SvennoJ said:
I don't think it will be 100% HDD. The best way to reduce loading times is to stream data from HDD and Blu-ray at the same time. Install the data that needs a lot of random access to the HDD and leave the data that can be streamed in large continuous chunks on the blu-ray disk. Better even with a extra fast smaller SSD drive to be used as cache next to the main HDD. HDDs are still limited to 5400 rpm for laptop sizes. The only way to load GBs of data fast next gen is to get it from multiple places at the same time. Plus Blu-ray drives are a lot faster now then the 2x speed in the ps3. Remember Halo 3, that was actually slower fully installed to HDD due to smart disk caching. And why wait a long time copying fmv sequences to hdd while they can play perfectly fine from the disk and are already combined with game data to load the next part of the game in the background. |
Actually, given how fast Blu-ray can read data from a disc, next gen we will probably see less and less of games having to be installed to the HDD. If Sony goes with a 6x drive, it will be almost twice as fast as the max read speed of a 12x DVD drive. And if Sony uses a 8x drive, look out.
Oh, and there are actually quite a few laptop HDD that are above 5400 RPM. The one I have in my PS3 is actually a 7200 RPM model.