Shocking eh? The upcoming first-person shooter RAGE is going to have a colossal install (for a console game) of 7.6GB of hard drive space. If you’re wondering how long that will take to install, it’s roughly 30 minutes or so, which is enough to watch an episode of something or do something constructive with your life until you get pulled into another game.
This is well justified however, as Carmack has said that the high-resolution graphics of RAGE will be identical on all consoles, including the PC. The technical director and id founder said on his Twitter that all the platforms will get equal treatment, saying that the textures will be exactly the same on all platforms.
An 8GB install is truly massive, and id software thought they would be having a lot of problems due to the install size. Tim Willits talked about the install in an interview with Eurogamer and said “Sony was great. Kudos to Sony for letting us do that. They don’t allow every game to do that. So definitely, hats off.” in regards to them allowing for the behemoth install size. “What we were able to do is install all the textures to the highest level. What is nice about the PS3 platform is that it’s just one platform. Everyone has one Blu-ray drive, one hard drive, it’s all the same. Some of the other systems you have… should I install it on my 360? Should I not install it? So yes, it’s very nice.”
Miraculously, RAGE was able to fit on a single Blu-ray disk as a testament to the superiority of the format over what the XBox 360 uses. Even if some gamers will choke at the idea of an install being that large, when is the last time you played all of those games installed on your console?
RAGE is going to be released early in October, make sure you pick it up if you want a game that shows off the potential of consoles.
Rian Quenlin
I simply cannot get over how ugly that guy in the picture is.
Chris Hernandez
I don’t understand what he means by this: “Everyone has one Blu-ray drive, one hard drive, it’s all the same. Some of the other systems you have… should I install it on my 360? Should I not install it? So yes, it’s very nice.”
Is it because the PS3 forces you to install games while the XBox 360 makes it optional? They could have just made the game two or three disks and make it so that all the content must be installed off the other disks and then have one just to play the game.
Steve
It was my understanding the 8gb install was for the PS3 version only. The 360 install is significantly larger and, because the game is on 3 DVDs for the 360, it means when you insert the first disc, you have the option of installing the first portion of the game. When you get to disc two, you have to uninstall disc one, then install disc two’s content before you can play. This is significantly more time consuming and burdensome.
I also don’t see how the 8gb size is an issue. The install on PC is 25gb. Even on the PS3, you can swap out the factory installed HDD with any 2.5′ SATA to significantly increase capacity.
Steve
I think what he’s saying is that since not all 360s come with a hard drive, and the common 20GB 360 hard drive is not big enough for the 25gb install requirement on 360, requiring a hdd installing for 360 users would not be fair. That is why you can play off the discs and suffer texture pop in, or install each disc one at a time as you play through them.
This is not an issue on PS3 since bluray holds way more data and each console comes with a hdd big enough for the required install.
Chris Hernandez
That makes sense now. Yes, the PS3 version is far more user friendly as there is no disk swapping for an install. But if 360 owners really want the best experience then I’m sure they will free up the (probably)18GB of data and sit through the lengthy install process, at least you only have to do it once.