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I think we need to discuss game size (as in install space)

DSN2K

DSN2K

Member
Oct 25, 2017
4,258
United Kingdom
We have Digital Only Next Gen Consoles with drive space below 1tb. Why is Cyberpunk 70GB while the latest Call of Duty is obscene 200+ GB. Something is not right here. Are developers just not optimising properly or are Next Gen Games simply taking up vastly more Data. I really doubt compression techniques have not advanced.
 
Bishop89

Bishop89

What Are Ya' Selling?
Member
Oct 25, 2017
34,645
Melbourne, Australia
The latest cod is not 200gb+

Its around the 140gb mark

Edit : sorry, I'm talking about the ps5 version.

Xbox/pc might be 200+

Regardless, cod devs are taking the piss
 
kadotsu

kadotsu

Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,505
The problem with games like CoD is that it's actually 3 games by slightly different teams, that also have asset dependencies, so no one wants to touch the repository in fear of breaking stuff for someone else. Cleaning up stuff costs money and with game install sizes you are only making it worse for your competition so it's low priority.
 
calibos

calibos

Member
Dec 13, 2017
2,003
Textures are way bigger than they were 5 years ago.

lighting data is way bigger.

audio is way bigger.

localization bigger

Games have been getting bigger and bigger over the years. Data footprints are not going to shrink significantly as time goes on unless something even more magic happens.
 
ghostcrew

ghostcrew

The Shrouded Ghost
Administrator
Oct 27, 2017
30,364
COD Black Ops Cold War isn't 200GB+

It's 133GB on console and you can install/uninstall each mode on it to reduce the size (ie uninstall Zombies or the campaign when you're done with it). That's still large, but it's around the same as other big games (RDR2, Destiny 2, Gears etc)

Christ, MK11 Ultimate is 122GB.
 

Deleted member 16908

Oct 27, 2017
9,377
ghostcrew said:
COD Black Ops Cold War isn't 200GB+

It's 133GB on console and you can install/uninstall each mode on it to reduce the size (ie uninstall Zombies or the campaign when you're done with it). That's still large, but it's around the same as other big games (RDR2, Destiny 2, Gears etc)

Christ, MK11 Ultimate is 122GB.
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How is a fighting game that large? I don't get it.
 

Sprat

Member
Oct 27, 2017
4,684
England
If you go into the storage on PS5 games you can uninstall other languages etc that reduces the size a fair bit.

Same with call of duty just go on and delete the bits you dont want such as zombies or campaign etc
 

Lewpy

Member
Oct 28, 2017
1,210
I'm not sure there's a lot to talk about. Activision must know the size of the game is larger than most other titles being released. We are just agreeing with each other that they are too big.
 
McNum

McNum

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 26, 2017
5,195
Denmark
Robinson said:
How is a fighting game that large? I don't get it.
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Looking at the Steam install here, the character files clock in at roughly 2+GB including gear each. Each stage is 5-700MB. Some go over, some go under. Which considering how complex each character is and how many outfits they have makes some sense.
 
Arctic Chris

Arctic Chris

Member
Dec 5, 2017
2,175
Ottawa Canada
I will be happy when (if) Sony starts permitting the installation of PS5 games on an external SSD (or HDD) for cold storage. I really do not understand this decision.

On my XSX I can store games internally, externally, copy the game to another Xbox console over my network (while the first version remains so I now have a digital copy on both consoles at the same time - a life saver with my slow internet).
 
Rosebud

Rosebud

Two Pieces
Member
Apr 16, 2018
43,596
These SSDs are just incredibly small. Sizes will keep increasing.

I have a good internet so I don't mind downloading, but still sucks we don't have at least 1TB of free space.
 
Pheonix

Pheonix

Banned
Dec 14, 2018
5,990
St Kitts
The problem isn't that game sizes are getting big. They are getting a big as they should.

The problem is that modern games have become SSD dependent. And sn SSD $/GB price is high. If we could have 2TB drives in these consoles we wouldn't have a problem.

The best and most cost-effective way going forward for the next 3 or 4 years (about how long I think it wil take for decent-sized compatible SSDs to fall under $100), is to get an external HDD and swap games between it and the console. That may mean you have on average 5-8 installed games on your console, but what can we do?

This is the next-gen technology tax.
 
