Baldur's Gate 3 on Xbox Series X Comes on 4 Discs Because It’s Just 500MB Over the Limit for 3

The sprawling Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game was set to arrive in physical form on Xbox Series X over three discs, but that figure has been revised after Baldur’s Gate 3 came in just 500MB over the limit.

As a result, the Baldur’s Gate 3 Xbox physical wave one March 25 release date will probably slip to the first week of April, Douse warned. Larian will ship each version in order of readiness, with PC first. “No discs makes life easy,” Douse added. “Four discs, hard.”

As already announced, the PS5 version ships on two discs, and the PC version on just one (it hosts a custom installer and comes with a Steam key.)

[darthv72]

kind of strange they would even use regular 50gb blurays when the SX support 100gb UHD discs. Maybe using 4 50gb discs is cheaper than 2 100gb ones...?

As it is, Sony are the only ones mandating that all PS5 games (on disc) use the 100gb media regardless if the game is even less than 25gb.

[--Onilink--]

Even more so because of the structure of the game, does it actually work in a way that you put in all 4 discs right at the beginning to install everything and then one of them is just a “key” ?
Because otherwise I dont see where exactly they would cut off in the middle of an act to swap discs when so much of the game is technically “side” content

[Docmortem]

You install using all 4 Disks. After that the first has to be inside the disk drive to play. The time were you had to insert the next disc to keep playing is long gone (my last game I saw this was Final Fantasy VIII)

[MrNinosan]

You haven't played games on Multiple discs for 20 years I hear.

Nowadays (since many years back), games are fully installed on the console.

Every 'extra' disc is just data discs (which needs to be installed before you can play the game) and then there is one Play disc.
The Play disc reads the license, and the rest is already installed on your console.

[--Onilink--]

I know games have to be fully installed because of disc speed vs internal drive speed, what I wasnt sure of was whether the whole install had to be done right away or if it prompted the next part of the install at certain points of the game or if it was all in one go

[franwex]

Xbox still use regular Blu-rays for games. It’s cheaper to license from Sony as Microsoft isn’t the owner of any physical media-and in fact prefer digital. The 100 gig discs are for movies only.

Larian is more of the exception here and it’s actually more expensive to manufacture that many disc, but they really want to future proof this game and understand a big selling point is being able to play offline. Most games are not multi disc and instead have us download the rest.

[rlow1]

It makes you wonder why? Is it because they really want to go all digital and have a policy in place to discourage physical? Pure speculation on my part of course, but if your correct theirs no reason why a difference should exist except if it was purposefully done. Again, head scratcher

[rlow1]

@darthv72
I agree with you, that it’s kind of a head scratcher. It’s really doesn’t make sense. You would think it’s not a compression issue, but probably it’s has something to do with policies of Xbox? Either way, that’s sucks for the developer as it costs more to do.

[Tacoboto]

Franwex above is right - even though Series X can read 100GB movies, it doesn't for games.

I believe I heard that in a comment from a DF video

[franwex]

Haven’t seen a 4 disc console game in a while. This may end up being the last one ever. Last one I recall was Lost Oddyssey on the 360. I cannot think of any console games ever being longer than 4 discs, not even on ps1.

[Bathyj]

I didn't know they still existed but I'm all digital now so I wouldn't know.

[MrNinosan]

If Call of Duty would come out physically with all data on it, that would be 6-7 discs on Xbox (3 discs on Playstation).
If Rebirth would ever come on Xbox, it would be 4 discs.

It's just a 150gb game, lots of games are larger, but all content is not on the discs.

[Chocoburger]

A Sega Saturn game called Phantasm came on 8 CDs! Yes, eight CDs! 😮

Riven and Tokimeki Memorial 2 came on 5 CDs for PS1.

[franwex]

Yes. After posting this I did research. It’s Phantasmagoria on Saturn. I saw Riven and now I’m considering getting it. I’ve never heard of Tokimeki Memorial 2.

I think I may get this on Xbox for the novelty and to see how they will package the 4 discs in a case. Maybe there will be 2 cases? Haha.

[Tzuno]

Because they are cheap and use single layer discs.

[anast]

Xbox wants to keep people from buying their products.

[Aloymetal]

100% and it's showing, they don't have to try hard, it's been working flawlessly according to hardware/software sales.

[franwex]

I think they simply see no need for UHD discs yet. Similar to the 360 being on DVDs. Most games don’t need multiple discs. Sony has a vested interest in UHD as they get money from each disc. Microsoft has a vested interests in servers.

Also it’s not really a big deal to install multiple disc games.

[anast]

I hear they are also releasing this thing on 45 floppy discs.

[TheColbertinator]

Thankfully the game is good

[isarai]

At least it is all on the disc rather than that required to download half the game BS like SOME AAA publishers like to do

[gold_drake]

i wonder if xbox doesnt support 100 gigs for games and thats why.