I love the PS4. It think it is a great console with great games. However, I have not played in seriously in the past two years. Part of the reason is that I have been busy with work/school so gaming just became a lower priority. I also don't write for this site anymore which was once a huge component of my gaming time. I have tried to ease myself back into a steady habit so I can catch up on a lot of great games (Horizon Zero Dawn, God of War, Uncharted The Lost Legacy, Shadow of the Colossus, etc.) but ever time I try I encounter a huge turnoff: Download and Installing data on the hard drive.

The fact that every game needs to be installed is a nightmare! Whenever I feel the urge to jump back into a game after a few months I have to check to see if it is still installed on my hard drive, physical or digital. If its not on my drive I have to go through the whole installation process all over again.  Even if it is there usually I am greeted by some mandatory update that eats up even more space and forces me to delete another game off the drive to clear up space. I tried playing GT Sport the other day and couldn't because the new update wouldn't fit on my remaining space. I just lose interest and don't even bother.

I miss the days when you could just pop in a game and it would work automatically. The most convenient situation is if I have the game digitally, it is already on my drive, and there are no multi-GB updates needed before I could play. That is honestly so rare though. I share my PS4 with my bro and we have different tastes so we have to compromise which games are installed at any given time.

I still have my launch day PS4 basic. We even upgraded the hard disk to 1TB. I know that is a pitiful amount nowadays but developers should go easy on the amount of data they use. Any suggestions? I will probably upgrade the disk again and I heard external drives are useful too.

I might just buy a PS Now subscription and play through that library.

I feel ya. I only own a 160gb PS3 and having to erase games and installation data is always a hassle. I can't imagine having to share a console with someone though. That's gotta be part of your problem as well.

Sounds like PS Now and Stadia are the platform you are looking for, if you have the internet speed to handle it.

This is the state of playing games locally. Discs are too slow, and cartridges are to expensive, and millions of gamers expect continued support on games, no matter how much content is packed in from day one.

You may be able to alive some of the issues with a ~70$ external drive. That would allow you to have the majority of the data installed all the time. There is no getting around the updates though.

You possibly don’t game to much on PS4.

For most of the games that have single player on PS4, you can skip updates. From all the games I have, Red Dead Redemption 2 was the only one that installed “completely” on my PS4 and it took nearly 15 minutes to start the game. Games like GOW took around 7 minutes and others like bloodborne or horizon zero dawn took around 1-2 minutes installation.

As for PS Now, there are only 3 PS4 exclusives added: Bloodborne, Until Dawn and Killzone Shadow fall. The rest you need to have a PS4.

As for digital games only you also will have to Install the games and also download and install updates if the game has any patches or improvements.

I can tell you, In Xbox One is worst because the installation process take quite time (sometimes a few hours).

Keep it turned on so that the updates install automatically. Also (unless there are a lot of updates) most games let you start playing at least the intro after a couple of minutes.

MY PROBLEMS with the PS4 are:

-if the system shuts down accidentally, it has to go through an entire systems check. It also doesn't automatically reconnect to the web when power is restored. You may have a ten second power outage and not even know it. Then you fire up your PS4 only to have to go through a diagnostic check of the console and hard drive. 

-Cloud storage is a chore. I'm sure it's great compared to the Switch but when my other console just lets me go to another room, turn on whatever game I was playing, and instantly have my progress (think Netflix or YouTube), having to sync my own data gets aggravating.

-Controller is probably dead. Whenever I'm finally ready to play, my battery is probably dead. I also have 3 PS Move controllers that stay on a charging cradle. Two of them won't hold a charge at all.

That's about it.

gameinstallments take less than 1 minute....gameupdates are not needed if its an offline game.
sooooo...But yeah I agree it could be easier :) with just popping it in and thats it.

if you want to play online then yeah just have your console on standby with ps+ it automatically downloads the updates

but yeah PSnow is pretty cool I agree

Rest Mode is a genius idea.

Rest mode and a 4Tb external drive is the solution for you to not have anymore "problems"....

Having to wait to play Overwatch on X1 was certainly a surprise for me: was not expecting that at all going from WiiU to X1.

Welcome to modern day gaming I guess. This is not a PS4 issue, but a result of more and more games heading towards becoming live services with constant updates.

The best thing to do is add on a larger external hard drive (500 GB is simply not enough nowadays) and abuse rest mode to install updates in the background while you're not playing. If you just play SP games, then you can still play the game while the update is installing in the background.