XBox One Game Install Benefits

[M_Lyons10]

I am not looking to flame bait or anything here, but after waiting over an hour for a game to install enough to play it, I'm wondering if anyone sees a benefit to this install requirement over playing the game from disc.

 

I know that the plan initially was that we were not going to need the disc again after the initial install, and that was great, but with that scrapped, what benefits still exist?

 

What are everyone's thoughts?  I really like my XBox One, but am thinking it preferable at this point for Microsoft to change their strategy and play the game from disc rather than require someone eager to play a game to sit and wait an hour or more to install a game before they are able to play it.  It is really quite frustrating.  LOL

 

So, are there any benefits that I'm missing, or am I right in understanding that they all disapeared when they made their 180...?

 

I am hoping to have a rational discussion and don't want this to become a childish argument, so please no trolling.  :)

[AWilliams87]

I can't get my maximum bandwidth over the Xbox One for some reason. Games should be downloading a lot faster than this on my 50meg connection. I started downloading NBA 2k, went to bed for 7 hours, woke up, and it progressed only 17%. That's not right.

[Brendeth]

PS3 had mandatory installs for certain games and now both next-gen consoles do, I guess this just come with the territory of using blu-ray. It's a lot of data on those discs and reading it must take time, so I'm guessing that using the hard-drive must reduce the times required to access the data due to a better read speed.

That's my take on it at least.

[The_Decryptor Veteran]

I can't get my maximum bandwidth over the Xbox One for some reason. Games should be downloading a lot faster than this on my 50meg connection. I started downloading NBA 2k, went to bed for 7 hours, woke up, and it progressed only 17%. That's not right.

The CDN can be randomly slow, last night my 360 was downloading an update and I measured the speed on the router, was only using 1/3rd of my downstream bandwidth.

Downloading Forza on my One took a whole day.

[Blackhearted]

I can't get my maximum bandwidth over the Xbox One for some reason. Games should be downloading a lot faster than this on my 50meg connection. I started downloading NBA 2k, went to bed for 7 hours, woke up, and it progressed only 17%. That's not right.

 

That's just how xbox live is. It rarely maxes out my connection too, and it's only 15mbit.

[Woelfel]

To answer your question, running your game off a disc vs. off your harddrive is much slower.

[Alladaskill17]

Both the Xbox One and the PS4 require game installs, this is because the amount of data and the read speeds of the drives just isn't fast enough. You simply have to install the games to play them and have a "good experience". I don't like it, especially since my Xbox One HDD cannot be replaced, and who knows what sort of requirements will be imposed on the external HDD coming later. Installing isn't really a "feature", but a necessity. 

[FiB3R]

What game took an hour to install, before you could play it?

Are you sure you just didn't miss the notification letting you know you can now play?

[trooper11]

I think the short answer is as others have said: Bluray

Sony discovered this issue last gen with the ps3. Its still a problem now with both new consoles using it.

The long answer is that there are probably many other little reasons that its better to do that going forward. PC games have done this for years even though they still use dvds, which are much faster at moving data than bluray drives.

As far as dl times for games, that's a factor of the large game sizes. If a game like NBA 2K14 is 40+ GB in size, its going to take quite some time to download or install from a disc.

However, I believe that MS can improve the install times, since you don't have 1 hour install times for pc games. Also, game developers should be constructing their games to take advantage of the features MS built in to allow games to be playable well before they finish installing or downloading. I don't think MS actually requires all games to offer this, but that can reduce the waiting to a much more acceptable level.

[AWilliams87]

I think the short answer is as others have said: Bluray

Sony discovered this issue last gen with the ps3. Its still a problem now with both new consoles using it.

The long answer is that there are probably many other little reasons that its better to do that going forward. PC games have done this for years even though they still use dvds, which are much faster at moving data than bluray drives.

As far as dl times for games, that's a factor of the large game sizes. If a game like NBA 2K14 is 40+ GB in size, its going to take quite some time to download or install from a disc.

However, I believe that MS can improve the install times, since you don't have 1 hour install times for pc games. Also, game developers should be constructing their games to take advantage of the features MS built in to allow games to be playable well before they finish installing or downloading. I don't think MS actually requires all games to offer this, but that can reduce the waiting to a much more acceptable level.

I'm on a 50 Meg connection. The games shouldn't take this long to download. I use to download PC games all the time. It seems as it's using only 1/10 my available bandwidth on the Xbox One.

[trooper11]

I'm on a 50 Meg connection. The games shouldn't take this long to download. I use to download PC games all the time. It seems as it's using only 1/10 my available bandwidth on the Xbox One.

Is 1/10th the speed that everyone else is seeing when downloading games?

