How big of an issue do you think storage space will be on next-gen consoles?

Plum · Aug 16, 2020

Hieroph said:
PS5 Anti-Consumer Edition buyers are going to be so fucked. Slightly over 500GB of usable storage, and no physical games to offset the storage needs. It's going to be so bad.

There is literally no difference when it comes to storage space between the two PS5 SKUs. Games are either installed from the disc or downloaded from the internet, and that's been the case this entire generation (and for part of the 7th gen as well).

Sprat · Aug 16, 2020

For me personally none at all.

I only ever have 3 games installed at a time

Hieroph · Aug 16, 2020

Plum said:
There is literally no difference when it comes to storage space between the two PS5 SKUs. Games are either installed from the disc or downloaded from the internet, and that's been the case this entire generation (and for part of the 7th gen as well).

With physical games you can install and uninstall games on a whim. This gen, a lot of games average at 30GB. If you've got ten physical games like that, that's 300GB that you can very easily manage. If you've got 50 games like that, that's a whopping 1500GB that you don't have to worry about downloading or keeping installed.

Next-gen games will absolutely be even bigger. If you've got 20 physical PS5 games averaging 60GB per game, that's 1200GB that you can store on the discs without worrying about keeping them installed. But if you took Sony's bait and bought the Anti-Consumer Edition, you're SOL.

Chille · Aug 16, 2020

Hieroph said:
With physical games you can install and uninstall games on a whim. This gen, a lot of games average at 30GB. If you've got ten physical games like that, that's 300GB that you can very easily manage. If you've got 50 games like that, that's a whopping 1500GB that you don't have to worry about downloading or keeping installed.

Next-gen games will absolutely be even bigger. If you've got 20 physical PS5 games averaging 60GB per game, that's 1200GB that you can store on the discs without worrying about keeping them installed. But if you took Sony's bait and bought the Anti-Consumer Edition, you're SOL.

I mean even if you got physical edition, by the time it installs onto hard drive, then updates lol its no different.
I will be sticking with the digital edition because I only play a small handful of games, I never go back to playing them either really, they just gather dust on my shelf.

Hieroph · Aug 16, 2020

Chille said:
I mean even if you got physical edition, by the time it installs onto hard drive, then updates lol its no different.

Even on PS4 there's a huge difference. You can easily be playing a 30GB disc game in literally seconds if the game has a nicely optimized ready to play segment. Don't even think about how long that would take to download.

dose · Aug 16, 2020

2Blackcats said:
Yeah, but reading is faster, right?

The steps required when you want to play a game from your external when your internal is full would be

1. Delete game you've Played the longest ago from internal
2. Start copying from external
3. Game starts when enough is copied over

Vs

1. Game you've played the longest ago gets copied to external
2. Delete game you've Played the longest ago from internal
3. Start copying from external
4. Delete game from external

This is true, but it's not quite as simple as that. The game you played the longest ago might not be taking enough space for the game you need to copy over, and so multiple games may need to be deleted. I can see lots of juggling of space in the background going on.

Also, on average how long would it take to copy over 50GB from an external to an ssd?

Snake Eater · Aug 16, 2020

Don't download every game you buy and digitally stack them, no one is playing 10+ AAA games as once

JasoNsider · Aug 16, 2020

I think Sony was mentioning the statistics showing how many games people are playing at any given time, and on average it wasn't really that high. Hopefully enough that 800GB is enough for the 1-4 games you want access to.

Personally I fall into that main category they found, as I am only playing maybe 2-3 games max at any given time. And that's at the higher level. Swapping things out of the fridge doesn't really phase me. I'm all too happy to usher in this new era of lightning fast SSD if that means needing to continue the current trend of re-downloading or installing (and it should be faster with better internet every year, and a crazy fast target drive read/write speed)

It's surely going to be brought up a lot, though. And for good reason.

E.T. · Aug 16, 2020

No issue, 750GB of space should be enough. Download, play, finish, delete, move on.
Keep 2-3 large games on the drive with a mix of smaller titles currently.

Noisepurge · Aug 16, 2020

tapedeck said:
The PS5 comes with what..an 825GB SSD? After taking into account actual usable space and the OS what does that leave for PS5 games....give or take 700GB? Yeah it's gonna be a problem, hopefully the SSD expansions are readily available and prices aren't insane.

Yup, gotta swap in atleast a 2Tb disk day-1.

Timu · Aug 16, 2020

It'll be a big problem and that's why I'm getting external hard drives for PS5 and XSX to store the games on them so I don't have to redownload so much.

Timu · Aug 16, 2020

tapedeck said:
The PS5 comes with what..an 825GB SSD? After taking into account actual usable space and the OS what does that leave for PS5 games....give or take 700GB? Yeah it's gonna be a problem, hopefully the SSD expansions are readily available and prices aren't insane.

