What's the big deal with disk swapping?:

[Onyxmeth]

Destroyer_of_knights said:
The Big deal I suppose stems from Microsoft saying that DVD is all that's needed for gaming this generation and saying that Blu-ray is over kill and only used for promoting movies, Sony on the other hand says that using DVD is short sited and that Blu-ray is the way to go because it's future proof3e.

At the beginning Microsoft was justified, but now it's Sony who has become justified with quite a few 360 games needing to come on more than 1 DVD, not all but a few.

If none of the above was said, then the issue wouldn't be as big, but it's not like it's that big as is now.

The simple fact is that having 1 disc is just convenient.

The following are also other things to consider I suppose:-

-Developers can fuck up a game by not making it work smoothly with multiple DVD, which may result in games where you have to keep swapping backwards and forwards to access different sections of the game word and such, while this issue is clearly none existent on Blu-ray.

-Having multiple DVD also runs the risk of having one of the discs lost or badly damaged, in which case the game can become unplayable depending on which disc is lost or damaged, this of course can happen to BD, and both can be negated but the risk is greater when there is more the 1 disc.

-There is Disc technology that can negate the use of multiple DVDs, and that's Blu-ray, it's the format made for HD content in general, so if the 360 had one then their would be no multiple disc issue, however that's not the case.

Now normally games fit on DVD especially when the 360 is the lead platform, but if a developer wishes to create a game with FMV, then they have to think twice about it and not put it on or create a game on multiple DVD's, which in it's self creates more work, BD allows FMV while avoiding the extra work involved with making things work on multiple discs. Thus far nearly all 360 games which have multiple discs are RPGs.

I know most will cite the fact that you can forgo FMV and just do things ingame, and while thats ok if the graphics engine is up to it, but nothing beats having epic things happen with CG which are simply not doable ingame or simple don't achieve the same look.

I think the main issue is that while Blu Ray has seemingly fixed the issue of disc swapping this gen, it's opened up a new problem in mandatory installs, which are not better at all. Look at MGS4, which is probably the worst case of them all. No FMV, all in game cutscenes and you essentially have a game that reinstalls after every chapter and must always be reinstalled if you want to return to previous parts of the game. It's actually less convenient than 5 seperate discs because it takes 2+ minutes every time to reinstall.

There's also installs that just take far too long like the DMC4 install, and some just take up far too much hard drive space. While I'm not condoning disc swapping, I don't see the alternative on the PS3 to be any better. In fact there's more games bogged down by mandatory installs on the PS3 than there are multi disc games on the 360, so by sheer quantity and the amount of different genres and popular games it affects, the PS3 comes out looking worse.

Here's the list. Look at how many genres and popular games are affected:

 

Assassin's Creed--------(Required) 1.3Gb
Alone in the Dark - Inferno (Required) 3.78GB
Burnout Paradise--------(Required) 0.4GB
Battlefield BC------------(Required) 0.4GB
BioShock-----------------(required) 5.0 GB
Blazing Angels: Squadrons of WWII (unknown) 2.00 GB
Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway-(required) 2 GB
Civilization Revolution (Required) 0.65GB
Conflict: Denied Ops ----(unknown) 2.60 GB
Call of Duty 3 ------------(unknown) 0.60 GB
Conan--------------------(required) 0.67 GB
Devil May Cry 4--------(Required) 4.83 GB
Dark Sector ------------(Required) 1.2 GB
Eye of Judgement---------(Required) 1.9GB
Enemy Territory: Quake Wars (required) 4.2 GB
Fallout 3-------------------(required) 5.0 GB
Far Cry 2------------------(required) 3.5 GB
Fight Night Round 4 -------(required) 1.3 GB
Fear -----------------------(Required) 2.5GB
Fracture -----------------(required) 2 GB
GTA IV-------------------(Required) 3.3 GB
GT5 Prologue-----------(Required) 5.24GB
Ghostbusters -----------(Required) 4.0 GB
Haze --------------------(Required) 3.82 GB
Hawx ---------------------(required) 4GB
Hot Shots Golf 5 - ------(Required) 3.61Gb
Heavenly Sword--------(Required) 2.1GB
Infamous ----------------(required) 1.3 GB
Little Big Planet----------(required) 0.6 GB
Legendary----------------(required) 4.5 GB
Lost Planet: Extreme Condition-(required) 4.9 GB
Lost: Via Domus --------(required) 3.00 GB
Medal Of Honor:Airborne-(Required) 1.95 GB
Mercenaries 2: World in Flames (required) 2.7 GB
Mirror's Edge -----------------(required) 0.55 GB
MLB The Show 09 ------------(required) 2.5 GB
Mortal Kombat VS DC-------(required) 1.1 GB
MLB 08 The Show--------(required) 2GB
Metal Gear Solid 4--------(required) 4.0GB +(optional) 1.1GB for MG online
Nascar 09------------------(required) 0.13GB
NBA 09 The Inside --------(required) 2.8 GB
Need for Speed Undercover (Required) 1.0 GB
Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm-(Required) 4.0 GB
Oblivion---------------------(Required) 4.6GB
Orange Box ----------------(Required) 0.6GB
Oblivion GOTY--------------(Required) 5+GB
Overload Raising Hell----(required) 3.33 GB
Prototype -----------------(required) 0.65 GB
Ratchet & Clank Future-(Required) 0.42GB
Resistance: Fall of Man--(Required) 0.22GB
Resistance 2---------------(required) 0.4 GB
Rainbow Six Vegas 2------(required) 3.00GB
Saints Row 2 --------------(required) 3.8 GB
Spiderman 3---------------(Required) 2.6Gb
Skate ----------------------- (required) 2.6 GB
Shaun White Snowboarding (Required) 1.0 GB
Splinter Cell Double Agent (unknown) 0.86 GB
Soul Calibur IV-------------(required) 2.6GB
Spider-Man: Web of Shadows-(required) 2.0 GB
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed-(required) 2.7 GB
Street Fighter IV---------------(required) 2.10 GB
Socom Confrontation -------(required) 2.7 GB
TNA Impact!----------------(required) 4.75 GB
Top Spin 3------------------(Required) 3.6 GB
Timeshift ---------------(required) 1.02 GB
Turning Point: Fall of Liberty (required) 2.52 GB
The Bourne Conspiracy---(required) 4.7 GB
Tom Clancy's End War ----(required)5 GB
Vampire Rain: Altered Species (unknown) 3.8 GB
Warhawk w/boosters-(Required) 1.1 GB
Warhawk w/o boosters(Required) 1.25GB
WWE Smackdown! vs. Raw 2008 (required) 2.4 GB
WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2009 (required) 3.2 GB

The list is from cheapassgamer. I think it's up to date.

Here's how many 360 games have multiple discs or are known to having multi discs in the future:

Lost Odyssey (4 discs)
Infinite Undiscovery (2 discs)
Blue Dragon (3 discs)
Star Ocean 4 (3 discs)
Forza Motorsport 3 (2 discs)
Rage (2 discs)
Final Fantasy XIII (3 discs)

If there's more let me know.

As you can see, the 360's problem mainly affects RPGs, while the PS3's problem spans a ton of genres and can range from a minimal, hardly noticeable thing, to a freaking install that's almost as large as a full game.