Actually, for what it's worth Penny Arcade complained a lot about MGS4 as well.

 Hot Shots Golf 5 had a 5 gb install.  That game will never make it to the 360.

They just didn't Blu-Ray to the best of it's abilities.  Or in Kojima's case, he may have just filled up the disc with so much stuff that everything had to be extremely compressed (except for the audio, we all know about his fetish for uncompressed audio), and thus he was forced to use older methods of accessing assets from the disc. 

Hell, MGS3 filled up a DVD9 and MGS3: Subsistence used two DVDs. MGS4 was the first ps3 title to use a dual layered BD-Rom.  Kojima just loves filling up his discs.

there you go, I believe the blu-ray is in general slower doe to the CLV technique of reading disks (in that the motor has to slow down when reading data near the edge of the disc). Of course, seek times are also dependant on the amount of physical movement required of the read head, and to move over a large chunk of data a blu-ray read head would not have to travel as far. These things are never quite as clear cut as they seem.

However, even though the numbers may vary, it would take incredibly bad design to make the Xbox360 load the same data slower than the PS3 directly off the disc.

First question before answering: How long are the load times going into different areas? (Not install times)

Access times, seek times, read speeds are simply technical aspects to work within when developing for a given platform. Faster, slower, whatever, the differences aren't significant enough to be the issue many people are making it out to be.

The technical work around for the 360 is lack of HDD. Developers do what they can with limitations present and the resources allotted.

Personally, I can't say I've really seen any real benefit to publishing games on the BR-D format beyond having multiple low or non compressed audio tracks (good for international releases), as much as I like the format itself. Some games that exceeded the 8.54 GB storage of the DVD9 probably could have been cut down to fit on a regular DVD, not that I'd ever advocate dumping resources or cutting the length of a game to fit the media it's being published on.

The extra space does provide additional resources to developers, regardless of what any non-developer thinks. Bigger storage is always a plus, even if it means something as simple as less compression or not having to dump extra code or data resources in creating the final build.

What I do like about it is one disc, one game. I didn't like games with multiple CDs, and that didn't change with the DVD format. If or when we start seeing games published on multiple BR-Ds, then I can start wondering what the problem is.

In the meantime, it's still the best optical format to publish on. Less storage constraints. But anyone who thought it was supposed to be a magical format to provide a new level of gaming should probably skip drinking the PR Kool-Aid in the future when it comes to buying into new technology. Leads to unrealistic expectations and sometimes ill informed opinions.

I haven't really noticed them during my first hour or so of playing. That's usually a good sign when load times don't interfere with the flow of the game. At the very least, you won't be aware of them without specifically looking for load sequences or listening to the drive accessing. 

If I go back and play through again, I'm sure I'll be able to find the load spots, but I'd rather just enjoy the game instead.  

There are cinematic transitions between play sections and story sequences, but there aren't any blatant "now loading" type screens or pauses, or even in game workarounds to hide load times like the infamous Mass Effect elevators.  

 there are some loading screens, but they only last for a few seconds.  and by a few seconds I mean none has lasted for more than 5 seconds that I can recall and I am a ways into it (Act 4 I think).

It seems like console gamers are finally understanding the concept of a PC. When I look at the ps3 I think of a computer. Internet browser, playback media (avi, divx, etc), download demos, videos (and soon movies). To me installing games is just another part of it.

Eventually your going to fill up the hdd which I've done several times on a PC. You have the option to a) delete some of the install (which i've done on my PC) b) Upgrade the hdd (also done on a pc). People complain about installing games but really i think i like the concept better. Less strain on the disc drive, faster loading times. You have alternatives if you don't like the install times. Get a console that doesn't require them. If you think the next xbox won't do this then well get ready for it.

That is partly to blame. According to the guys at Beyond3D, the ps3's Blu-Ray drive reads dics at a constant 9 mb/s, while the 360 drive reads dual layered DVDs at a maximum of 10.57 mb/s and a minimum of 4.36 mb/s (averaging out to about 7.93 mb/s).  Even though the 360's drive speed is lower on average, because it is faster at times, developers can put the more important data on the outer edge of the disc, so that it makes use of the faster read speeds, something that they cannot do with the ps3.  The 360 drive's lower seek times help out as well.

@blizzid: Oh c'mon. So it loads during cutscenes.  There are still no pauses in the game at all.  It goes straight from gameplay, to cutscene, back to gameplay.  And there are also long stretches of just gameplay, like the demo on the PSN for example.  And I can't really think of any drawn out cutscenes.  

I mean, you're totally missing my point with that one. Most games have cutscenes AND actual loading screens. Uncharted has no visibile loading at all.  Name a game that does it better.