Fallout 3 just says no to mandatory install on PS3

Of all the things to complain about, this whole issue is beyond absurd. I swear, the only people who complain about this are fanboys who don't even have a PS3 and are looking at anything to post on a forum board to make themselves feel better about their purchase, and that includes joystiq employees who like to stoke the flames. THERE'S NOTHING WRONG THE THE 360, OR THE WII OR THE PS3. You don't need to find something to complain about just because you don't have a certain system.

You have to wait a year for a game to be made, and you can't wait 20 minutes or less for it to install after you buy it? You have such an addiction to games that you have to be able to go from one game to another in the future with NO DELAY, instead of deleting a game and installing another if you are running out of hard drive space? Seriously? Who here actually wants to admit they have that serious of a gaming addiction that this actually, seriously bothers them.

I don't care if an install doesn't help load times at all. It's the way Sony designed their system to work with their BR drive. If you hate it that much, then sell the system, stop complaining and stick to playing physical cards where you determine the load times based on how fast you can shuffle.

/falls on deaf ears

Im glad you said it and you replied so close to the top. The main ppl who are making a big deal about the installs besides fanboys are the sensationalist gaming press (ie joystiq, kotaku, etc). Not one person I have met even considered it an issue when choosing a console to play a game on. PS3 has plenty of flaws ppl(like all of the consoles do). This is hardly one to be bringing to the forefront and making an issue out of.

I disagree. I don't feel that disliking mandatory installs is absurd. The HDD is going to fill quickly as you build your library, and I don't want to uninstall games I own to make room for new ones. I don't know of a better way to speed load times, but at least give the consumer the option to game without installs. That way it wouldn't be so bad to uninstall seldom played games that you may want to just pick up and play once a month.

I don't know 100% of the facts on this, but it's just my opinion.. So far I'm not seeing any real advantage to mandatory installations. I mean It's one thing if there is a genuine advantage, like significant load time decreases or truly seamless game play. So far, it seems, the installs have been for little advantage. For people with a 20GB PS3 those installs can add up rather quickly. Sure it's easy to say "Just spend $50 or $60 on a 160gb HDD to replace your 20GB HDD" but that's just letting the companies off the hook. Same thing with the Wii, people are quick to say "Just buy a 2GB SD-Card and shut up" Well you shouldn't have to pick up their slack. For me it's not a big deal, It was easy to replace my 60GB HDD with a 160GB HDD, but I can see why people wouldn't want to do that or spend the $ to do it.

Look, there argument that you shouldn't HAVE to go out and spend more money on a console is legitimate, but no one is forcing you to do so. You were given the option of buying a 60GB/80GB version when you bought your 20GB/40GB model. The actual PS3 is the higher priced one, and Sony just offers the cheaper ones for people who would rather save some money at the loss of convenience. I'm not trying to be a jerk, but if this was such an issue, then you should have bought the higher priced full version to begin with. Otherwise, be happy you have an extra $100 in your pocket and just deal with trading out your games on your hard drive when necessary.

Okay, I know I'm going to get hated for this but I must. Mandatory installs are unfortunately a necessary evil on the console. Are they necessary? For some games, yeah. But are they evil? Actually, yes. And it's beyond fucking ridiculous that such a discussion is taking place.

What we find is in most games, the install is more a byproduct of developers creating DVD disc images on the BluRay. BluRay doesn't read like DVDs, period. So when Lost Planet installs the entire of the game on my hard drive because they don't want to take the time to learn BluRay physical media like Naughty Dog (quick loading, beautiful, AND no install offered or otherwise), then I want the advantages of having the entire game dumped on my drive. I want to boot directly from XMB without the disc. If a game is largely streaming half the data and loading the other off the drive, I can understand. Like Ridge Racer 7 or MGS4. But if it's a disc image drop, I want it to launch just like my copies of Super Stardust, MKII, and Warhawk.

Now, claiming the bigger hard drive version is the "gamers version" is equally retarded. Because even if it IS a casual gamer buying that system with the 20GB hard drive, let's look at the games which will be bin material latter on. Largely the install versions. Now, do you think a casual gamer will know to go into the game data folder of the XMB and uninstall older games? These are the same people who looked at me with ignorant eyes asking how much "this here 8MB PS2 mem card'll stir" While Sony made it incredibly easy, keep in mind there are people who try to return wireless laptops when they find out you have to plug them in to charge the battery.

