Developer duplicates data due to slow PS3 load times

[Stoo]

but thats part of the point - they wouldnt be *solving* the problem, just working around it...but they are not developing windows here, so that wont do

They could put in an option to install on the hard disc to improve load times, but that is only going to work for a few users who dont have many games or movies on the drive so it is still preferable to get the optimum load times direct from the drive.

Erm, the system is designed from the outset to have and use a HDD for games use, it's hardly the system's fault if the developers can't be arsed to use it optimally

If users wish to store tens of gigabytes of movies on the HDD at the expense of game storage, then the system is designed to easily swap out the internal drive for a higher capacity one, but to not bother to develop the game properly because of a tiny segment of users is well, dumb.

2-3GB's of the most commonly used data would completely omit it from being an issue, and out of even 20GB, it's quite a small amount.

The PC version of Oblivion is designed to be used with a HDD, the 360 version will take advantage of one if it can find one, both are just as likely to be storing lots of files on the HDD's, but somehow it's only an issue for PS3 owners (who as I said can simply replace the drive with a larger model if they so wish)?

Like I said, develop it properly and it's not an issue.

Ahh, but that makes it harder to needlessly moan about the PS3 doesn't it..

[Speedo]

Ahh, but that makes it harder to needlessly moan about the PS3 doesn't it..

Hit the nail on the head there

[kalniel]

Like I said, develop it properly and it's not an issue.

That's a bit uncalled for IMHO.

The developers have no reason not to develop it properly - the PS3 is going to have an enormous user base at some stage and any self-respecting team would want to be known for good products on the system.

Niether can you say that a team like Bethsoft are incapable - whatever you may think about their recent games, they have produced better products than many outfits far bigger than themselves. Then compare the technical ability and stability of Oblivion to NWN2 or Gothic 3 - both smaller yet far buggier games - *and* they're only PC as opposed to multi-platform.

The only conclusion you can draw from this is that developing for the PS3 is significantly different from developing for the PC and X360. Well, hardly a surprise. It would not be the first time I have heard developers wishing that Sony produced easier dev tools either. Sure, you can tell them to lump it and just use their expertise to get around the problems, and they will, it just means they will complain about the development going from a PC/X360 game to a PS3. More time getting around problems/differences means less time producing content and polish, which is a bad thing.

[badass]

I wonder why both the X360 and the PS3 dont reserve a couple of Gb on their HDD's that are marked as volatile - i.e. they can be wiped as they wish by any game thats in the drive.
This would avoid the data duplication, boost loading times once the data has been cached etc.
Imagine you have a game that as its loading data off the DVD/Blu-Ray aswell as loading it into memory is caching it on the HDD so it only needs to load off the optical media once per session - then only the new stuff each level needs to be loaded from the optical media and the rest can come off the HDD. In fact while your playing the game, since they are multi core they can be caching stuff for the next level in the background onto the HDD when they are not needing data from the optical media.