As digital content continues to expand and monopolize the physical gaming market, one begins to think; why is my fairly new console not equipped for this growing digital world?
The PlayStation 4 and Xbox One were released to consumers far after the digital content market began to rise and take over the industry. How is it that these two consoles of the new generation do not include at least a terabyte of storage space? Is this a strategy to force consumers to purchase external hard drives to keep up? Some would say, yes.
Regardless of whether you are purchasing physical or digital games, you need a significant amount of storage space to install them. Take Batman: Arkham Knight for example. In order to play the physical copy of the game, you need 49 GB of storage with an additional 5 GB of space for updates.
Keep in mind, both the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 only include 500 GB of storage. Therefore, you need to forfeit 11% of your total console memory to download one game. If you wish to delete the game when you’re finished with your playthrough in order to get back that 11%, you will pay for it later in time and convenience. Since, in order to replay the game in the future, it will take a significant amount of time to reinstall. This takes away from the replay value of any game, especially those that require the most storage.
This is a reoccurring frustration in the console gaming community. As a gamer who works from 8 a.m to 5 p.m, my gaming time is limited. Yesterday, I visited my local Gamestop to purchase Batman: Arkham Knight and when I came home to anxiously cram in at least two hours of gaming time, I was greeted with a seven hour install. This means that I could not play a game that I was excited for. Rather than be happy about my new purchase, I was angry and extremely frustrated.
Something certainly needs to be done about this. Yes, we know that the PC gaming community would laugh at our peasant status, claiming that we should have never expected more from a console in the first place, but that is an unfair statement. There once was a time where you did not need to wait seven hours for an install. Yes, overall functionality of these games were less efficient compared to the current generation, but regardless, it is still a ridiculous imposition placed onto loyal fans of the console industry.
This is not the first time I have encountered such a dilemma. When I popped in Dragon Age: Inquisition and Dying Light for the first time, I was greeted with the same problem. In addition to the time waiting on installs, I simply did not have the space to keep up with the growing PlayStation library that is less than two years old.
I find myself deleting games from my dashboard and since I never have the time to wait to reinstall them later, they typically sit there until I have a free weekend, which is mostly never. What happened to the days where you could just play whatever game you wanted in the spur of the moment? Now everything needs to be prioritized, marginalized and thought out before hand.
I decided to hunt for an external hard drive with a terabyte of storage with the intention of purchasing one when I had the funds. Turns out, external hard drives at regular off-brand market price go for $129.00. That is nearly 30% of the cost of an entirely new console. How could this happen? How did both Microsoft and Sony not solve this issue before launch?
If you are anything like me, you want to get your hands on as many fantastic games as humanly possible. Unfortunately for all of us, the current consoles do not allow us to do that anymore. Rather than go crazy on a summer sale, we have to rationalize and think, “do I even have enough storage for this?” This is a large problem that needs to be addressed.
I would suggest “voting with your wallet,” by not purchasing these external hard drives forced upon us, but we all know that is impossible. If you want to play any upcoming game, we will have to sacrifice and make an additional purchase that should never have needed to be made in the first place.
I’m disappointed in the console gaming market. I’m frustrated that I cannot play games right after launch anymore. I am angry that I have no choice but to make a ridiculous purchase for something that should have been included day one. Hm. Maybe that’s why midnight launches have been moved to 9 p.m, to leave time for installs! (Speculation).
This is not the gaming industry that I remember growing up with. Sony and Microsoft never encompassed business models similar to Nintendo, which required gamers to purchase new editions to keep up with the market. The greed of the industry is beginning to really show its claws and as a lifetime console gamer, I am considering moving over to the PC gaming community. You got me on this one, master race.
