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[Hostile_18]

However I'm concerned about hardrive space this next gen

I have a 2tb hardrive and it has long ago filled up and tough choices had to be made about what made the permanent roster.

With the (great) move to SSD's to help remove loading how is that going to tally with potentially storing 100 GB games? If the rumours of a 1tb SSD hardrive are true that's what about 10-12 games stored locally at a time? Far less than the current gen.

For the more tech minded amongst us what could be done to remedy this? Could games be stored on conventional Hardrives and transferred over to the SSD when in use? If its not automatic it would seem an unnecessarily complicated step for a more casual audience that just wants to pay their games. Could games play off an external traditional hardrive with longer load times?

The push to been all digital is making me concerned. Will both platform holders handle storage the same way?

Basically does size matter... or am I over reacting?

 

[Birdo]

It's going to be a mess next gen with these (Confirmed) proprietary internal SSD's.

They claim that you'll be able to only install the parts of the games you play. But that will only go so far. I see lots of uninstalling and re-installing in your future if you play a lot of games.

Bring back carts. I don't care how much they cost. I'd pay.

 

[Hostile_18]

It's going to be a mess next gen with these (Confirmed) proprietary internal SSD's.

They claim that you'll be able to only install the parts of the games you play. But that will only go so far. I see lots of uninstalling and re-installing in your future if you play a lot of games.

Bring back carts. I don't care how much they cost. I'd pay.

This gen I fell like loading been a "problem" is really only an issue on a game by game basis. It all seems to be down to the efficiency of the engine.

I suppose if were allowed external SSDs 1tb internal and 1tb external isn't going to be terrible but it wont be great either, especially with all our back catalogues coming along over for the ride. It's potentially a big compromise for a decent gain.

 

[Mr Hyde]

I hope file sizes shrink for next gen. It´s been refreshing to see high caliber games like Sekiro and Resident Evil 2 land at 20-30 gigs. If that would be the norm, going all out digital wouldn´t be that bad in terms of downloads and storage.

 

[Breakage]

I just recently finished watching that DF PS5 video. The stuff about storage sounds like a mess. Uninstalling bits of a game to free up space? Are people gonna be happy with uninstalling and reinstalling frequently being the norm? It's really seems as if game sizes will quickly outpace the tech options available for the next gen machines.

 

[Hostile_18]

I hope file sizes shrink for next gen. It´s been refreshing to see high caliber games like Sekiro and Resident Evil 2 land at 20-30 gigs. If that would be the norm, going all out digital wouldn´t be that bad in terms of downloads and storage.

I feel like there the exception with increasing emphasis on higher and higher quality textures, the move to 100gb capacity discs etc.

There is the old thing of now much space is worthwhile VS how much could have been done more efficiently had they tried etc.

Back in the day didnt they use to put the same data in multiple places as well so the disc laser had less further to travel?... I might have just made that to though lol.

 

[Gavin Stevens]

Anything less than 2tb is going to fall on its arse right out the gate. Games are already hitting 150gb, with games like MW hitting 175. Next gen will see massive increases in data sizes, and I fully expect 500gb games before the systems end their life cycle.

2tb is the absolute minimum, and even then you’re pushing it.

 

[MiyazakiHatesKojima]

The pro versions of the consoles will have 500GB MAXIMUM or else we will end up with a "PS3 price" situation.

 

[dDoc]

Doubt Sony will put an SSD bigger than 250gb, if that. Rough times ahead?

 

[Hostile_18]

I think Digital Foundry said the rumour was 1tb.

Could the SSD part of the storage just be used for the running application? How long would it be before a full game was transferred from a standard HD to the SSD? Would that negate the advantage of not loading in game if it had one big load upfront.

 

[DeepEnigma]

Gaming pack rats are going to drive themselves nuts that they can't keep games installed they haven't touched in 8 months.

I used to be that way, but then I just started uninstalling ones that I haven't played in a while, and if I go back to it I'll just reinstall it. I'm not constantly playing all of the 81 games I currently have installed right now (hell half of them are backlog), and there are a ton that are not installed as well.

There are certain games that I already have the Platinum for, but will always remain installed, like Bloodborne and Driveclub for example.

 

[Fuz]

For once, I think consoles will have a positive impact on the industry.


And I'm not gonna install your shitty game that takes 150gb of space. I'm already hurting for space, and I'm also not gonna unistall stuff just for you. I rather buy and play something else.

 

[Hostile_18]

Gaming pack rats are going to drive themselves nuts that they can't keep games installed they haven't touched in 8 months.

I used to be that way, but then I just started uninstalling ones that I haven't played in a while, and if I go back to it I'll just reinstall it. I'm not constantly playing all of the 81 games I currently have installed right now (hell half of them are backlog), and there are a ton that are not installed as well.

If that was the case I'd still like to organise my games in folders etc that I hadn't installed. At the moment you can only organise games installed.

