Assassins Creed III - Big mandatory install size on PS3 revealed, first patch available

Assassins Creed III has a big mandatory install size on PlayStation 3. Furthermore is the first patch for the game available.

[Hellsvacancy]

Big? 4.5gb lol, the last game i downloaded from PS+ was 15gb

[Irishguy95]

Damn, I hate needing to buy a harddrive for Ps3. Ah well, at least it's not that expensive

[Wintersun616]

You don't have to, because it's quite obvious you don't own one.

[Awesome_Gamer]

Can't wait for trolls to blow this way out of proportion, gotta love fanboys..

[crxss]

4.5 inches isn't big. Old Snake... now that guy is big, 9 inches big to be precise :D

[GuyThatPlaysGames]

It's not a big deal. Day one when I bought my PS3, I switched out the hard drive for a 500gb hard drive. Simple and cheap fix.

[Lovable]

@crXss

dafuq you smoking buddy?

[Apocalypso]

@ Lovable

It was his attempt at an analogy, MGS4 install was around 9gb

[Crazyglues]

Well let me just say I bought a 500GB hard drive a long time ago for 59 bucks and it's been the best thing ever..

2 years later I still have over 281GB free..

and I never worry about installing anything or my drive filling up, and I have tons of full digital games and demos and Game trailers on the hard drive... (basically I don't delete nothing.. ever)

People upgrade your drives and never worry about space again.. it's been a sweet dream not having to ever worry about space. (best thing I could have ever done to my PS3)

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[AzaziL]

I agree with you but can't stand people that wear brand logos like it's style

[Crazyglues]

@AzaziL

yeah I hear your, but for that same reason I guess you can understand when I say, "I can't stand people that think because they don't like something everyone else is suppose to not like it either.."

(to me those are the dumbest people on the planet.) -just saying

[AzaziL]

Chill bro, not hatin on you hard like that, just saying I've seen that signature tag alot of times and I've never noticed it for anything else but 'PS3'.

Don't know if they were all you, but it got stale after awhile. My bad if I sounded all bogus to you earlier, was in my morning mood.

[Blacktric]

Which was a game. Not a "mandatory install".

[jjdoyle]

The best games? Why evens have a disc just release it digital saves money.

[Blankman85]

You're seriously going to try make 4.5gb seem small for an install by comparing it to a full sized game download?
Is there a limit to your defense of all things PS3? I mean nobody is saying the install is a deal breaker but you have to admit it is rather chunky. In any case, I'd personally rather have a one time install than have multiple discs so AC3 will be a PS3 buy for me. . .someday.

[jwk94]

this is small compared to other titles

[MysticStrummer]

I agree that comparing it to a full game is silly, but 4.5 gb still isn't that big.

[badz149]

it's a 1 time thing and it's not like you have only 4GB limit to begin with!

we've been installing games on PC since forever and I don't see anyone complaining every freaking time a new game on PC comes out and guess what...the installs are MANDATORY!

most 360 gamers fully install their games too nowadays and it's proven already that it's the better solution so...why not complain about that too?

[Neonridr]

@bad149 - the only game I ever installed on my 360 to my hard drive was Halo Reach. And that was just to try it out, there was no reason to do it. The only time on the 360 there was a recommended install was for BF3 and the high-res texture pack. I think that was about 1.5 gb if I am not mistaken.

The reason why these mandatory installs are there is to try to "hide" the fact that the drive in the PS3 is inferior so they have to compensate for it somehow. I agree that 4.5GB is small for sure, but don't act like the developers are doing this as a favour to you somehow, if you didn't do it, the game would be unplayable.

[wishingW3L]

the damage control on this thread by the PS3 fanboys is off the charts and I only own a PS3!
The thing about installs on the PS3 is that they take 30 mins minimum while on the PC they take like 5-10 mins max.

[barb_wire]

Pfft, I've downloaded DEMO'S on the PC almost as big as this.. 4.5GB is nothing.

Some people like to make something out of nothing..

[Ippiki Okami]

lol at people complaining about installs. Fallout 3 was 5GB, Sleeping dogs was 4.6GBs, Split Second was 7GB, Bioshock 2 was 5GB etc..etc. This is a not a big install. Sides, less stress on disc reading and shorter load times are always welcome.