Oof, it's going to be rough with PS5! I would definitely have to get a new hard drive for that 1st.

2Blackcats · Aug 16, 2020

dose said:
This is true, but it's not quite as simple as that. The game you played the longest ago might not be taking enough space for the game you need to copy over, and so multiple games may need to be deleted. I can see lots of juggling of space in the background going on.

Also, on average how long would it take to copy over 50GB from an external to an ssd?

It depends on how smart the system is. Games might have semi installs on the SSD with large chunks of data not stored there (completed single player levels or whatever).

Looking forward to seeing whatever they've cooked up.

Anth0ny · Aug 16, 2020

huge issue. hard drives are lagging behind the realities of modern game sizes.

ideally we'd have like 4tb at the very least, but it's just not feasible. if I want GTA, Red Dead and COD installed at all times, 3 of the most popular games in the world that are updated regularly, that's like 500gb for 3 games right there. it's ridiculous.

Timu · Aug 16, 2020

Snake Eater said:
Don't download every game you buy and digitally stack them, no one is playing 10+ AAA games as once

I'll probably end up doing that months from now.

shinobi602 · Aug 16, 2020

I'd imagine for many, yeah.

I never run out of space myself because I just delete games I know I won't play for a while.

ghostcrew · Aug 16, 2020

I will say this - if i was building a new PC tomorrow i would not be putting just 1TB of storage in it.

Feels weird to be going into a new gen already stressing about storage space. 500gb felt really decent at the start of this gen. It was double what i had on my PS3 and like eight times what i had on my 360. The PS5 at 825GB is less storage space than my PS4 Pro has 😕

dabri · Aug 16, 2020

Nola said:
If that is true then it still presents a bit of an issue since you are going from 2tb on the Pro down to 850gb(probably like 780 in usable space) with games on net not really shrinking in size.

But what is the average game size this gen? Yes there are outliers like cod, but I still have a 512gb drive on one of my ps4s and still have well over 25 titles installed including aaa games.

Timu · Aug 16, 2020

dabri said:
But what is the average game size this gen? Yes there are outliers like cod, but I still have a 512gb drive on one of my ps4s and still have well over 25 titles installed including aaa games.

I'm assuming a lot of games you have on your hard drive are under 50GB.

Skunk · Aug 16, 2020

Peckmore said:
"On the topic of hard drives, it's worth noting that you will not be able to play Xbox Series X games off of an external hard drive. You can store the games on an HDD if you like, but in order to actually play them, they will need to either be moved to the internal solid-state drive of the Xbox Series X or to a Seagate expansion drive."

Wait... Wait just a goddamn minute.

You mean to tell me that MS decided to sell exclusive official expansion drives instead of allowing third-party drives, and the vendor they chose to manufacture them all is Seagate?!?!

FFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

2Blackcats · Aug 17, 2020

dose said:
This is true, but it's not quite as simple as that. The game you played the longest ago might not be taking enough space for the game you need to copy over, and so multiple games may need to be deleted. I can see lots of juggling of space in the background going on.

Also, on average how long would it take to copy over 50GB from an external to an ssd?

Was thinking a bit more about this. Instead of the game you played longest ago it could be content you played longest ago.

So games might be parceled into storage chunks for lack of a better term. When you need space it deletes the oldest used ones. Could be maps from multiplayer mode you don't play any more, levels from a game you haven't played in a while, etc.

The advantage being that you can still boot those games on a whim.

MrKlaw · Aug 17, 2020

Still no explicit confirmation from Sony that we can archive ps5 games on the HDD? Is it such a no-brainier that we shouldn't be worried?

even for physical games it's probably be faster to move a patched game from HDD to SSD than reinstall from Blu-ray and redownload/apply patches

Kaim Argonar · Aug 17, 2020

Big enough that it could be considered a hidden cost on both systems.

Soviet · Aug 17, 2020

It will be a big problem, especially if devs start using the Unreal Engine 5 "just-import-a-high-poly-model-with-seven-8K-textures-and-be-done-with-it" feature.

2Blackcats · Aug 17, 2020

MrKlaw said:
Still no explicit confirmation from Sony that we can archive ps5 games on the HDD? Is it such a no-brainier that we shouldn't be worried?

even for physical games it's probably be faster to move a patched game from HDD to SSD than reinstall from Blu-ray and redownload/apply patches

Don't we?

Edit: Yes they confirmed it in the Road to PS5 video.

Paertan · Aug 17, 2020

I have a 4 TB external drive. I hope I can store games on that and restore to the console when I want to play. Then the internal storage will be more than enough.

