I think people should keep in mind that if MGS4 were released on multiple DVDs, then much of the essential data would need to be copied onto every disc. Things like character animations, reocurring voice-clips and sound effects, weapon/enemy/ally/camo data, base coding, etc. All this would probably ammount to about half of a DVD-9 disc's available space which, despite its name, is actually closer to 7GB. Anybody simply taking 33GB and dividing it by 9 are obviously missing the big picture.

/sigh.

Too many MGS4 threads already.

On some slip-shod interpretation.

emmmm.....(shrugs) Enough...

....and since most people don't care about/can't hear the difference between lossless vs. lossy, all they'd have to do is put all that audio through a lossy encoder and *POOF* 1/5th (or less) space taken up by audio...

No, they wouldn't need to repeat data because all the game data is copied to the HDD. I believe the entire game, minus the audio is copied to the HDD. That's why the game requires an install for each act. They couldn't fit the entire game into the 5 GB limit Sony has imposed. The disc is used to stream audio. One layer on the bluray disc contains the game data, which is copied to the HDD. The second layer contains the audio data which gets streamed to the console.

I would expect the game, ported to the XBox360, to be 3 discs.

Approximately 10 GB of game data (minus the audio). 5 GB initial install, with approximately a 1.5 GB install for acts 2-5 (assuming same data transfer rate as the initial install). Granted, the game could be uncompressed to the HDD, but I believe this isn't the case. Otherwise they should have just compressed the game data to fit into the 5 GB limit and not have installs for each act.

Then there's the prerendered cutscenes. I would believe that these would be streamed from the disc. I can't fathom why you would want to or have to copy them to the HDD. Maybe another gig for the prerendered cutscenes? Other than the big cutscene at the end of Act 3 (the 40 minute one), I can't really think of what other prerendered cutscenes there were, so I may be over- or under-estimating.

If the game really is 33 GB, then that leaves about 20 GB of uncompressed audio. Using a loseless codec would cut that in half. Maybe less. Using lossy compression may cut that by much more, maybe to 10% of the original? I'm not really sure how good compression techniques are at this stuff, so I'm really just guessing. So another 2 GB of audio data.

13-14 GB of data for the game using lossy audio compression. Taking into account the 6.8 (?) GB of data available on XBox360 game DVDs and the need to repeat some of the data, I would expect a 3 game disc. Maybe 4 discs.

Of course, my whole analysis could be flawed, but that's what I've got to offer on how "big" MGS4 is.

If you were a true audiphile you'd know this isn't true.  Depending on the format and level of compression it can pysically  impossible for you to hear a difference.  I highly doubt could tell the difference in a double blind test.

that's right I think it would take more than 4 dvd's

I think with the technology of today, all have to be compress, as same on a Blu-Ray disk.
So probably MGS4 take 50GB.

My guess is if they compress the audio and kick the cut scenes down to 720p they could get it on 2 dvds. Most gamers would have little to no impact with both those changes. It would be well worth it for konami to release it if they could get an additional 500-1m in sales out of mgs4, which is a completely reasonable number.

But... like others my, dvd estimate is mostly a guess.

MS is not keen on mandatory HDD installs.