not big deal for me.

Doubt it.  One game on a single disk (that uses the whole disk) could conceivably require 7GB.

As a 360 owner this can only be good news. However i dont think this is significant good news. I am not one to really moan about load times in general and the biggest problem is that realistically all those with a 20gb hard drive will only have space for one game install if you factor in dl'd content and space for a few demos.

With this in mind this feature is going to benefit AAA titles the most as they will probably get prioritised installs on your HD as you play through them for the first / second / third time.

The 1 thing MS could do to make this a more significant announcement is drop the rediculously overpriced HD peripherals but i cant see them doing this as the hd is the most significant difference between arcade / pro / elite.

What is not in doubt is that MS are pushing the boundaries of extra features provided to a console through software and that is great for all owners.

What is this certain "multi-platform game" everyone keeps talking about? I don't get it. :P


This is quite a cool feature. On one hand it makes me want to get a 360 even more, on the other it makes me have to get the more expensive one.

To be fair to the PS3, the Devil May Cry 4 install is clearly suboptimal.

The game installs 4800 MB in 22 odd minutes (the full game on PS3 is 7600 mb btw - I'm assuming the Xbox game is similar in size)

Meanwhile, MSG4 installs 4500 MB in ~8 minutes (which makes sense, considering 2x Blu-ray is 72Mbit or 9 MB/sec). GTA IV manages similar speeds. In fact, DMC 4 is the single slowest install on PS3, hands down.

There is no doubt the Xbox 360 will be faster in installing (after all, its drive is faster) but taking the worst case PS3 example as par for the course does sound like cherry picking to me.

(For reference, if all games install at MSG4/GTAIV speeds -i.e. optimal speed-, 7600MB would take 844 seconds, or ~14 minutes. Still significantly longer than the Xbox install of DMC4, but also much better than the 22 minutes it takes on the PS3)

You did forget that mgs4 has after the first install 3 more so if you add all those together you get around 15min install.

Very good news from a consumer point of view for the obvious reasons. But its an even better business idea as this give consumers more reason to either buy one of the more expensive console models or upgrade the hdd. More money for Microsoft. The fact that they aren't forced installs is just another peg in the 360's favour.

You're ignoring his point. DMC4 installs 4800MB in like 22 minutes. MGS4 installs 4500MB(300 less than DMC4, but very close) in around 8 minutes. Do the math. DMC4 just didn't use the full speed of the disc drive.

Blu-ray 2x isn't as fast as DVD 12x. I expect disc drives to become faster just like they did with CDs and DVD though. Blu-ray 4x alone is faster than DVD 12x (there are already a few BD drives for PC with these read speeds). 18MB/s to DVDs 16.2MB/s. The PS2's DVD drive wasn't very fast at launch but became faster as time went on I believe. At least I notice faster load times on my friends slim as opposed to my fat PS2. Anyway, right now Blu-ray is slower, so the 360 will install faster. If something like 4x or faster transfer rates are implementend in PS3s disc drive before the end of the generation...then it will be faster than 360 installs.

EDIT: A lot of edits...updated information. I haven't had sleep. @.@

How big are most games for XBox 360?  I have a 20 GB and since I usually play one game religiously at a time I was wondering if I could install.