The Consolization of PCs

Hi fellas,There's one thing I have just been wondering for a long time and never thought about posting it before now. Why don't PC games play like console games. Hear me out. While consoles are now going towards the ''install game to HDD'' method, I've always been wondering why PC games don't play off the disc directly, like consoles.I only have a handful of games for PC installed at a time. These 5-6 games take up about 50gb of HDD space. Sure 50gb seems like nothing nowadays, but games will get bigger and bigger in size eventually. Wouldn't it be great to just pop in a PC game disc in the drive and play right away, as opposed to installing the whole 6gb of game data to the HDD, still requiring the disc to be in the drive while playing (unless you crack it, but only bad people do that, eh? ;-)).Most games in the past used to give you a choice between Minimal install and Full install, but you still had to install them. I'd like to just insert the disc, have a window pop up saying ''Play Game Now'' and just get into it. All the settings, saves and patches could be stored on the HDD just like current consoles. Sure, they may still give you the option to do a Full install, for people who want faster load times.I'd like to know your thoughts on this. Why hasn't this been done before? Is it because too many people have too different hardware and the disc speeds would vary too much? I dont see how that's different from people having weaker graphic cards than others.Discuss!The Consolization of PCs
Games aren't played off the discs because that is slower and worse.The Consolization of PCs
Well, in this area, the consoles are coming PC'ized. (lol) I think its because discs are slow and will result in slower load times and slow downs when reading off the disc during gameplay. Why do you think this is happening on consoles?
''I've always been wondering why PC games don't play off the disc directly, like consoles.''err you really want to have the console load time? For example 1-2min when you load star wars tfu on the x360.
I don't mind slower load times, if it can save me the gigs and gigs of space on my HDD. Consoles aren't doing that bad in load times.
i made a similar topic a few months ago but the idea was very much dismissed.i wouldnt mind it though..id like to have the option. obhiously something like fallout 3, oblivion or NWN2....i wouldnt dream of running off a disc (though again the option would be nice). but somethign like colin Mcrae rally 2005...i really dont see why i need to install that. my disc drive is much faster than any disc drive in a previous gen console and would make absolute mincemeat of that game in terms of loading. PC is about choice...so why dont devs give us the option of playing from disc? since multiplat is the future (for better or worse) devs have to optimize their game for loading off the disc anyway. i cant think of anything fundimentally wrong with the PC that would stop a dev from using the disc to load game data on a PC.still with DD taking over...its probably going to be a moot issue anyway.
I'm not poor and can afford a good size hard drive so I will stick with my faster load times and installs thank you very much.
Most people want to use up the HDD space... faster load times, performance is everything.Hard drives are SO cheap these days. You can get terabyte drives cheap as chips
I think they tried that with Halo 2 on PC...
The consoles also lose detail and other PC quality visuals with their limited memory and compromises to be able to play off the disc at an acceptable speed of data transfer so as to not interrupt gameplay.It would be even harder to feed a PC all the detailed data it needs without hitches and pop in..I'd rather have the game install onto the hard drive and get all the performance and benefits of the PC.
Dude, hard drives are cheap as chips nowdays. You can buy a 500GB for almost $100AUD. GTA IV is only going to require 18GB and Crysis is only like 6GB. You say games will get bigger and bigger but the same is true for hard drives. I don't like having to go find the CD/DVD every time I want to play a game- it gets kind of annoying when you have a decent sized library of games. Besides, as others have said, DVD drives have a much slower transfer rate than an HDD does, so you're gonna get hit with slower loading times.
Aw man, I got all worked up thinking this was gonna be a rant on how console games are ruining PC games thanks to multiplatforming. You have disappointed hedgehogenstein, sir!
am I honestly the only one here who doesn't care about installations? i can live with any load time as long as it's under 5 minutes or something. in fact, i find installations a little troublesome. when there's too much space being taken up, some games gotta go and my hard drives (both PC and console ones) are being used for more than just gaming.
Its not just about load times, but slowdowns/glitches during gameplay. I don't think it would be a bad thing to have the option of a a more limited install, if someone wanted to sacriface load time for disk space, while still being able to load data off the HD during gameplay, but the savings probably won't be very big.
if i wanted to wait for my games to load i'd buy a console. :roll:optical drives are much slower compared to hardrives and also the data on a game disc is usually compressed. Also, switching discs (for some large games) is also not my style.why limit yourself when a decent harddrive costs so little.
Patches and custom content are a lot easier to do when the whole package is installed on the PC itself. AND unlike consoles PC games are utilized to run off the HDD and make good use of SATA speeds.
having the altough i do hear ya just pooping it in and playing would be nice to do sometimes i wouldnt want it all the time as then im forced to have my disk in all the time :(. and there are simply many advantages of having the data on the hard drive faster load times among other things and with harddrives prices being so cheap u cant rely complain about space.
You all make good points, but these are things I knew ever since games were installed from floppies...I guess playing on the fly would only work on older games the PC could handle easier. When I look at my collection of PC games, and I feel like playing one I havent played in a while, I always tell myself ''Bah, I'd have to install it and everything... too much trouble.''
eh HDD aren't that expensive and you can buy a huge external for the nongames
Sounds like you're just lazy...