I haven't clocked my speeds yet, but I will to see how it compares. I have a much more modest, 8 Meg connection, and I have not downloaded the monster sized games yet. The largest game I have downloaded was the NBA Live demo which was 8-9GB in size. It didn't seem to take a ton of time, but again, I didn't clock it.

If its a systemic issue for everyone, then maybe its a problem at MS' server end, perhaps demand is giving them an issue right now.

[M_Lyons10]

Oh, alright. I didn't realize the PS4 required game installs as well. That's good to know. And now that everyone mentions it, it does also make sense that Bluray would play a role in this requirement.

To answer the question, it was Call Of Duty Ghosts, and I was glued to the tv waiting for the install to let me play the game. I didn't miss it, and as it was installing from disc, I expected it to install much more quickly. LOL

Thanks everyone for answering my question so thoroughly. Hopefully they are able to do something to speed this up some...

[FiB3R]

Ah, I haven't installed that, so wouldn't know, but that is pretty ######ing bad :(

Was there a big update to download? I know Forza has a 6GB update to install before you can do anything.

Has it taken over an hour for anybody else? It just seems unusually long.

[+InsaneNutter MVC]

Ah, I haven't installed that, so wouldn't know, but that is pretty ****ing bad :(

Was there a big update to download? I know Forza has a 6GB update to install before you can do anything.

Has it taken over an hour for anybody else? It just seems unusually long.

The Killer Instinct 3gb update took 2 hours to download on my 125meg connection, yet when i actually downloaded Forza the whole 32gb game (or what ever size it is) took just over an hour.

Xbox Live does appear to be slowing down now more people have console, the Dead Rising 3 demo which is 7gb took me about 3 hours to download on Saturday.

[macrosslover]

First off to all of you with 50 meg, 100 meg, and 125 meg connections I hate you.  That said Xbox Live speeds have been inconsistent to me recently too.  I downloaded the Dead Rising 3 demo and it took me 2 hours or so relatively quick all things considered on my 15-30 meg (yeah power boost) connection.  When I download small game updates though it seems like they take forever now when before they will be almost instant.

 

Nothing is wrong with my internet because I come to the computer and a torrent flies so I can't explain it. 

[George P Global Moderator]

It's probably just high usage, live isn't just the 2million+ new Xbox One users but all the old 360 users as well.  We should also take into account any WP and Windows Xbox live games in use to.  At least it hasn't crashed fully or anything.

[Woelfel]

It's probably just high usage, live isn't just the 2million+ new Xbox One users but all the old 360 users as well.  We should also take into account any WP and Windows Xbox live games in use to.  At least it hasn't crashed fully or anything.

 

Hopefully they get their servers figured out. This is also a reason why I want predownloading abilities. I'm not caring so much on the install side taking long, but download-side, yea, I want that.

[ryoohki]

A 15mbits connection should give you about 120meg/min or just a little less, steam on pc used not to max out my connection but since a year it's always top speed. Imho you should top you're speed since its a paying subscribe service. Ms and Sony has the power to do it

[spaceelf]

The main benefit of HD installs is in speed and latency.  You're likely looking at a 250ms seek time for data on a BR drive, vs around 5ms for a hard drive.  Aside from the obvious (transfer speed differences) that's every time you want anything....you could get several chunks of the data you need before the BR disc has even acquired one.

 

When you've got games using 3GB+  that causes a much bigger problem than last gen.  Streaming is unrealistic now....given the load time issues with many games on the 360/PS3 it wasn't much better then.

 

(I think both of the new systems are using 6x BR drives, making the transfer speed issue even more striking.)

[Mr.XXIV]

A 15mbits connection should give you about 120meg/min or just a little less, steam on pc used not to max out my connection but since a year it's always top speed. Imho you should top you're speed since its a paying subscribe service. Ms and Sony has the power to do it

 

Okay, how exactly did you measure that, dude? Don't you mean 120Mbps to 15Mb?  :/

[spaceelf]

Okay, how exactly did you measure that, dude? Don't you mean 120Mbps to 15Mb?  :/

15MB, but still yes.

[freak180]

if Thats the case why not go from disc to to like external storage? Like instead of putting games on disc why not store them on Flash drives or something else. Kind of like the old cartridge days.. What do you think?

[spaceelf]

if Thats the case why not go from disc to to like external storage? Like instead of putting games on disc why not store them on Flash drives or something else. Kind of like the old cartridge days.. What do you think?

Because discs cost a few cents.  Flash is considerably more expensive.

[Brian M. Veteran]

Does the XB1 allow you to start playing while you download?

[spaceelf]

Does the XB1 allow you to start playing while you download?

Yeah, standard feature on the new consoles.  I've heard you may have to have a good chunk of it downloaded first, but it likely depends on the game.