ps3 question for likely buyer

how do the games work for the ps3? i keep hearing and reading about installing the games on your ps3. i own a 360 and was wondering if its like installing to harddrive feature the 360 has so the game can load quicker and run smoother, or do you need to install every game for the ps3 to play?

Thats exactly it, you load the game to your harddrive and that decreases the loading speed. Some games have mandatory download and others areoptional. It can take quite a while especially when your excited to play but its not a huge deal.

Either way i would suggest to install every game if you can. cuts down on wear and tear, its quieter, and faster.-ICON-

how do the games work for the ps3? i keep hearing and reading about installing the games on your ps3. i own a 360 and was wondering if its like installing to harddrive feature the 360 has so the game can load quicker and run smoother, or do you need to install every game for the ps3 to play?

skidudeone27

The PS3 installs bits and pieces of games not the entire game like the 360 does. These bits and pieces decrease load times and they are much smaller than the 360 games, since it is not the whole game. Some games require mandatory installs while some games like Modern Warfare 2 don't.

how do the games work for the ps3? i keep hearing and reading about installing the games on your ps3. i own a 360 and was wondering if its like installing to harddrive feature the 360 has so the game can load quicker and run smoother, or do you need to install every game for the ps3 to play?

skidudeone27

EDIT: Not the full game is installed but large chunks of data on the disk are.. and it makes you wonder why you're watching snake (in MGS4) smoke a cigarette while a game takes 10 mins + to install. It's more than "bits of pieces" like another user said!

The PS3 installs bits and pieces of games not the entire game like the 360 does. These bits and pieces decrease load times and they are much smaller than the 360 games, since it is not the whole game. Some games require mandatory installs while some games like Modern Warfare 2 don't.

JasonDarksavior

Uh, for every game that has a 4-5gb installation, with the exception of MGS4, the game is essentially installing the entire thing to the hard drive.

Only games I've seen that do otherwise are the Insomniac games (Resistance, Ratchet & Clank) that produce a smaller 500mb'ish file to use for cacheing common files into for speeding loads up on stuff that gets reused a lot. (like the character models and weapons), and inFamous, which starts a small file cache, which eventually builds up to a 1.3gb file.

It makes me wish PS3 has a dedicated cache in the HD like the 360 does, one space all the games have to share, rather than all of them thinking they're special and all deserve their own space on your HD, which is made more-so annoying on the PS3 for the fact that game patch data is typically bundled as a same file as the cache/install, meaning if you wanted to free some space, you'll have to reinstall as well as repatch the game you removed next time you go to play it.

(and god, some of the patches go in the 500mb+ range, largest I've seen being Eye of Judgement which literally has a 3.5gb patch)