Your basic argument is true, but the way it is worded gives something of a false impression. You make it sound as though 43.3% of the data will be read at the fastest speed, which is obviously not the case. It is true that the mean average speed will be higher than the median though.

Data can be pulled from a 12x DVD at a Constant Angular Velocity faster than it can from a 2x BD at Constant Linear Velocity, but the 360's drive can only read dual-layer discs at 8x, giving the advantage to the PS3's BD drive. The DVD drive's top speed will always be higher than the BD drive's though, so both systems have their advantages and disadvantages.

 Your name suite you. I always like what you have to say.

I disagree with what I bolded. I would prefer the consumer limit it, as in give the developer the freedom to use so much disk space, that no one buys the game if they so choose.

I always opt for the option that gives me the best game, as apposed to the option that saves me the most money. This option would someday require me to buy a bigger hard drive, yet allow more games to end up on faster media. To me, a good thing.

that really does suck being "forced" to install.

I have a 60 gig and i think i only have 40 gigs left, and that includes 0 installs. A bunch of installs would go through my free space like apple juice through your system.

I know what you're getting at but I said the highest speedS, as in plural. No offense to our less technically inclined readers but frankly the people who wouldn't grasp this are the ones whose eyes would likely glaze over when they read the word "diameter". It should be fairly obvious to everyone else.

The larger amounts of data in the outer tracks is true of both Blu-Ray and DVD so I really wasn't trying to say one had an advantage over the other. I was actually driving at the fact that with some planning of where data is to go on the disc they can put assets that need to be loaded quickly on the outer edges and assets that aren't going to be loaded under time constraints towards the inner edges. They've been doing this with DVDs in games for years to combat this exact problem (ie load times).

I like the idea of installing games, because when it comes down to hard drives will always be faster than optical drives and that's a fact.
So it doesn't matter how well the data structure has been optimised on the disc, it still can't beat having the data stored on the hard drive.
I'm all for the simply non user interactive installs the PS3 games have, pop the disc in and let the game install it's self, no were near as convoluted as PC installs and hella faster too.

what I think would be cool is have every PS3 game give you one of four options when you put the game in regarding HDD installations.

(1) No install: the game is simply streamed from thedisc.

(2) Partial install: Like most games (Warhawk, Motorstorm, etc,) a smal amount of data is installed, but it doesn;t really have much of an impact beyond allowing the game to be played if th disc is ejected during gameplay.

(3) Full install: A large amount of data is taken off the disc in the background during the first few minutes (like Uncharted)

(4) Total install. All the data on the disc is loaded onto the HDD in a temporary file that will automatically if it is not used for a certain amount of time. (say, 48-72 hours or so). obviously, the system would check to make sure the HDD as enough space before enabling this option.

Not that I think Sony will do this (I'm sure at least the 1st and 4th options would be possible without devs having to do anything) but I would really like it if they did.