schmidtbag:

even though my connection is fast enough for my needs (25Mbps down) I'd really like it if games would focus more on compressing data. Not lossy compression, obviously. We have plenty of CPU power but even SSDs are still sometimes a bottleneck.

25Mbps?Compressing data? Good luck with that.o_O Games are +50GB lately and some have reached the 100GB mark. It can take some time on my 500/500Mbps connection where the speed limiting factor is not the DL but the lackluster Xbox HDD disk write speed. It must be a nightmare in a 25 Mbps connection to DL a 100 GB game even without monthly data caps!

rm082e:

I never use the BD drive on my PS4. I only buy games digitally, and I would use a stand alone BD player if I were watching BD movies regularly. For me, this is the type of SKU that would be appealing. I would love to see Sony do something similar with the Pro.

Many people buy these things because they can't afford desktops, single BD players etc.... Or they just do not want one. If this is true, it will effects a lot of those folks.

schmidtbag:

I don't game on either console, but it's a very common trend for most games to have day 1 (or even day 0, for pre-orderers) patches. To my understanding, the game still has to basically be "installed" to the internal storage, which I personally find stupid because once you wait for all the data to copy and then wait another X amount of hours for all the updates to finish, what's the point of having a disc drive anymore? I think it is exactly this why MS realized "we should just get rid of it". I miss the days of PS2, Gamecube, and Xbox, where games were actually DONE when you bought them (and didn't have MTs).

This basically. I have a PS4 with a few games on physical format and what happens when you play the game for the first time is that most of the game is downloaded... The CD is almost useless, the same happens on PC with Steam, we can buy the CDs but the games have to be downloaded anyway. And to make thing worse, we need to use the CD every time we play the game even if the game is installed on the console!... I prefer to have physical copies of my games but nowadays that´s useless so right now most of games are in digital form, both for PC and the PS4. So this Xbox makes sense but only for those with fast internet speeds and the console must have at least 1TB of disc space!!!

Eh I literally own no physical games for my Xbox, all digital. My Blu Ray drive doesn't work in it, but even when it did I just did all digital.

Redemption80:

I've always considered these release day patches to be more to do with pre release piracy than the game not being done, and it's actually a deliberate decision to go gold and withhold data.

If that's true then it's doing a real crappy job, because people still seem to be able to successfully pirate the games no matter what. As far as I'm concerned, the release date of games are just arbitrary deadlines publishers make whether the game was projected to actually be completed on the release date or not, because it doesn't matter - the game just has to be "close enough". Anything that wasn't fixed can just be patched, anything that didn't make it into the game will be sold as DLC (or if the publisher is generous enough, will be included for free in an update). It's a terrible mentality

sammarbella:

25Mbps?Compressing data? Good luck with that.o_O Games are +50GB lately and some have reached the 100GB mark. It can take some time on my 500/500Mbps connection where the speed limiting factor is not the DL but the lackluster Xbox HDD disk write speed. It must be a nightmare in a 25 Mbps connection to DL a 100 GB game even without monthly data caps!

I'm not sure you understood my point - by compressing the data, slower connections are more tolerable. And overall, the speed has been fine. I've downloaded 50GB+ games in a matter of a few hours. That's not a terrible wait for me. I can easily find something to do during that time. Anyway, Steam does at least have some degree of compression when downloading games, which is nice. I don't think Valve should be responsible to increasing the compression, since many people like to play games or do other potentially-CPU-intensive-tasks while they wait. But, I think the game devs themselves should compress some of the data, where it is decompressed during the game. Doing so would improve load times in most cases.

sammarbella:

Same here. Xbox One S was a very good deal as... ...the cheapest 4K BD player.(with Atmos, Dolby Vision and HDR support). As gaming console? Halo, Gears and forza series, that's all. The rest is multiplatform.

About same, Halo and GoW series, rest play on PC.

schmidtbag:

I'm not sure you understood my point - by compressing the data, slower connections are more tolerable. And overall, the speed has been fine. I've downloaded 50GB+ games in a matter of a few hours. That's not a terrible wait for me. I can easily find something to do during that time. Anyway, Steam does at least have some degree of compression when downloading games, which is nice. I don't think Valve should be responsible to increasing the compression, since many people like to play games or do other potentially-CPU-intensive-tasks while they wait. But, I think the game devs themselves should compress some of the data, where it is decompressed during the game. Doing so would improve load times in most cases.