Mandatory installs suck. Period. Few developers take advantage of them and use it as a crutch rather than learning to deal with a new phsyical media. Casual gamers have neither the experience nor patience to deal with the bullshit that comes along with them. And we, as gamers, often do not game the benefits of them. Facing facts, if I could install my games just so I don't have to swap discs, I'd fucking love it. But I can't. So to me, it's a pain in the ass.

You know...the thing about mandatory installs....is that you can't say no?

I like where you are coming from though.

I got voted down for that? The fuck is wrong with you people?!?

Wow, the fanboys are out in full force, I guess. Get a life, tools.

You were just telling the truth and i guess a lot of xbox fans didn't wanna hear it. its a fact though that oblivion looks and runs a notable portion better on ps3, so i don't think fallout will have much trouble being as good, or a little better than the 360 version.

Just curious as to whether or not someone could justify why they voted that comment down? I think it is kind of hard to argue that Oblivion was, indeed, better on the PS3, especially considering I have it on both PS3 and 360, and I have to tell you that it played much smoother and looked at least somewhat better on PS3. These forums are good when you have a point of view, and have something to support it. It falls into pointless, fanboy territory when you hate on a system/game/comment simply because it doesn't support your system rather than because you have an actual reason behind your logic.

The drives painfully are slow, and the system memory isn't huge ether, but it's mostly the Blu-Ray speed that's the problem.

That's what I read anyway. Take it for what it's worth.

That's assuming there are more than 5 PS3 games you want to play...



(Disclaimer) I consider myself a neutral sarcastic entity that will dog anything to get a chuckle. Flamewars are stupid, go do some Jumping Jacks.

The Blu-ray drive reads slightly slower than the 360's DVD drive at certain points, but can spin as fast, or faster than the dvd drive. Blu-ray speeds are constant, while the DVD drive spins faster when reading the outer layer of the disc and slower reading closer to the center.

The problem is not that it's slower, is that it has to access a lot more data in that time. Blu-ray discs (25gb) is roughly 3 times bigger than a normal DVD9 drive.

It's like this (in a nut shell) you drop 2 quarters in random spots; 1 in an 8 foot X 8 foot square and the other in a 25 foot by 25 foot square, which quarter are you more likely to find first, and faster?

Some Devs (Naughty Dog for instance) duplicate some data across the disc, so it's easier accessed. Some games, like MGS4 will need one, just for the sake that it fills the entire 50gb disc, meaning there most likely isn't room to do that.

Well, at least that's how I've come to understand it. If I'm wrong, go ahead and correct me.

Joystiq ran this story in April:

http://www.joystiq.com/2008/04/02/why-some-ps3-games-need-installations/

It linked to this story on MTV which has some answers to your questions:

http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/2008/04/01/the-mystery-behind-playstation-3s-sometimes-mandatory-installations-as-far-as-we-know/

This is where I like Nintendo. They don't jump out into the unproven/untested railroad tracks of splitting edge technology for this very reason. I've never been an early adopter. I didn't buy an HDTV until last October and it was a 32" at that. I still regret it since I can get a 47" 1080p today for like $200 more.
PS3 and 360 adopted early, and both have paid dearly this generation because of it both in repairs (360) and sales going elsewhere (PS3), mainly to the DS and Wii.

It's primarily lazy developers. End of story.

I can play Burnout:Paradise without a mandatory install, and that game loads tons of data as you zip through town.

You have to take certain steps to make games work well off BluRay, just like you have to do so to make them work well off DVD. But developers do most of their development off HDD (because they don't want to press discs repeatedly) and at the end of development, one of the last steps is to take the time to organize the data on the disc so that the game works well off BluRay/DVD. Well, skipping that step is possible on PS3, thus shortening the development cycle at a phase when it is likely to be behind the curve already. And so developers take this easy way out.

I think the only game that has required one on the 360 was for Burnout Paradise, and only so you could play online.

You might have, probably from here.

www.ps3fanboy.com

*cough* bullshit *cough*

You never had to install game data before playing a game on the original xbox. The hdd was used, but installs before you could play were never part of the deal...and obviously nothing close to the 4-5 gigs that seem to come with most new PS3 games these days.

Incorrect. Microsoft themselves did not allow it, as it was done to ensure people with both core and premium models of the 360 could play them.

Thanks for setting things straight. I was misinformed.

"You never had to install game data before playing a game on the original xbox. The hdd was used, but installs before you could play were never part of the deal..."

