mrstickball on 18 July 2008
http://www.gamespot.com/features/6194093/index.html?tag=top_stories;title;1
One of the not-so-cosmetic changes in the fall update will be the ability to let you play your games directly from the hard disk. The new feature will let users install all of the game content directly onto the hard drive to improve game load times. Microsoft reports that it has seen a 30 percent improvement in load times in internal testing. As an interesting data point, Microsoft went out of its way to tell a group of reporters that the full Devil May Cry 4 hard disk installation took roughly 10 minutes on the Xbox 360. The installation took twice as long when we conducted our own installation tests on the PlayStation 3. Another side benefit of having games installed on the hard disk is reduced noise, since the optical disc no longer needs to spin up. However, you will still need to have the game disc in your optical drive while you're playing it, presumably as a piracy check.
Wow. Half the time it takes for the DMC4 installation on PS3, the entire thing is copied in full.
Beyond good news. That means that installing a multi-disc game isn't going to take very long. If this comes to pass, talking about whooping the PS3 in every imaginable way concerning installations & load times. This would certainly make the Xbox 360 gaming experience on certain multi-platform games the far more robust, and better experience, no?
Back from the dead, I'm afraid.