I got your point about compression. The problem is it seems that nobody is making a serious effort to use it on consoles. Some new games need less GBs on Xbox vs PS4 version but it's still ridiculous that you need to download 42 GB(!) to play Spyro reignited trylogy (game 2 and 3) on Xbox One AFTER inserting the BD on the console!: https://www.reddit.com/r/xboxone/comments/9wcm4x/spyro_reignited_trilogy_disc_is_useless_requires/ o_Oo_Oo_O About Steam compression there are 2 sides: - Data compressed for DL Steam does a very good job with this aspect despite some games still require ridiculous almost daily big updates (specially EA games under heavy development). The option to pause DLs while gaming is very useful for PCs with low-mid range CPUs/graphically demanding games. - Data compressed on disk and decompressed at game time PC's don't have the consoles tiny disks size problem so we don't need to suffer longer loading times due to this factor. I think Steam DL sizes are smaller due to Steam interest in saving bandwidth and improving his customers experience; this is not coming "free" from all the kind game devs. Fallout 76 showed us what "Having a direct relationship with our customers was super important to us." means for some game devs: -horrible client: data deleted from disk, full game redownload -avoid to paid the 30% steam store share -and still the same price for the end user A complete disaster for customers...

Redemption80:

Anyone here game on either console? Curious to how long (on a decent variety of games) it takes from shoving the disc in to actuallty playing the game. Are there always Day1 patches and are these a few gb or are we into double figures with that too?

Both consoles usually require patching no matter the game, PS4 pro for me is the slowest console for DL between the XBX, i am on 34 meg fibre and a very stable 34 meg at that, so i can stream 4k content with no issue, and on the XBX it always tops out full at 34 meg, but the Pro on the other hand no matter what i try usually sits between 17 and 24 meg, and never hits my top speed, the PS3 on the other hand does with no issues, as does my PC and xbox 360s, so this is certainly at Sony's end and even they can't tell me why. But being able to either let it all dl while the console is on sleep mode or playing something else while dl in the background helps to negate these big download issues, but i took a leaf out of the PC and i bought a big external HDD that i store all the big games, then i just transfer said big game onto the internal HDD of the console and away i go, and that works a treat as the transfer from external to internal on the consoles is very fast indeed.:) But my console library is now getting up to my PC library, i have a 2tb(1.8) internal in my PC and steam games takes up 1.40tb of that at present, and that is only with 318 out of 789 installed, i have a external 3tb and it is not enough for my entire steam account, and that is without my Origin, Gog, Uplay, battlenet, Star trek online Guild Wars, Oculus rift acounts and games......so here is a litle tip kids, never buy digital, you will never play 90% of them for more than 15 mins, ever. lol

i dont like the that idea might give them idea optical disc/Physical copies of games are no longer wanted I alot of us still perfer physical copies of games atlest where console are concerned even if we want digital , HDD are not large enough to store all of games collections via digital not with size the games are these days, And alot people dont have good highspeed connections let alone want to delete them and re download them Soon as consoles be come steam like eco system where my games from 5+ years ago work on new systems via digitial only then might I agree with no more optical drives. I Do like the idea of ditching them for usb sticks though I dont think there price will allow it most 128 gb stick are still 50+ $

I think the biggest problem that MS is going face is disk space they need to make the console up grade able for more then one harddrive and not some slow USB drive or there going to need start paying for our datacap over usage fee

Game UK and Gamestop are gonna be completely out of business once all the console makers remove physical disc media

schmidtbag:

I don't game on either console, but it's a very common trend for most games to have day 1 (or even day 0, for pre-orderers) patches. To my understanding, the game still has to basically be "installed" to the internal storage, which I personally find stupid because once you wait for all the data to copy and then wait another X amount of hours for all the updates to finish, what's the point of having a disc drive anymore? I think it is exactly this why MS realized "we should just get rid of it". I miss the days of PS2, Gamecube, and Xbox, where games were actually DONE when you bought them (and didn't have MTs).

If you don't have the console connected to the internet you only need to install the game and go. I can only remember one time in the last few years that I had to update to finish a game. If I had to download console games I'd spend more time doing that than playing them and it'd monopolize my connection on top of that. Disc drives still serve purpose for people with slow internet like myself.

Embra:

Many people buy these things because they can't afford desktops, single BD players etc.... Or they just do not want one. If this is true, it will effects a lot of those folks.