Not exactly true. Go play Doom 3. You get stuck watching some opening movie that you can't skip for several minutes because the game is caching to the hard drive. There's no way around it. That's exactly like an install. Here's the really annoying part... if you play the game sveral times in a row you can skip that part because the data is still cached. But if you play another game in between, the next time you come back to Doom 3 you get to sit through the caching process all over again.

I guess that was sort of the upside of having the Core/Arcade model in the first place, despite the bitching.

The only game I know of that required a HDD is Football Manager.

Yes, PGR3 and PGR4 install themselves when booted. It takes a lot less time so they hide it behind the boot screen.

PGR2 did it too. Try booting any of these 3 games after having booted 3-4 other games ahead of it (so the cache is cleared out) and then try to skip the intro movies. You can't do so until about 40 seconds in.

Admittedly, this isn't a huge imposition, and this is how games should be doing it on all platforms.

360 has a smarter way of giving developers ways to manage their HDD cache so that it doesn't actually take up additional space on the HDD. Basically, there is a small portion of the disc that is apportioned to the last 3 games booted. When you boot a 4th, it clears out the oldest one and puts its stuff there. This is why I said you have to boot a couple other games in between above.

So yeah, Xbox and 360 have had some mandatory installs. No, it hasn't been a huge issue. It's a bigger issue (but still overblown) on PS3 because developers are doing such big installs that they take a long time. Developers need to get wiser. I can play Burnout:Paradise and Uncharted without installing but not Hot Shots Golf?

ok that is wierd

...But then, I had a spare 120GB SATA HDD sitting around that I put into my PS3, too. I guess that should be said.

I personally have no problem with it either, but I really just dont why we cant have optional installs.

Yeah, I think you're right, PojoMofo. Maybe Bethesda has something here with it loading to the hard drive in game (hopefully in the background) and then loading from the hard drive from then on.

The 360 was lead system for Oblivion and look how it turned out on the PS3

"look how it turned out on PS3"

Oh yes it was mind numbingly better. *rolls eyes* Calm the fudge down fanboy. Can we just agree that the differences in this game and just about every other multiplat game will hardly be noticable already?

@Fenix

There is really no room for rational thinking here Fenix, we will forgive you this time, just dont let it happen again...

j/k but I certainly agree, as most do.

Sorry about that, I don't know what came over me. Back to reality...

Sooooo...higher resolution on Fallout3 for 360...TEH CONFIRMED?!!! ZOMGWTFBBQ!!!

Good times...

@Fenix

Dont understand that fanboy comment, what I was implying is that the 360 was the lead and yet the PS3 version still came out just as good if not a tiny bit better. This was in response to Chris' remark that implied that the PS3 version was going to look much worse just because the 360 was the lead platform.

That's what I implied? I believe all I said was that the PS3 version would not be better, not that the 360 would be way better.

Sheesh, fanboy much? Because only a fanboy would take my comment so completely wrong and then get all butthurt over it.

You know, I could have answered this much earlier today if you had actually replied to me.

Here is the deal. Oblivion had the lead console on 360 than for PS3 however Oblivion slipped 6 months from it's intended date of PS3's launch. But then again, Oblivion also slipped six months from it's intended date on 360 as well. BUT REGARDLESS, that is neither here nor there. Basically Bethesda took that time to learn how to take advantage of the console. They added effects and filters which 360, simply put, doesn't have access to. They also, by accomidating for the weaknesses of the physical media format of BluRay, even managed to make a PS3 game that loaded faster on PS3 than it did on 360 and many can go "but they used duplicated assets on the disc so it doesn't count" but plenty of Turbo Graphix CD games all the way up through PS3 has been using this technique. It's especially prevelaint in streaming games like Oblivion and Just Cause.

Why do I mention all this? Because unlike other developers that promised the PS3 version would be better (see: Marvel Ultimate Alliance), Bethesda actually delivered on that promise. Likewise, bethesda has intimate knowledge of the PS3 and has shown in the past that they can accomidate for those weaknesses. So at the very least, I expect very comparable visuals between the two versions.

Which is actually the first time I mentioned visuals. My original statement is that this developer is one of the few who took the time on a PS3 port and it shows. So when they say no mandatory installs, I can't help but believe them. Nowhere in my post did I say the PS3 version of Fallout will look better than the 360 version. But considering their experience on the platform, it's not outside the realm of possibilities to believe. Frankly, I don't know which version I'm going to buy yet.