasonal gameplay changes in multiplayer games?
8
312
Brakum replied
  • Poll
Most reliable Disc based Console?
Poll  2
67
2K
tanners replied
Can we get remasters of the PS1 Spider-Man games?
2
61
1K
VulcanRaven replied
  • Poll
Two fundemental truths about Live Service multi-player games that people aren't talking about...
2 3
120
1K
Men_in_Boxes replied
Talk a little bit about your favorite Star Wars game. Only your favorite.
2 3
103
718
Zannegan replied
Top Bottom