[xAlmostPro]

4.5gb is 'big' i got the game saturday though, it takes less than 5 minutes.

[GameSpawn]

Solid State FTW!!! Best upgrade I have EVER done. Saves faster, loads faster, installs faster.

Seriously, with solid state drives getting as cheap as they have I don't know why more people haven't made the switch. Too bad 360 owners cannot legitimately upgrade their drives to a solid state drive; even so if MicroShaft (yes, I did that on purpose) put one out you can guarantee it would be $100 more than the solid state alone.

[MRMagoo123]

ps3 works with solid state drives ? I have a 250gig solid state doing nothing at mo i might put it in.

[dantesparda]

@ MRMagoo123

yes it does and it even benefits from its faster performance, it helps GT5, Rage, with loading etc

[badz149]

as long as SSD has SATA connection, it will work. there was an article a couple years back talking about it and made comparison with normal HDD and SSD indeed came on top but with a small margin. it was not worth switching to SSD at that time but they are getting cheaper in some places already! you should give it a try.

[ZoyosJD]

@GameSpawn Great upgrade...

I went for the hybrid SSD + HDD.

Just under SSD speeds with HDD size(750GB) and price($150).

[MRMagoo123]

Thanks to the ppl that replied ill give it a go, buuuuuut wtf is up with the disagree my comment asked if you can use an ssd with ps3 and i said i have a 250 gig at home doing nothing both are as true as gravity ?????????????

[GameSpawn]

MRMagoo123,

There are people who troll this site that just go down the entire page hitting disagree. That is the problem with this system. If they would set it up so that admins and post owners can see who agreed and disagreed they could possible crack down on the abuse. People are less likely to be d-bags when there is no more anonymity.

[wastedcells]

I love the mandatory installs. The games run that much better in my experience.

[bloodybutcher]

yeah, but if br drive would work faster there wouldn't be any need for them. you have to admit that, with vast library of games, hdd space shrinks quite fast.

[sandman224]

I agree with you. It's best that there's a mandatory install it helps in terms of performance on the ps3. Developers are more than welcome to use all my gb's there there for a reason so use it up.

[CalvinKlein]

yeah, much better than not working is a big improvement.

[miyamoto]

Like on PCs, what is the use of PS3 hard drives if you are not going to use them?

These types of games are designed to utilize that hardware instead of disc swapping.

[wastedcells]

I have a terabyte so I haven't run into space issues.

[Jazz4108]

When they are mandatory ....how do you know how the game will run without them? My guess is it would not run at all. The 360 will run the game fine either with install or without and the 360 allows yiu to install the entire game when the ps3 is just partial so it can run at all. I stand by my belief as a console the ps3 is a mess.

[bozebo]

"if br drive would work faster there wouldn't be any need for them"

It's not just that, mandatory installs would be good for DVD drives too. The PS3 having a mandatory hard drive means that developers can create custom installers that decompress the game resources so they can be quickly loaded. On the 360, games have to be able to run without a HDD as part if MS's licensing, so they can't use a mandatory install - so it means resources have to be able to be decompressed quickly enough on the fly, limiting how heavily compressed they can be. So not only are BRs way larger, an entire 360 game on multiple disks can't have all the resources accessible at once.
The main result is that open world games are potentially limited on the 360. I think with GTA5 they will have do what BF3 did for the 360 version, and have a reduced graphics version but another disk to install the higher detail assets.

[trouble_bubble]

@Jazz

By your logic the PC is a mess too.

Even with a "full install" on the 360, you still need the disc in the console. 14GB to install both ME3 discs and you still need to swap discs for side missions. One ME3 BD disc on PS3 and no install. Yeah, clearly the PS3 is a mess -rollseyes-

[Aceman18]

yea i have a 500gig drive, and this install is nothing lol.

[showtimefolks]

if a 20 minutes install means game performing better than stop crying, now a days gamers cry about every single thing and achieve nothing what so ever

if there was no install and long loading times than people would have said oh i wish there was a way to install so it can perform better so no way to please gamers

[Neonridr]

it's not so the game can perform better, it's because the PS3 drive wouldn't be able to keep up with the loading, so the game would be unplayable. Without the install you can't play the game.

