Have you ever downloaded a GT5 update?  I could sit with 3 bowls of weed and still be bored with at GT5 update on my friends PS3.

The thing about updates on PS3 I don't get is why I can't do anything else while the update is being downloaded. As far as I'm concerned, it doesn't seem at all different from downloading a game from Store, and when downloading games, I can do whatever I want while the game downloads. That I can't do when I'm downloading an update for a game. Not being able to do anything while it installs? That I'm okay with. But downloads, no.

Luckily I don't play a whole lot on my PS3 and focus on PC instead.

No argument here. I've literally just not played certain games because I didn't want to wait for the initial setup stuff.

Yea, that patches load as a forced main task is a pretty big flaw with the PS3s patching process. I'm far from being a software engineer, but I imagine the problem might be that the patches are loaded when you already told the system to start up a game, so the PS3 is in game mode and OS functions are at a minimum and might not have the necessary access anymore to dl the patch.

Can we please be serious and consider what this "problem" is really about?

Fact 1: These updates are not mandatory. You can simply skip the update altogether pressing the circle button. They are only mandatory for playing online. And for playing online they're mandatory for a good reason; for example when you play some online multiplayer game you want all players to use the same version of the game, not some players for example exploiting certain glitches/bugs that early versions had.

Fact 2: In the end, we all want these updates. They exist for a reason, to improve the experience. They either provide additional features/content or fix bugs. If manufacturers of rivalling consoles try to avoid hassling the gamers with updates, they are at the same time trying to keep the gamers off improvements.

So in the end, the real issue here is neither that there are updates at all or that they are mandatory (which is not even true). The real problems are:

a) These updates usually had to be installed manually, even though it would technically be possible to install most updates automatically at night. This problem was first solved for paying PS+ users, recently for all users, and will be solved for all users from the very start on the PS4.

b) The official Playstation servers are rather slow. There's no denying this, and this is where Sony could and should still act. And while I still don't like the decision to charge for online gaming on PS4, it will probably have the positive effect of Sony using the additional money to address exactly this problem, for they are well aware that many people are complaining about it.

One problem remains: Automatic updates will only work for software that the console knows you're using. When you're buying a brand new game on disc, and there are updates available that you either want or need for playing online, you will have to wait for the update to download. But that is a fundamental technical problem on all consoles, and one for which there is just no solution due to the nature of the problem.

About that,

this problem should be non-existant for downloaded games as they could easily store and send the most recent version, but unfortunately Sony lets you download the vanilla version and you have to update afterwards, that's definitely something they should improve.

Yeah auto updates suck on PS3 because they gotta download and then install. Or when you download a game but you it in the background so you can do something else, then forget that you then have to go and find the downloaded content and install it. Last but not least you have the mandatory installs to make up for the slow as fark BR drive. A lot of mistakes this gen that they will fix for next gen.

LOL @ GT5. GL finally getting to play that. I think a couple months ago I had like 10GB of shit to download/install just to play it.

I was only referring to disc based games, but apart from that you're of course right: for online game purchases, it would be possible and reasonable to provide them with downloads that already have the latest updates and fixes.

On the other hand: If we're talking online game purchases, it will be the download of the actual game, not the updates, that will be responsible for the vast majority of the time the gamer has to wait. So while you're strictly speaking correct, I believe that in practice this is a rather small issue for online game purchases.

Sorry, but that's nonsense. There are very good reasons for mandatory installs (as opposed to: mandatory updates).

The only reason Xbox 360 originally didn't allow for mandatory installs was the lack of storage space on the cheap Arcade/etc. models without harddisk drives. But since there are very good reasons for mandatory installs, Microsoft was actually forced to quietly cancel this policy right in the middle of the Xbox 360 generation.

So it's not that Sony did a mistake on the PS3 that will be fixed on the PS4 - exactly the contrary, it was Microsoft who did a mistake in the beginning of this generation, and that will be fixed next-gen with the Xbone by having the same policy on mandatory installs that PS3 always had.

There's nothing "nonsense" about it.

The BR drive is slow. This is common knowledge. The mandatory installs are needed to improve what would otherwise be terrible load times. This is also common knowledge. What we saw at the start of the generation were developers loading up the BR discs with unneeded, redundant data so that the actual content you'd be needing to accessing could be more quickly accessed. Then they started just making us install content on the HDD. Some games make it optional, some games require it. Yeah, there are good reasons to have installations. Like reduced loading times, and less use of your BR drive. But they exist because the BR drive is slow. That's why so many are mandatory on PS3 and optional on 360. On 360 they are more of a compromise for the size of the DVD format.

It's a mistake Sony made which will be fixed by a faster BR drive.