The reason why there are mandatory installations for PS3 games

Bothered by the fact that Capcom‘s Devil May Cry 4 had a 20-minute install time in your PS3 console? Curious to know why Lost Planet: Extreme Condition required 5 GB just for installing it? Well, most of the games in market don’t have this daunting feature. It’s really related to the disc formats such as DVD and Blu-ray. Find out why after the jump!

Frustrated with what Capcom‘s Devil May Cry 4 (PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PC) and Lost Planet: Extreme Condition had to make you go through just to play it? Well, it really is quite bothersome to install 5GB of a game to the hard disk and wait for 20 minutes for everything to finish. The reason behind this is the difference between the DVD and Blu-ray.

The issue here is that both discs are treated differently by the console through reading the data found within. DVD drives read discs at varying speeds, while Blu-ray discs are read at a specific speed. So if existing DVD formats are placed into the Blu-ray, do expect to wait awhile. Imagine the size of the DVD in a Blu-ray disc being read at a constant speed.

Now, in order to resolve this issue, installation has become key. If data is placed in the hard disk, it can be read at a faster rate. It does greatly reduce the amount needed for loading the game, but you have to wait out the installation process first.

Another solution found to be useful is to copy a game’s data on the disc over and over so that the drive has more areas to look for the same exact data. Bethesda Softworks executive producer Todd Howard confirmed the use of this technique for the upcoming title, Fallout 3 (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC).

Well, what’s notable from this situation is that with Unreal Tournament 3, they have made the installation process entire optional. Even if Epic Games highly recommends doing it, they won’t order or require you to.

What do guys think? Feel free to comment on the space below.

Via MTV Blog