Sure it's fine and dandy when you have larger hard drives, but take someone who only has the 12gb super slim PS3. Now what if they have like 3 or 4 games and each require mandatory installs of 4-5gb. You are telling me that it's ok that the PS3 is so inferior that the person would have to delete a game in order to install another game? Or not be able to play more than 2-3 games at a time because their hard drive isn't large enough? To me that sounds pretty pathetic. Not every person on the planet is comfortable opening up their system and replacing their drives, so to me this is a poor excuse to hide a serious flaw in the PS3.

Ultimately I don't care in the end, but just something I have noticed.

[Walker]

First patch befor release ?! nice

[Tetsujin]

Usually if a game has a day 1 patch, that alone makes me lose confidence in a game I'm playing; I like the idea patches do help fix gameplay, however it makes me question the QA dept.

[TheUndertaker85]

Ugh, so tired of hearing this.

Here's a thought. If there's a day one patch, even before the game is officially out, how do you propose the problem was found for the patch to be put out?

People act like having a day one patch is worse than having a broken game on day one with no patch in sight.

[Tetsujin]

If the QA spent time and effort to patching games day 1 patches wouldn't exist. I understand some companies and games there will be some glitches/fixes that are not going to be caught easily, however a few games do prove there is people who test down to the T to make sure games are at least 99% fixed before release date. Metal Gear Solid 4 and Batman Arkham Asylum are big examples of positive QA testing.

[bozebo]

I agree tetsujin.

The bugs we see in games these days are usually schoolboy errors in basic scripts, there is no excuse for them to sell a broken product anyway. Not only that, but they usually don't bother to fix all the bugs properly a little after launch because it's already sold the bulk, and marketing data suggests that only 10% of people play all the way through a game so there is very little QA focus towards the later areas of AAA titles (this is actually what the industry - publishers that is - think is allowable, they KNOW that there are issues)

Oh also, QA usually do a great job in finding problems - business decisions lead them to simply not bother actually fixing the issues that are found because that is valuable developer time, and people already bought the game. Vote with your wallet or it will NEVER change.

[AtomicGerbil]

Blame the publishers for pushing devs to tight deadlines, errors are easy when you are under pressure and have less time than is required.

[Vortex3D]

Yeap. It shows the publisher is too hurry to ship the game that the developers already have a bunch of bugs fixes. But yet many gamers see day 1 patch is good because they just have to play the game at any condition day 1.

[KwietStorm_BLM]

All games have a deadline. Games are completed and go gold long before they ship. The developers don't stop work though, so they find bugs and (hopefully) fix them. Why people insist on having a problem with this,I do no know. I knew the majority of people have zero education in software programming, but that shouldn't throw common sense out with it. Makes me sick the sheer amount of times I've seen the word lazy thrown around this generation.

[MysticStrummer]

Higher tech hardware means more complex code because of physics, lighting, AI, etc, so expect day one patches to be here to stay. They will be more common next gen, not less.

[bozebo]

Some games do have significant technical challenges, but a lot of other games are simply made like crap (anything with bugs which is using a popular engine like Unreal which does all the difficult stuff for them).

Publishers drop all priority for fixing bugs if they don't see any financial incentive to fix them.

Of course, I have no problem with day 1 patches, but the buggy titles in general will be here to stay forever until people stop paying for them.

Also, the bugs are rarely in the difficult technical areas such as AI, rendering and physics. It's usually an issue with a game script which was amateurly made - I think this is because competent programmers are quickly moved on to work on difficult tasks and then inadequate people end up working on the user-end experience and messing it up (while the tech behind the scenes runs beautifully)

(by the way, I have a background in entertainment software, specifically programming. Buggy titles are caused by laziness and publisher profiteering - not difficulty, please don't blame QA)

[Omegabalmung]

Patch is okay just as long as its not as big as Medal of Honors first day patch.