 

[Hostile_18]

I dont know I find it hard to imagine the manufacturers haven't thought about this.

I mean would they really moves to SSD's solely if they knew the customer could only install 5-10 games at a time?

It's getting dangerously close to what people didnt like about the original X Box one in terms of been too dependant on the Internet... plus wouldn't it mean people hammering the Sony servers hundreds of times more than they do now (more expense). Also it would seem to discourage sales if people felt they had no space left.

It would also seem to be the complete U turn on this gens move to 4k gaming, bigger textures, more content, games as a service etc.

 

[DeepEnigma]

If that was the case I'd still like to organise my games in folders etc that I hadn't installed. At the moment you can only organise games installed.

Agreed, more options to management is a plus. I have worked around it by going to the library and hiding demo's, games I'll never play that were free (which I trained myself to no longer add Plus games that I'll never touch) or ones that I completed fully and will never go back to.

So the only ones that remain under Library are ones I have not installed yet and they already puts the installed ones in a separate section in the library below them, in which you can obviously do in folders on the main dashboard.

Then there's disc games that you haven't installed yet which you don't have to worry about management at all.

 

[Shifty]

An OS or hardware implementation could theoretically shuffle games between solid-state and mechanical drives based on various factors like available space, how often each game gets played, and so forth.

Various systems already exist to do this, and have for a while.

 

[Rossco EZ]

would something like an external hard drive and then copying to ssd solve this?

 

[Raploz]

Install only the games you're playing, and uninstall everything else. That's what I do, I don't need everything installed at once.

 

[quickwhips]

1 tb internal and usb external?

 

[hunthunt]

I wouldnt be surprised if they include a heavy compression algorythm like 7zip masked under some option to reduce the space of games.

Anyway it will be really bad if they dont put at least 2 TB of space.

 

[Shifty]

Install only the games you're playing, and uninstall everything else. That's what I do, I don't need everything installed at once.

This too, for sure. It seems kinda wasteful to have a giant hard drive filled with stuff that's just collecting virtual dust.

 

[jono51]

I predict we will have games topping out at 400-500gb next gen. Peak game sizes are ~110gb at the moment. Last gen they were ~20gb. Gen before that ~8gb.

 

[Hostile_18]

I predict we will have games topping out at 400-500gb next gen. Peak game sizes are ~110gb at the moment. Last gen they were ~20gb. Gen before that ~8gb.

Imagine that though 2 games and your hardrive is full.

Might have to be a habit we all need to get out of installing games were not actively playing. Hope the payoff is worth it.

As I mentioned earlier though would Sony want every user constantly downloading on the PSN all the time?

Edit: Also don't many ISP's have data caps as well. I think a fair arguement can be made for having a large portion of your catalogue available without having to download it again. Friends coming over unexpectedly, new dlc dropping, not been sure what you want to play on any given day. The store or your internet going down, items removed e.g PT etc.

 

[Shifty]

Also don't many ISP's have data caps as well.

That depends on where you live. It's not a thing here in the UK, but is pretty common in the US as I understand it.

 

[ZywyPL]

It's worse than it initially seems IMO - bare in mind those 1TB are a "marketing" metric borrowed from HDDs, so in reality we're talking about ~930GB of free space, minus the OS and we're left with. ~860GB, if not less. And I don't believe in the games size shrinking, they do take 100-150GB anyway even on PC with faster HDDs, let alone SSDs. So all in all, I can see the next-gen consoles taking the PCs route, with the SSDs being primarily for the OS and mostly used apps/games, with people adding external 4/6/8TB HDDs for the games.

 

[Negotiator]

Next-gen console games will need no data duplication thanks to the SSD baseline and will offer more granularity (SP/MP installs).

One more thing they could do is offer 1080p assets by default and have 4K texture packs as an optional download... same for non-English languages.

PCs on the other hand seem to adopt a brute force philosophy (as usual), hence those ridiculous file sizes (150-175GB). Why? Because there's no NVMe baseline on PCs.

Hell, many PC gamers still have Phenom CPUs from 2007 (that's 5 years older than Jaguar!) and complain when game devs utilize modern instruction sets (such as SSE4.1/4.2). The Zen 2 baseline is only going to exacerbate this situation. Good luck with them petitions.

 

[Hostile_18]

It's worse than it initially seems IMO - bare in mind those 1TB are a "marketing" metric borrowed from HDDs, so in reality we're talking about ~930GB of free space, minus the OS and we're left with. ~860GB, if not less. And I don't believe in the games size shrinking, they do take 100-150GB anyway even on PC with faster HDDs, let alone SSDs. So all in all, I can see the next-gen consoles taking the PCs route, with the SSDs being primarily for the OS and mostly used apps/games, with people adding external 4/6/8TB HDDs for the games.

Either way it feels like were missing something. If only 10% say of our games are on a SSD won't they lose all the efficiency people have been talking about in terms of coding solely for them..otherwise they will just end up like PC SSD's.

