Xbox Series X Development Chief – There Is No Silver Bullet That Makes Games’ File Sizes Smaller

Microsoft’s Jason Ronald says reducing file sizes is a “challenge” but something they are “working hard on.”

[ApocalypseShadow]

There may not be a magic bullet to shrink file sizes. But there is a magic bullet to hold them. It's why it was needed for better music, video and bigger game sizes during the 6th, 7th, 8th and the upcoming 9th generation:

A DISC.

We seen how much better a game can be over cartridge with better music sound and better video. We have seen bigger, more complex games held on them. We have seen how not having enough space lead to DLC and micro transactions galore. It's perfect when you don't have great internet, you have internet data caps or no internet.

We know WHO to thank for this but I'm not going to mention it.

[Fishy Fingers]

I'm confused as to your point?

Are you saying just have the games on a disc rather than installing? Because even if the storage was avaliable on some multi-layer BR, the read/write speeds would completely negate the reason the consoles are moving to nvme, it's too slow.

[ApocalypseShadow]

Take the Blu-ray out of Series X and see what happens. It would be the lowest selling Xbox ever or close to the original's sales.

HDDs and SSDs can hold games. But you NEED the internet to download the games. You don't need the internet with a high capacity disc.

And you can thank Sony for pushing for it on consoles. And if you use streaming, you still need internet. Internet is not the magic bullet that covers EVERYBODY. But since you're an Xbox fan claiming to be a PC gamer, I'm not surprised.

[--Onilink--]

For someone that is speaking so confidently on the subject, you sure are wrong haha.

Reading from a disc is possibly the slowest possible method for a game to load data. There is a reason why every game now, even if it comes in a disc gets installed on to hard drive

[Kiwi66]

In regards to discs the first console to use them was the Phillips CD-i in 1991 followed in 1992 with the NEC TurboGrafx- CD and the Atari Jaguar in 1993

[DerfDerf]

Your ignorance is next level.

[ElementX]

Apocalypse at it again... total ignorance like always. A disc is very slow which is why even disc games are installed.

[amazinglover]

You have absolutely no idea what you talking about. Cartridges can hold just as much data as a disc. Only reason consoles went disc over cartridge is cost.

You can spit out a million disc for dirt cheap compared to cartridges.

[Looper]

Go have a sit down grandpa. Thanks for the war stories but we don't need your ramblings right now.

[ApocalypseShadow]

Kids these days.

No idea what exclusives means. No idea what gameplay means. Playing up a paid service that kills game sales over physical and think teraflops and 4K is the full answer that makes games fun. I guess Sony and Nintendo dominating a trillion dollar failure of a company will just keep happening worldwide. While you think microsoft is going to take over other company's hardware with streaming. Lol. Like Amazon,Apple,Google, Nintendo,etc will allow it.

You guys never learn.

[chiefJohn117]

You 0 have clue what you are talking about.
Clueless as usual

[StarLink]

In your head everything you just typed might have sounded intelligent but it ended in failure.

Instead of dancing around just come out and say what you really want to say instead of acting all pretentious like you always do. I'll help you start... "MS bad, Sony good"

[THC CELL]

Shrink games by letting us delete portions of completed games or separate multiplayer

[-Foxtrot]

The multiplayer should be separated

They require more updates then single player

[RamRod88]

You can already do that on x1 with several games. This will become more common next gen for both system likely.

[--Onilink--]

Modern Warfare is a good and bad example of how to do it. Since Warzone, Spec Ops, MP and the Campaign are all separate downloads.

Though for some reason, every now and then and update will only happen when you redownload an entire pack from the store instead of automatically

[Princess_Pilfer]

On a similar note, let me pick which language/s I download in. I only need english and very occasionally I'll want japanese, but *usually* the extra languages are just ~10-15 gigs of wasted space. Even if it's not the defualt way to download and I have to go find a setting somewhere, that's fine, it'll still help a lot.

[StarLink]

This for me would be the closest and best solution for this. I saw that this was something it wa seeing worked on so I hope it gets executed. Split the single player and multiplayer into two separate downloads.

[borneFROMblood]

Sony already confirmed file sizes will be smaller, because of the SSD.
Cause before, in games like SpiderMan PS4, objects like mailboxes, were placed over the map 400 times.
With the SSD and "no-seeks" feature, they will need just 1 file and to be used for all those objects.
Go back and listen to Road to PS5 video, they explain that there. Quite exciting!

[rainslacker]

It's possible to conserve space this way. Basically removing asset packages, which is the most common way to use data in games nowadays as it speeds of hard drive transfers, and thus, we get loading screens. Discrete assets can certainly reduce space by as much as 20% in some cases. Smarter use of asset creation and the parts used to create them also will help a lot. Compression can only go so far, but having a dedicated hardware decompressor does allow for higher compression rates in real time.

[--Onilink--]

True, but then again, sort of the expectation that even Cerny mentioned is that this will help out developers in putting an even more varied amount of assets. So I wouldnt necessarily expect a major difference in size there if they do take advantage of that

[AnubisG]

Exactly. Games will get a lot bigger and we are getting less than 1TB SSD in the PS5 for example. 2-3 games and it will be full. Good luck with that shit.

[gamer7804]

Better have those 4tb expansion cards ready at launch.

[anonymousfan]

Itll cost a pretty penny for sure :(

[3-4-5]

* Disc is fine.....Just house the disc within a cartridge, and make a disc that allows up to 400gb on it.

[--Onilink--]

No its not. Because a disc reader is exponentially slower to read data.

And unless you have discs and the blu ray player actually capable of writing on to a disc, updates or expansions would be impossible since some things would be on the disc and others on the hdd.

There is a reason why even now even when a game comes in a disc, it needs to be fully installed to the hdd

[RosweeSon]

Yeah tell that to Nintendo who consistently can get their old games on memory cards 😂 their file sizes are ridiculously small. Different times and all that I get it but there’s defo something that can be done with those file sizes they vary massively and it’s always the same yearly churned companies who clear the 50-100gb file sizes are they better games absolutely not

[caddytrek]

I feel like we can make a case that compression is "the magic bullet".

Using Zen based CPU's even the heaviest forms of compression will be viable. Is it a brand new technology? No, far from it. But with powerful CPU's and ultra fast SSD compression will be one of the biggest improvements of the next generation.

[Niv]

PS5 has 100GB bdxl

[cyclindk]

I’d like to see some sort of cartridge return. With option for full install to SSD if so desired.

[Tzuno]

Mmmm yes there is, at least digital, you can offer the option for the buyer to select only one language, many games contain all language audio and text that can take a significant amount of gigabytes, so there is a way, same goes with the choice of videos 1080p vs 4k. Not everyone needs that load of garbage, give choice.