Are game file sizes getting too large?

[Pemalite]

LegitHyperbole said:

I bought a PS5 with 1tb storage and it seems to be fuck all when Baldurs gate 3 is 130gb. Cyberpunk with DLC is over 100g. GT7 is well over 100GB now so I refuse to download it for space. 

As game assets get higher in their quality, so to does the storage needed to accommodate and support those higher quality assets.

LegitHyperbole said:

Weren't we promised file sizes would shrink in the 9th gen. The Witcher 3 managed to make the upgraded version smaller in size at 40 gigs opposed to 67 gigs on ps4 so it's possible. 

Before the console generation even started, I already argued rather heavily it wouldn't amount to much in the way of storage savings.

The issue is that a large portion of game file sizes is due to lossless file types that are not easily compressible, like quality multi-channel audio... The issue is, people would rather listen and fall for marketing.

LegitHyperbole said:

Personally I find 50gigs to be the perfect size and anything over 70 gigs is taking the piss and when it gets over 100 it's very likely I won't keep the game installed even though it could be an evergreen game.

We don't get a choice. People demand better graphics, then something has to give.

Go back to the Xbox 360/Playstation 3 era and we had drives of around 500GB... Xbox One/Playstation 4 dropped and they came with 500GB drives and eventually moved to 1TB and 2TB.
Playstation 5/Xbox Series X dropped and we are looking at 825GB/1TB and eventually moved to 2TB.

We traded cheaper capacity for faster capacity. - NAND prices are volatile so Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo need to be conservative with storage investment as prices can double fairly rapidly which impact console costs... Which is not the issue we had with mechanical drives.

JRPGfan said:

Yes file sizes are getting nuts.... I'm like others here, I don't keep much installed except favorite games, and the one(s) currently being played.
Not currently playing it? uninstall it.

I have two 16TB mechanical hard drives on my Xbox Series X, I keep all 1000~ or so games installed and updated... As it only takes a few minutes to transfer data from the hard drive to the solid state drive and start playing, where it takes hours to install/download 100GB.
In-fact, I transferred those drives from my Xbox One X, so the data is only additive, just plug and play.

One criticism I have is Microsoft's stupid 16TB per-hard drive cap, original I bought a 20TB drive and even with partitioning it into smaller partitions, the console just wouldn't recognize the drive exists.

Chazore said:

I'd be fine if they brought these back, much like Leynos said:

If modern rigs/consoles could make room for an addon slot for NVME-style cartridges, it'd bring that 80's dream back to life for me (It's what I loved about the save cartridge system in Alien Isolation). 

ROM doesn't seem to be scaling in capacity much over time.
So Nintendo are starting to use commodity NAND in some carts which is prone to losing data over time, some 3DS/DS carts are already losing data for example.

WiiU's are starting to brick because their internal storage has lost it's data.