DrDeckard · Aug 17, 2020

I think for the vast majority of the market, the PS5 is going to be a huge problem until they adapt to managing it with an external HDD.

We currently know, if you are willing to spend the money that you can extend the series X by 1TB.

We still have no hint that there is an M.2 going to be available anytime in the near future that can handle the PS5's IO. Hopefully we get some clarity from Sony/Manufacturers this year.

MrKlaw · Aug 17, 2020

2Blackcats said:
Don't we?

Edit: Yes they confirmed it in the Road to PS5 video.

https://playstationvr.hateblo.jp/entry/2020/03/30/181003

Now the kind of storage you need depends on how you're going to use it if you have an extensive PlayStation 4 library and you'd like to take advantage of backwards compatibility to play those games on PlayStation 5 then a large external hard drive is ideal.

You can leave your games on the hard drive and play them directly from there thus saving the pricier SSDstorage for your PlayStation 5 titles or you can copy your active PlayStation 4 titles to the SSD.

If your purpose in adding more storage is to play PlayStation 5 titles though ideally you would add to your SSD storage.

Doesn't seem to say anything about storing ps5 titles

MaLDo · Aug 17, 2020

It depends of how you will use your games.

if you play one or two games at a time. It will not be a problem.

For me is an important topic. I have more than 15 teras of installed games because I want to play instantly every game I have.

toy_brain · Aug 17, 2020

About a year from now its going to become a real headache for the hardcore (meaning people that post here) crowd.
Regardless of what developers are saying about less duplicated assets, or better compression tech, games are going to get bigger. The increasing drive towards 4k will be a big part of it.
This is why I hope game streaming takes off. Right now I have 48 games on Stadia, 18 of which are 'big' AAA games with a large file footprint on PC and console. All of these games are ready for me to play at a seconds notice. I don't have to worry about 'making room' if I feel like returning to a game I stopped playing months ago. I don't have to juggle storage between some super-fast local drive and a slower attached mass-storage drive.

Naturally I have decent broadband without a monthly cap.

2Blackcats · Aug 17, 2020

MrKlaw said:
https://playstationvr.hateblo.jp/entry/2020/03/30/181003

Doesn't seem to say anything about storing ps5 titles

PS5's Expandable Storage Doesn't Use Proprietary Tech, But Don't Buy An SSD Yet

This approach is very different from how Microsoft handles Xbox Series X expandable storage.

www.gamespot.com

"Such drives can also be used to store PS5 games, but you'll need to move those to a PS5-speed SSD in order to play them."

takriel · Aug 17, 2020

So buying physical copies is a very valid alternative here. Or will we also need to install 50+ gb patches for discs?

Deleted member 76299 · Aug 17, 2020

This is something I'm definitely worried about (first world problem).

I have 3TB full on my PS4 Pro at the moment, 1 internal and 2 external. With Sony using such expensive SSD's I feel as if this is going to be very annoying for people when they need extra storage. I'm honestly dreading the pricing for these things.. especially if first party games get updates and need to be saved on the internal SSD.. urgh

Deleted member 76299 · Aug 17, 2020

takriel said:
So buying physical copies is a very valid alternative here. Or will we also need to install 50+ gb patches for discs?

I get the thought process but disks are basically useless this gen as it is, you still need to install the game from the disk. It's really bad with some games like Spyro where the only game on the disk is the first 1.. you have to download the other 2.

MrKlaw · Aug 17, 2020

2Blackcats said:
PS5's Expandable Storage Doesn't Use Proprietary Tech, But Don't Buy An SSD Yet

This approach is very different from how Microsoft handles Xbox Series X expandable storage.

www.gamespot.com

"Such drives can also be used to store PS5 games, but you'll need to move those to a PS5-speed SSD in order to play them."

that's great news if true (and should be obvious) but I can't see that said by Cerny in the deep dive. Is it a quote from Sony or assumption from the writer?

2Blackcats · Aug 17, 2020

MrKlaw said:
that's great news if true (and should be obvious) but I can't see that said by Cerny in the deep dive. Is it a quote from Sony or assumption from the writer?

I can't find a quote either.

The bit I was remembering was a statement like that under a pic from the talk. But can't find it, don't think it was a quote I saw.

CampFreddie · Aug 17, 2020

It depends. Can I just plug in a regular SSD as an external drive?
If not, it will be a huge deal - not least because the "official SSD [external] drive upgrade" will be insanely expensive, because that's what happens with all proprietary storage systems.

825GB is going to be pretty tiny for next gen games. Even assuming they can use more compression and secret-sauce dedicated decompression chips to avoid killing the CPU, they'll be using a fuckton more data due to all the 4K next gen textures and stuff.
And if you're buying games that don't use much storage, they'll probably work fine on a PS4 so why even bother upgrading.

