The first disc on 360 is a content install disc like on most goty editions.

ITs not you will install disk 1 play on disk2, never have to swap a disk, there just saying dont install disk 2 as well as it will increase load times. 

Thinking back, I vaguely remember something similar with GTA4. Wasn't that game designed to be streamed off the disc instead of the HDD or something? I think the option to install was introduced after that game's release and it was one of a select few titles (along with Dead or Alive Xtreme 2 and Halo 3) that had problems. I think GTA4 was included but the ol' memory isn't what it used to be.

Stop quoting me so fast!

I see what you're saying now.  It does sound silly.  Believe it or not, that's how MGS4 actually was before the patch.  Going back to an earlier stage meant uninstalling and reinstalling.  No idea why that was a thing then, either.  But it's all clear to me now.  Sorry about the confusion.

they said why:


By Wesley Yin-Poole Published Monday, 16 September 2013

UPDATE: Digital Foundry, which has access to the Xbox 360 version of Grand Theft Auto 5, has offered an explanation for Rockstar's recommendation against installing the "play" disc.

"Rockstar recommends that you shouldn't install the GTA5 play disc on Xbox 360 and it's sound advice," Digital Foundry chief Richard Leadbetter said.

"When you first get the game, the first order of business is installing the mandatory content from disc one - this accounts for 7.7GB of data to install on your hard drive. Now, there's absolutely nothing stopping you installing disc two - the 'play' disc - onto the hard drive too, using the Xbox 360's dashboard to do so. It takes up an additional 7.8GB of storage. However, doing so impacts the game's ability to stream texture data, resulting in regular pop-in of in-game objects and textures.

"So what's the story here? Well, optimal streaming is achieved by making us of all the available bandwidth in the system. Why stream just from the hard drive when you can run in data simultaneously from both the disc and the HDD? Based on what we're seeing on the Xbox 360 version, perhaps running both DVD and HDD assets from just the one source slows down access times, impacting streaming performance. It's not game-breaking stuff, but it does take you out of the moment when it does manifest and for that reason we can't recommend installing the play disc.

"GTA5 isn't available for digital delivery on Xbox Live, but we are curious what the impact - if any - will be on the PS3 version, as that is available as a PSN download. The Digital Foundry Face-Off - due tomorrow morning at 11am - is based on comparison of the two retail disc versions of the game."

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-09-16-rockstar-warns-dont-install-gta5-xbox-360-play-disc

Why You Shouldn't Install the GTA5 "Play Disc" on Xbox 360

i already said this twice :P

That's the first thing I thought about too when full installs for all games were announced for next-gen. The fastest way to load game data is to use both HDD and optical drive. I imagine that the first wave of next-gen games won't suffer as their is plenty of memory to use as cache, but full installs might hurt load times in the long run as games get bigger.

I know one quality assurance testing team that needs to be fired.

I understand the issue but the DF explanation makes no sense because there are a digital version of the title and the digital runs everything over HDD.

So say that the game needs to optimize reads from HDD and Disc for better performance is false or the digital version is a crap choice.

Anybody had issues with the digital version?