[BananaEatingSquid]

*cough*MedalofHonor*cough*

Edit: @Omegabalmung, exactly lol

[ziggurcat]

@ tetsujin

you clearly don't understand how QA works if you think that day 1 patches are because QA isn't doing their job.

i worked in QA for several years - a day 1 patch means that during the certification process, (in this case) sony could have failed the title, but compromised/agreed to let the game go through on the condition that the studio releases a day 1 patch to fix (a) certain issue(s) that they felt were severe enough to cause the title to fail.

this doesn't mean that QA missed whatever issue(s) resulted in the day 1 patch... chances are they found it, but the devs didn't feel as though it was a serious enough issue to warrant fixing...

or (because testing still goes on while the game is going through the certification process) the issue(s) was (were) found while the game was in the midst of its certification process, and were found by sony, but the patch for the issue(s) had already been completed before the sony's issue report came back to ubisoft, and rather than resubmit, they agreed to let the game go through on the condition that the patch be available on day 1.

the long of the short of it is: don't blame QA for patches and/or bugs because it's the devs that have the final say on whether it gets fixed or left in the game.

[HeavenlySnipes]

The game went gold because they have deadlines but they continued testing so that they can patch (hopefully) all problems before you actually play. Unless its an indie game, they can't withhold the title until they are 100% satisfied because they have to meet deadlines. This is their most ambitious Ass Creed game so you can't cut them any slack?

[DaThreats]

Using wrong lead platform

[Murderous Villain]

Buy bigger HDDs, and stop whining...

[videoxgamexfanboy]

So people should buy bigger HDD just to install mandatory installs? Sounds pretty ridiculous to me. I have a 500 gb HDD and I'm already running out of room because of all these installs and free ps plus games. So ur telling me that I should go buy yet another HDD? Oh no wait I should delete games I'm not playing and just redownload them later...yeah I'm sure Comcast will luv that with my 250gb limit. These mandatory installs are past ridiculous...

[Pintheshadows]

Or you could just delete the game data of titles you no longer play.

You're really making a mountain out of absolutely nothing.

[Conzul]

Buddy, if you want to play the game badly enough, you'll find a solution to your problem.

[GribbleGrunger]

Once you've finished a game and moved onto the next, you should always delete the game, it just makes sense. If at a later date you want to play it again, just download it again. Simple.

[TheUndertaker85]

Comcast's cap is 300GB. It got extended around February.

In the average month I use less than the old 250GB mark. Even with the Welcome Back package I was not able to exceed my cap through Comcast.

This comes with multiple devices being online. Laptop, 2 PS3s, a 3DTV that's internet enabled, now a Vita and Kindle. If you're really exceeding the 300GB cap Comcast has set, then two to one says you should stop downloading illegally so much. Not to mention bitching about a cap that frankly, is higher than most every ISP out there is just stupid.

Plus wouldn't your stupidity and bitching also extend into the fact that you put things onto your system that it appears you have no intention of using? Then wonder why your HDD is running low.

[vortis]

Dang the fanboy rage is high in here.

I agree with you man.

These guys either don't download a lot of games or don't pay for the bills, lol.

I have several hard drives full up of games. I keep them around so when I feel like playing them I can, because, you know, that's why we paid for the games, right?

And I don't know about anyone else but downloading full fledged games digitally is getting pretty taxing, some games average between 15gb and 20gb. So it's easy to hit Comcast's caps.

Also, just by being online, going to website with ads, watching YouTube, etc,. etc., hitting those data caps are a lot easier than people think. They don't understand how everything is zapping bandwidth these days especially if you have multiple devices on a single network.

I plan on getting a 1TB HDD at some point but it seems silly to tell people to stop whining with all these restrictions and regulations in place.

[Barneyco]

A few months ago Comcast got rid of the download limit. Check their website.

[SAE]

Updating right now :)
70%

[Zefros]

got 40 gig free space left, bring it! Can't wait to play this game woho!!! AC3 on wed, NFS the day after and wwe 13 the day after that again.. lol

[sway_z]

Fellow PS3 owners...let's keep it REAL

4.5GB is almost a full retail game...it's BIG.

But then again, install size is relative ...it depends how crowded your house (HDD) already is?

You should know by now what you're in for with PS3...it's no secret installs speed loading times due to Blu Ray's mammoth size. It's either full minute loads between levels or 10 - 20 seconds with part install.