It might be okay if internet speeds are good. You can have maybe 5-10 games installed and just switch them out.
Physical blu--ray versions won't help much, since most games already require patches that are a large fraction of their install size. Internet speed should (but maybe won't) increase to a rate that matches blu-ray over the course of next gen - so physical is more about forcing prices on the online stores to stay honest, rather than a way to save on storage.

Sid · Aug 17, 2020

Pretty damn big, my base PS4's '500GB' was filled up pretty quickly and next gen games will only get heavier

ghostcrew · Aug 17, 2020

CampFreddie said:
It depends. Can I just plug in a regular SSD as an external drive?
If not, it will be a huge deal - not least because the "official SSD [external] drive upgrade" will be insanely expensive, because that's what happens with all proprietary storage systems.

You can plug in any external drive to use for BC or for cold storage. You can't run PS5/Series X games from it though. You can only use it to store them. You'd have to transfer them to the internal SSD to play them.

2Blackcats · Aug 17, 2020

CampFreddie said:
It depends. Can I just plug in a regular SSD as an external drive?
If not, it will be a huge deal - not least because the "official SSD [external] drive upgrade" will be insanely expensive, because that's what happens with all proprietary storage systems.

825GB is going to be pretty tiny for next gen games. Even assuming they can use more compression and secret-sauce dedicated decompression chips to avoid killing the CPU, they'll be using a fuckton more data due to all the 4K next gen textures and stuff.
And if you're buying games that don't use much storage, they'll probably work fine on a PS4 so why even bother upgrading.

It might be okay if internet speeds are good. You can have maybe 5-10 games installed and just switch them out.
Physical blu--ray versions won't help much, since most games already require patches that are a large fraction of their install size. Internet speed should (but maybe won't) increase to a rate that matches blu-ray over the course of next gen - so physical is more about forcing prices on the online stores to stay honest, rather than a way to save on storage.

It's not a proprietary drive in the PS5 at least. Might be expensive to start but the price will come down a lot over the next 7 years.

itfiend · Aug 17, 2020

If you can hang an 8tb USB off it and the console just manages it all - who cares, but if you have to manually manage which games are on the SSD it's going to be a nightmare.

MysticGon · Aug 17, 2020

Xbox bringing back memory cards but as SSDs was a stroke of genius.

Deleted member 420 · Aug 17, 2020

It's going to suck so bad

Ser_Luke · Aug 17, 2020

Neuromancer said:
Do we know if only certain M2 SSDs work on PS5?

My understanding is that it's some custom adaptation of NVMe, I could be wrong though.

Ocean · Aug 17, 2020

I think it'll be alright. Just gotta keep a 10-14TB external HDD hooked up as a game bank, and transfer games in/out of the SSD as needed.

dabri · Aug 17, 2020

Timu said:
I'm assuming a lot of games you have on your hard drive are under 50GB.

Yes, that's my point. Even though we have some crazy size games this gen, the vast majority are still well under 20 gb.

DontHateTheBacon · Aug 17, 2020

This isn't a shitpost, but "very."

dedge · Aug 17, 2020

Storing say PS4/XO games on an external HDD is nice but if they're able to take advantage of the SSD for loading improvements then I hope swapping installs around is easy otherwise I might not even bother using that.

The Albatross · Aug 17, 2020

I'm hoping that SOny or Microsoft can come up with a software solution for transitioning game files from an external drive over to SSD when the game is going to be played... Like, something like keeping unplayed games (like over 6mos or something when below 20% storage on the internal SSD) on the external drive, and then if you go to launch the external HDD game, it gives you a message, like, "Optimizing Game" or something, and then it moves it onto SSD and moves another game to your HDD and then launches. I kinda expect Microsoft to build something like this sooner than Sony. It's easy to do it manually but would be nice if it happened automatically, or even if the UI gave you a notification like "We've noticed you haven't played these 4 games in X months, would you like to move these to external storage?" You confirm, and then they automatically move those games over, and if you go to play one of those games maybe you have to wait a few mins for it to transfer back to internal storage... Perhaps with some features able to launch immediately.

It won't solve the problem but there will be a bottleneck with game file sizes and SSDs still being pretty expensive.

Couleurs · Aug 17, 2020

I had to start paying Comcast for unlimited data after they restored the cap in July, thanks to working from home. I guess the side benefit is that I can just be more aggressive about deleting/re-downloading games, if storage upgrades are too cost prohibitive.

I like having all of my games available in case I get a spur of the moment itch to play something I haven't touched in years (without waiting for it to download and install), so hopefully that is somehow still an option eventually.

How big of an issue do you think storage space will be on next-gen consoles?

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