Sony’s Shuhei Yoshida recently tweeted that next-generation PlayStation titles would not “install”, but rather “cache”, to the system’s hard drive – a solution, many assumed, to the forthcoming software’s 40 or 50GB file sizes, coupled with the PS4’s 500GB storage space.
Today, however, the PlayStation 4’s lead architect Mark Cerny has provided some clarity on just how the mandatory game installations on Sony’s next-gen machine will work. The crux of the matter here is that all games will install considerable chunks of data to your HDD, and no, it won’t be automatically deleted.
The confusion regarding “caching” seems to have arisen around the way Sony are choosing to install this data. Rather than waiting indefinitely for a title to load at various points, as is often the case now, disc-based games will instead begin caching data immediately, and after a nominal wait the game will begin. Knack, says Cerny, will see players wait only 10 seconds before getting into a game. After that, the remainder of the game’s 37GB will be installed intelligently in the background, as you play.
Streaming the files from HDD as-and-when they are required – rather than reading from the far slower Blu-ray drive – allows for far more complex operations to be performed in real-time. This, said Cerny, helps alleviate issues raised by current-gen developers regarding the immersion breaking in-game load times we’re used to.
Cerny also said that despite earlier internal discussions to the contrary, all installed game data will stay on the hard drive until the user chooses to delete it, as is the case with current-gen machines. Microsoft’s Xbox One will, unsurprisingly, also require installation from Blu-ray, although the use of game-caching or pre-loading as Sony have mentioned is currently unknown. Regardless, It seems we’re going to be swapping out our 500GB stock hard-drives sooner than first thought.
PlayStation 4 launches in the US this Friday, November 15th, before coming to EU shores two weeks later, on November 29th.
Source: Kotaku.
Blair Inglis
If it only takes ten seconds on load, why doesn’t it just delete it after, say, a week? Seems like a hassle to delete it yourself each time you need space.
Alex C
To save hard drive life, presumably. And that of the Blu-ray drive.
irish-sid
Why don’t you call mommy up and ask for a hot chocolate and a cuddle? Poor baby.
Alex C
Yeah Blair.
Adam Guest
Ahahaha. That told you.
bowie
One difficulty with cache replacement algorithms is that there is always a pattern of use that makes the algorithm perform badly. Leaving it in the hands of the user makes some sense because it is user that is best placed to predict future behaviour. Lets hope the UI makes it easy to work out how much space is used by what.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cache_algorithms
Blair Inglis
Thanks for explaining :)
boeboe
There’s something about Cerny.
ron_mcphatty
Got a man-crush? Join the club!
boeboe
Good to know I’m not alone. He’s perfick.
Boomshanks
He could do anything he wanted with me. As long as he would narrate it in that sweet, sweet voice of his
DarkLord
Caching is good, and given Microsoft’s silence on it, it’s likely the Xbone doesn’t do this.
I can’t believe it’s that hard for Sony to have an “if needed, overwrite cached game data after x days” setting implemented in the settings down the road.
Kennykazey
That would be great.
Kennykazey
I’ve got a 1TB hybrid drive ready to go in day one. And then if I need more space further down the road, I’ll get one of those 2TB 9.5mm drives that’s coming soon.
cam the man
The first 9.5mm 2TB drive will be out very soon, Samsung Spinpoint M9T.
I bet it’s not cheap.
Pesico
I don’t see the big hassle with this, even with the 500GB HDD. Yes, it will be eaten up relatively fast if you’re a core gamer, but it probably won’t take to much time to delete, and it doesn’t sound like it will take to much time to load either.
Starman
So its not only Microsoft who do mixed messages on features.
bowie
Any company with more than one employee will give out mixed messages from time to time the only question is to what degree and frequency. So Microsoft are not the only ones giving out mixed messages but they are the ones who have turned it into an art form.
Phizzy
You two make a cute couple.
Broonba
A replacement for the stock 500Gb hdd is only needed if you want loads of games installed at the same time…approx. 50Gb per game means 9 games can be installed at once.
TSBonyman
I’ll be planning on keeping any psn purchases permanently on my hdd so that means over time i’ll have even less space to use for retail installs, so i will definitely upgrade the hdd as soon as i can.
SLUMMO316
On another note it’s interesting that yoshida won’t answer questions about servers for psn. Me and my brother have asked several times but never get a response. Maybe he has nothing to brag about? Or has psn even been upgraded for the ps4 launch?
djdustb
What do you need to know? get the question up here and maybe someone that has Sony contacts can help get the question answered.
b2thaza
My 500gb ps3 hdd is already nearly full with all my plus games, if we end up having to cache a load of our hard drive space, in addition to free plus games taking up space there won’t be much room!! Think I’ll avoid the initial launch rush and see how things pan out, have a massive ps3 backlog as it is anyways!!! :D
zeroTRoN
Exactly my plan. There were far too many great titles that I either didnt get much time with, or even get around to playing. Im looking 4ward to the cheap used games. & a 1 tb PS4 to be announced.
Steelhead
Yeah, I have a huge PS3 backlog also, easily enough to see me until early 2015. By that point I imagine that a refined PS4 with a larger HDD will be on the horizon anyway.
blast71
Ditto