As it stands with solely a SSD drive;

+ Almost 0 loading.
+ Faster access to data.
+ games coded just for faster hardrive.

- Console holds less games.
- Users constantly downloading from PSN.
- Question of preservation when items are removed from the store.
-Game size increasing with 100gb discs (which will be installed).
- ISP data cap worry, especially in America.
-Reliance on been connected to the internet.

If it's a SSD with a normal HDD

+ Almost 0 loading.
+ Faster access to data.
+ Huge storage.

- Having to mess about moving games to the SSD to benefit from speed boost.
- Games no longer having advantage of just been coded to SSD as they also have to work on traditional hard drives.
- Launch cost of having two hardrives.

The solution?
Could potentially a SSD drive just be used as a kind of in the moment memory that's always wiped when the running application is shut down? There would still be the cost factor still, but that seems the best solution if such a thing is possible.

 

[Vawn]

Anything less than 2tb is going to fall on its arse right out the gate. Games are already hitting 150gb, with games like MW hitting 175. Next gen will see massive increases in data sizes, and I fully expect 500gb games before the systems end their life cycle.

2tb is the absolute minimum, and even then you’re pushing it.

It won't be 2tb. 1tb max.

 

[Negotiator]

The solution?
Could potentially a SSD drive just be used as a kind of in the moment memory that's always wiped when the running application is shut down? There would still be the cost factor still, but that seems the best solution if such a thing is possible.

No. Here's why:

Flash memory - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

"3D QLC NAND 100 to 1,000 write cycles"

No way an expert engineer like Cerny is going to allow that. Sony will have to deal with millions of bricked PS5s in a couple of years.

Why the hell would they want that? We're talking about YLOD/RROD levels of catastrophe.

 

[Hostile_18]

Next-gen console games will need no data duplication thanks to the SSD baseline and will offer more granularity (SP/MP installs).

One more thing they could do is offer 1080p assets by default and have 4K texture packs as an optional download... same for non-English languages.

PCs on the other hand seem to adopt a brute force philosophy (as usual), hence those ridiculous file sizes (150-175GB). Why? Because there's no NVMe baseline on PCs.

Hell, many PC gamers still have Phenom CPUs from 2007 (that's 5 years older than Jaguar!) and complain when game devs utilize modern instruction sets (such as SSE4.1/4.2). The Zen 2 baseline is only going to exacerbate this situation. Good luck with them petitions.

If people wanted (on the whole) 1080p assets though they likely wouldn't be buying this expensive machine... at least not in these early stages.

Plus how much can partitioning game installs into components actually save? Don't most use the same assets across modes. Even if that saving was as much as 50% (very generous) that would still lead to a space issue very quickly, more so considering most will be bringing over their back catalogue.

 

[Hostile_18]

No. Here's why:

Flash memory - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

"3D QLC NAND 100 to 1,000 write cycles"

No way an expert engineer like Cerny is going to allow that. Sony will have to deal with millions of bricked PS5s in a couple of years.

Why the hell would they want that? We're talking about YLOD/RROD levels of catastrophe.

Oh god then I can't really see a solution which is a massive downer for next gen. Not the end of the world but it's a shame especially if 1tb is the maximum size we can realistically expect.

I suppose 1tb internal and as big as we can afford external. Hopefully external support available day 1 this time.

 

[KungFucius]

They need a writable cart based solution. Buy game on cart, patch cart., insert cart and play. Make it optional and more expensive. Something like Digital and Disk for 60 bucks, cart for 60+ the cost of the cart which will vary with size. Give consumers a choice and make them pay for it. For hoarders sell a special switch unit that allows 24 carts to be inserted and all read from the OS. Charge as much as a proprietary HDD with a small market markup for that. Bonus points if you make them daisy chainable of make pro models that can accept 50, 100 carts. Go the extra mile and sell blank carts for downloaded games including older gen games. Sell a mega cabinet, which is basically a second PS5 hooked up as a server to a 2000 cart slot beast for the mega hoarders and allow them to rebuy their entire libraries from back to the PS1 era and put them on these new carts.

 

[Hostile_18]

They need a writable cart based solution. Buy game on cart, patch cart., insert cart and play. Make it optional and more expensive. Something like Digital and Disk for 60 bucks, cart for 60+ the cost of the cart which will vary with size. Give consumers a choice and make them pay for it. For hoarders sell a special switch unit that allows 24 carts to be inserted and all read from the OS. Charge as much as a proprietary HDD with a small market markup for that. Bonus points if you make them daisy chainable of make pro models that can accept 50, 100 carts. Go the extra mile and sell blank carts for downloaded games including older gen games. Sell a mega cabinet, which is basically a second PS5 hooked up as a server to a 2000 cart slot beast for the mega hoarders and allow them to rebuy their entire libraries from back to the PS1 era and put them on these new carts.

Can't wait to play Mario Cart (tm) .