It depends on exactly what this means: If it means they will replace all offerings with new SKUs that don't accept physical media, obviously that's true. People will be pissed. This reminds me of when Sony dropped PS2 backwards compatibility from the PS3. If it means the S is replaced with a new SKU that doesn't accept physical media, but the X still does, this just funnels people into paying more for the higher end version. That would kind of suck... If #2 is the plan, but they drop both SKUs in price, I think that would largely negate any negative press they would get. Seems unlikely, but if this is an additional SKU on top of the S and X units, then there is nothing to complain about. I think the biggest reason people buy consoles is that they have a simple to understand ecosystem, there's no assembly required, and they cost far less. I know people with $3K TVs and Xbox One X who could easily afford a PC, but they don't want the hassle of having to build anything, they want something reliable, and they want a turn-key solution. The PC is great, but it asks a lot of the player to setup and maintain it relative to a console.

schmidtbag:

Well, it's not like the other variations aren't still being sold. Pretty much the point of this "flavor" is for people who never bought discs in the first place (which is a pretty hefty % of current-gen gamers). I could totally see the appeal for some people to have a smaller and cheaper system that lacks a feature some people never use. But anyway, that's not to diminish your point - even though my connection is fast enough for my needs (25Mbps down) I'd really like it if games would focus more on compressing data. Not lossy compression, obviously. We have plenty of CPU power but even SSDs are still sometimes a bottleneck.

If you could chose what language you want to download and if you want the UHD textures, the download size could be very limited. Sometimes language packs take half the size of the game and it's absurd. And with the rise of 4k, we really need to be able to chose what to download.

I hope Sony doesn't screw around, their digital games are region locked and those are worthless to me.

Silva:

If you could chose what language you want to download and if you want the UHD textures, the download size could be very limited. Sometimes language packs take half the size of the game and it's absurd. And with the rise of 4k, we really need to be able to chose what to download.

You can do this on Steam? If so, thanks a lot for the tip - I wasn't aware of this. I'm aware there's a "Language" tab for each (or at least most) games, but I never really bothered to look it.

sverek:

Any info on specs? And for this device would be cool to have game cache exportable to USB storage. Something like Steam does. Not fun to re-download 200GB of games.

You can export games, savegames and setting to USB with an XBOX ONE, no need to re-download everything.

SHS:

I think the biggest problem that MS is going face is disk space they need to make the console up grade able for more then one harddrive and not some slow USB drive or there going to need start paying for our datacap over usage fee

8 TB HDD works fine, bit noisy though.

RavenMaster:

Game UK and Gamestop are gonna be completely out of business once all the console makers remove physical disc media

Well, I think there is a good chance that will happen anyway due to a few very simple factors, which are hitting retailers the world over: -Cost of living being out of control -Housing shortage -Shareholder pressure(s) due to the above two factors Now, in the UK this is absolutely out of control and Brexit is not making this any better. Cost of living is simply not in line with wages growth, and hasn't been for an exceptional amount of time (1991-93) and this is mainly the result of not creating enough places to live for social housing, which has exacerbated the cost of housing. Demand is huge for housing, just insanely high in fact, yet the government is not producing enough social housing to cope - forcing up two clear factors from this. Firstly, that land is being sold to large housing developers, who then produce houses on prime-land they bought cheaply, and then produce small houses, but release them slowly onto the market, to maximise profits (due to shareholder pressure). Willmot Dixon (for example) have had a 450% share-price increase since the crash of '08...far in excess of other industries and share-price performance. Secondly, the quantity of people renting out 2nd homes to people, versus allowing the houses to be bought by homeowners. This second point is really something you need to understand, because it's crucial: because demand is sooooooo high for housing, people NOT buying houses to live in, but rent out, entrenches the market more and more. It makes the situation much worse. The problem then means that (due to the cost of living) retail shops must charge more money, so they can pay people to do the job, and then you get a squeeze on earnings and profits. You used to be able to pay people a reasonable wage to work in a shop, but no more, as you have to pay someone £30k a year to stack shelves in a supermarket... This additionally means that companies are less likely to open manufacturing plants in the UK (or the US or anywhere in Europe) because if (for example) you have a job that requires someone to put four bolts into a bit of metal every 30 seconds, you gotta pay them £60k a year, versus £60 a week in India or China... Retail is dead, but not because of the reasons everyone thinks, but because of very basic and simple economic truths. Let me put it like this: No one would mind being paid £15k a year, if the cost of buying a 3-bedroom decent sized semi-detached property was £50k (that's a 1991 figure, believe it or not). Fix the social housing market, and you fix the retail market.

schmidtbag:

You can do this on Steam? If so, thanks a lot for the tip - I wasn't aware of this. I'm aware there's a "Language" tab for each (or at least most) games, but I never really bothered to look it.

Unfortunately you can't chose what to download. I know this from downloading repacked games.

xrodney:

About same, Halo and GoW series, rest play on PC.

GOW4 is on PC, and Halo is coming to PC. 😀