Akai

Akai

Member
Oct 25, 2017
6,045
calibos said:
localization bigger

Games have been getting bigger and bigger over the years. Data footprints are not going to shrink significantly as time goes on unless something even more magic happens.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

In this case, they just need to split localization off from the main game, while making it possible to download it as DLC.

A couple games do this already, but it's far from across the board and it really should be across the board. Such a waste of space to be forced to install 5+ localizaions, when you'll never need more than one and in rare cases 2 or more.
 
Dr. Mario

Dr. Mario

Member
Oct 27, 2017
13,873
Netherlands
Someone once posted a conspiracy theory that Activision is in no hurry to curtail the size because it means you cannot have as many other games on your system and are more likely to spend your recurring payments on their game.

It sounds ridiculous, but then so is their install size.
 
Cats

Cats

Member
Oct 27, 2017
2,929
Dr. Mario said:
Someone once posted a conspiracy theory that Activision is in no hurry to curtail the size because it means you cannot have as many other games on your system and are more likely to spend your recurring payments on their game.

It sounds ridiculous, but then so is their install size.
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It may not be the major intention but these execs aren't stupid, they know this and it is probably in the back of someones mind there, and honestly, at least for 1 person in this world, it probably works this way. I doubt it was purposely done that way for that reason though, it's just lots of assets, maybe dupes even for better loads on mechanical drives.
 
Cameron122

Cameron122

Rescued from SR388
Member
Oct 27, 2017
2,289
Texas
I heard because of hard disk drives developers have had to multiply assets so the game can "grab them" faster is there any truth to that? Also I imagine audio files and prerecorded cutscenes take up a lot of space. Not a video game but my copies of the lord of the rings extended trilogy is two blu-ray discs per movie because the uncompressed audio takes up so much space. I game on PC, I imagine PC games require multiple copies of assets based on system settings. Something related to that is the idea of a Level of Detail mesh, where an asset gets less complex the further away you are from it. I think I remember reading Unreal Engine 5 will generate this process with some kind of programming.
 

Deleted member 79451

Member
Aug 30, 2020
2,171
Dr. Mario said:
Someone once posted a conspiracy theory that Activision is in no hurry to curtail the size because it means you cannot have as many other games on your system and are more likely to spend your recurring payments on their game.

It sounds ridiculous, but then so is their install size.
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Why would you ever make room exclusively so your competitors can take your customers' attention away? If you're evil, I mean.
 
Dr. Mario

Dr. Mario

Member
Oct 27, 2017
13,873
Netherlands
Jigen said:
Why would you ever make room exclusively so your competitors can take your customers' attention away? If you're evil, I mean.
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Yeah I guess the conspiracy theory is that they would do it on purpose. There's nothing particularly conspiratorial about the following conversation you can just hear in every board room meeting.

Developer: "we need to spend time and money on compressing our games, because customers are complaining that they can't install other games"
Bean counter: "..."
Developer: "yeah I don't know why I brought that up"
 

Fredrik

Member
Oct 27, 2017
9,003
Yeah this is a problem, the internal drive is puny, I'm already at 50% on my internal and 95% on my expansion card on Xbox Series X and I have barely installed any nextgen games at all, I'm just using Game Pass.
 
Gvon

Gvon

Member
Oct 25, 2017
1,333
At the moment I'm fairly happy that I won't run into space issues. I have a disk edition PS5 with all of my purchases being digital.
I'm not one for having lots of games on my systems, so can't imagine that I'll fill up the PS5 drive that quickly.

I've just had a quick look and I'm using less space on AAA next gen games than I did on previous gen
These are the largest PS4 games I have on my external drive.

PS-App-20201122-045035.jpg


These are all my games on the PS5

PS-App-20201122-044553.jpg


I do hope Sony allow PS5 games to transfer over to an external drive just incase I do end up needing some cold storage.
 
exodus

exodus

Member
Oct 25, 2017
9,951
Game sizes should be going down this gen as prerendered video is no longer required. Some cross gen games are still probably using prerendered video to keep parity with last gen. Does Call of Duty still use prerendered video? That might explain the larger size.
 
João

João

Member
Nov 21, 2020
131
I believe this year's Cod had less development time and ofc Covid hit so I think the developers did not have the time to optimise game size.
 
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