It's not file size related, it's almost certainly self imposed deadlines that had them producing the physical copies early.

It's pretty ridiculous.

Damn. Even the physical games are turning digital now. 

If its fixing bugs and filling it all in one day 1 patch, why can't you do that when the games are still on the disc? Just curious as a non-game developer.

Putting half the game as digital is just the latest in the old scheme of making "Used Copies" worth less. Microsoft tried to charge us $10 per used game sale, when this generation started. Steam makes its games impossible to sell for a very good reason. Video Game companies don't want to have to compete with disgruntled consumers, who bought their product. So they're using tactics like these to build a moat around their company, protecting it from competition. Left unchecked, all corporations want to eventually become a monopoly with economies of scale so large that no new company could ever dream of competing with them. Once competition is gone they can charge the consumer whatever the heck they want.

Annoying yes, strange yes, considering Crash.

Cancelling pre-order? no lol.

I would assume this is being done to kill used game sales. That bothers me a lot, as I resell most of my games after I finish them. However, for those of you that don't resell your games, why is this a problem? The games are installed on your console's hard drive anyway, so I don't see much of a difference in practice unless you have very slow internet, a low data cap, or some other internet access problem. I assume most of us on this site have decent internet service. So, I truly don't understand the problem. Please explain.

This is BS and Activision need to be called in on it. If I buy a physical game then I want the full product as advertised. No ifs, ands or buts.

My internet isn't great but the patch download is not that big of a problem. My problem is that I don't trust these companies down the road. What will happen 20-25 years down the line when the PS4 servers are offline?. How will I be able to play the full trilogy if for any reason I have to delete the data from my PS4?. Some of you may not give a damn about this but I certainly do. I want to be able to enjoy anything and everything in my collection as well as when I bought it for the rest of my life.

Sorry, but I don't buy into the evil corporations hype. 

All I can say, is games have never been cheaper, or fallen faster n price than they have this generation, and companies are not closing their doors right and left like we saw last generation. In my eyes, that's good news for consumers, developers, and publishers.

Additionally, I have never had as much value for my purchases as I have with digital this generation. My games go with me everywhere on all three ecosystems. 

You have more choices than ever. Day One Digital or Retail, Flash Sales, Free 2 Play, Subscription, or Gift/Barrow. I can't  recall a better time to be a gamer.

This move by Activisin is just part of the growth of the industry. Every other medium has gone through it. There are those that hate the death or limited availability of news papers, Vinyls, manual transmissions, and many other things. You either got stick to your limited access to new or move on. Either way, find peace with yourself.

Game 2/3 may be mostly on the disc, all we know is you need a patch to play them, we don't know how big that patch is yet.

Well, the Crash N Sane Trilogy was 5.2 GB, well under my "10 or less" rule.
If Spyro is the same, then it's not an issue for me.