^ Who knows...?

They are doing it to decrease load times which is fine by me. But, by all means, continue on whining whiners. There is obviously nothing more productive that can be done.

So I guess buying a used 20GB along with DMC4 and HSG5 is a bad idea.... Wait till MGS4 and FFXIII come out and take 10GB each....... yea

I love hard drives for demos and stuff, but at least limit maximum disk usage per game, as that would prevent horrible problems like this.

I mean, if max ussage was 1GB (including save files), you could buy ~15 and still have space left over for customization and demos.

 It'd be a wonderful idea if it was optional, thus not screwing over you're userbase with limited hardrive space. Even 40GB PS3's would only be able to have eight games installed at a time at this rate - and that is without any memory for PSN, saved games or anything else.

Compulsory installation is stupid. 

Im all for the cuting down of load times...but at the cost of 5gb's of space?...i think ill pass

Hmm, seems pretty weird that this information didnt come to light with the Japanese release of the game, im sure someone would have made mention of it. If not, why would they only incorporate it into their US/EU versions? Sony are pissing me off.

The site did say they didn't know this will be in the final version of the game... but I don't see why they would even bother building the game around using the installation, then ship it without it. So it's not 100% going to need the 5GB of space. We should wait a little before going all crazy I think.

I agree sir!

And I'm all for cutting down on loading times, though at what cost? Everyone complains that the Wii lacks enough storage space, yet if smaller games like HSG and DMC4 are using 5GB, like nordlead said, how much is FF13 going to take? And the more important question is, does this dramatically increase load times? If it's optional, then it wouldn't really matter, but as more games come out, that 40GB for the cheapest version (which is the one that's selling really well), could become quite full.

And why doesn't the 360 version of DMC4 require an install? If the load times are really so bad that it would almost require an install to the harddrive, shouldn't the 360 version have one as well? And since the 360 version doesn't, does it have something to do with the blu-ray player not being able to access the disk fast enough?

Edit: I actually would like to know the access speed of a blu-ray player, at least on the PS3. With such large disk space, if it ran slowly than DVD drives (though I don't even know the average DVD drive speed), would that effect game performance/load times all that much? One of the main advantages of consoles has always been the lack of needing to install a game, and also that games on consoles usually run a lot better on consoles because it can be designed to the consoles specs, compared to computers that are varied in specs. It seems we're losing both those advantages, with many games being patched after they are shipped, and not always running up to par, and now needing installs before you can run the game. What's next? Viruses? 

@Damstr8

 Its not really costing you space. Yes you lose acces to it, but you can always get it back. What you really lose is the time it takes and the times it retakes should you erase it.

 On topic:

In the case of HSG5, I'm more concerned with the use of space since I will be playing it often over months, as opposed to DMC4 where once I've played through, I might not play again. I know HSG5's disk space will be occupied until the release of 6. 

Welcome to PC gaming.

Geez. At least Insomniac and Naughty Dog know what's what. I don't think Uncharted had any install at all, and it had no loading WHATSOEVER! Not only that, but it's the best looking ps3 game out right now.

 I love Naughty Dog. :)