.......I seriously think any (Core) gamer should have an upgraded or large HHD where the PS3 is concerned anyway.

Happy gaming :)

[P_Bomb]

The last AC game, AC Revelations was a 4.3GB install. AC Brotherhood before that was 4GB as well. Nothing to be surprised about really.

I'm more surprised by linear games like MaxPayne3 (5GB install) that have larger installs than an AC3 or ME3 (which had no install btw), but with seemingly less under the hood.

[ZoyosJD]

GR:FS was like 6.5GB and looks like a launch game from this gen and it didn't even play well enough to make up for that.

[Cirran]

Install sizes should be no problem to anyone...Its so easy and cheap to get a hardrive more than capable of holding every game you will ever need.

[DarkZane]

Max size Sony usually allow for installs is 8GB. It's what Rage was using when you installed (terrible game though).

However, 8GB is pretty small. Slim PS3 come with pretty big hard disks and if you still have a 20 to 80GB PS3, it's time to upgrade because hard disks are pretty cheap these days. Any hard disks that can go in a laptop will do.

[Iceman X]

This is not true there is no cap, my GT5 install is at 33gb atm.

[medziarz]

LOL :D:D:D

[TristanV1]

i dont mind the mandatory install as long as its not on 2 discs

[blakstarz]

500GIG drive = Who cares, BRING IT ON!!!

[DivineAssault]

i 2nd that! give me a 20GB install & i wont care if the game is good..

[fossilfern]

I would like Sony to allow people to just dump the whole game on the Hard drive. Id personally prefer it that way

[sloth3395]

then download the game it will be out

[bubblebeam]

@fossilfern

Heck Yeah, I agree. People act as if the mandatory install is a bad thing. Fact is, if Sony allowed us to install the whole disc, I'd do it straight away.

On Xbox, whenever I get a new game, I always install it first. It's not a problem, you just walk away, take a piss, get something to eat etc.

Same deal with multiple discs. Not that big a deal.

OT: We saw that with Revelations, Ubisoft managed a great job on the PS3 version, giving it an even better version than the Xbox. How does this one go?

[medziarz]

yea, but i think installing cut scenes (animation, voice) makes no sense, they belong on the disc and streamed off of it once per play-through. the rest of the data used regularly by the game is mandatory installed :D

[bubblebeam]

@medziarz

Very good point. But could it also help out for the cutscenes? Like no screen tearing?

It would be nice if developers took advantage of Blu-ray, then we could install texture packs and what not.

[ceballos77mx]

Could be the patch is for those extra missions that come with the ps3 version.

[bladesofagony]

tekken tag 2 is 7GB on ps3

[memots]

you mean installing on a hard drive like i do on every pc game ? Disc base or not ?

YEah .. BIG BIG install.....

Why the hell this still makes top of the page after how many years this gen that Ps3 had mandatory install ??

[MRMagoo123]

OMG a mandatory install OOOH MAAAHH GAAAHD lol who cares ffs its not even big, if you start running out of space delete some porn or game data from games you dont ever play any more just keep the saves so if you feel like playing them again you can. I have a 60 gig original ps3 thats not even full.

[Pintheshadows]

Common sense is a quality that most N4G users seem to lack. Nice to know it isn't extinct though.

[Silly gameAr]

Every AC game released on the PS3 has had at least a 4 or 5 gig install...

[Summons75]

I've always hated mandatory installs, I think they're stupid and should be option even though there are good reasons why you should install a game (and I do most of the time when it's optional) but we should never be forced to do something we don't want too.

Anywho, I agree with everyone else 4.5 isn't really small compared to other installs.

[2v1]

this is no problem! ps3 comes whit harddrive since the start

[Iceman X]

Gran Turismo 5 is the biggest install of any PS3 game atm, my install is 33gb. The more you play Gran Turismo 5 the bigger the install gets. The install start at 8gb but then grows. It will probably cap at something.

[medziarz]

awesome :D Sony went for a lot of numeric records this gen :D

[Octo1]

Well its a good thing I ordered a 1TB HDD from Newegg. Hope to get it today.

[Kinger8938]

Didnt i read halo 4 requires 8gb for the online portion? I maybe wrong, eother way i dont see the issue, all my pc games require installs