Strauss Zelnick, boss of Rockstar parent company Take-Two, has defended the company’s decision not to release GTA 6 on a physical disc, insisting when it comes to big games, discs “don’t really make sense for the consumer.”
To be fair, a disc version of GTA 6 would not make any sense anyway. There’s no possible way that game would fit in any modern disc format, so the “disc” would just be a download with extra steps.
But then it becomes kind of a pain in the ass when you reach the “end” of one of the discs.
I remember Mass Effect 2 being split into two discs, but it was impossible to know which missions/planets were part of Disc 1 and which were part of Disc 2. You could be out exploring, finishing up missions, and bam get hit with a “change to disc 2” popup. So you switch to the other disc for a while, only to be greeted with a “switch to disc 1” at some point to finish a quest or to move the story along.
Discs are very slow and games need to be installed to a local storage anyways. What stops me from eventually switching the disc and installing it from three discs instead of a single one?
At 100 Dollars they could afford more than a disc. Even if not everything fits into the physical media, at least some of the game would be playable without internet connection. It makes no sense to you, but it makes sense to those who want it.
The biggest issue is that most game studios fail to launch a game that isn’t full of bugs, often breaking. If they didn’t constantly scramble across an arbitrary launch date every time then we might actually be able to buy a fully-functioning game on disc. The first day you fire up a game there is some update to fix bugs.
To be fair, a disc version of GTA 6 would not make any sense anyway. There’s no possible way that game would fit in any modern disc format, so the “disc” would just be a download with extra steps.
Games have come on multiple discs for 30 years.
But then it becomes kind of a pain in the ass when you reach the “end” of one of the discs.
I remember Mass Effect 2 being split into two discs, but it was impossible to know which missions/planets were part of Disc 1 and which were part of Disc 2. You could be out exploring, finishing up missions, and bam get hit with a “change to disc 2” popup. So you switch to the other disc for a while, only to be greeted with a “switch to disc 1” at some point to finish a quest or to move the story along.
IT’S SO MUCH WORK! :rolleyes:
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade on Amiga came on 10 floppies back in the day. You do what you gotta do.
Discs are very slow and games need to be installed to a local storage anyways. What stops me from eventually switching the disc and installing it from three discs instead of a single one?
At 100 Dollars they could afford more than a disc. Even if not everything fits into the physical media, at least some of the game would be playable without internet connection. It makes no sense to you, but it makes sense to those who want it.
But then the disc can still act as a physical representation of the license that can be loaned or transferred to someone else.
The biggest issue is that most game studios fail to launch a game that isn’t full of bugs, often breaking. If they didn’t constantly scramble across an arbitrary launch date every time then we might actually be able to buy a fully-functioning game on disc. The first day you fire up a game there is some update to fix bugs.