It was recently revealed that the Xbox 360 version of the much-anticipated Final Fantasy XIII will come on three disks. Naturally, there is some outrage, but really, this is nothing new. As Kotaku mentioned, Final Fantasy VII on the original PlayStation came on 3 disks as well, along with Blue Dragon on the Xbox 360. Hell, Lost Odyssey on the 360 had four disks.
And all of these are Japanese roleplaying games (JRPGs). It's pretty much natural for JRPGs to come out with multiple disks, and RPGs in general (the recent Mass Effect 2 on 360 came out on 2 disks).
Some anger to this is, again, natural, but that got me thinking: When is it too much?
Games now are pushing their systems to new limits with high definition graphics, tons of voice work, large areas to explore, and many things to do. Developers on the PlayStation 3 are given a lot of freedom with the amount of data the Blu-Ray disks can hold, but porting a PS3 game over to the 360, which seems to be the case for FF XIII, that would mean multiple DVDs for Xbox gamers.
Is it developers/publishers at fault for not fitting a big game onto just one disk? I was still surprised years ago to find that Grand Theft Auto IV was going to be on a singular disk for the Xbox 360 version. One DVD for that massive game. Granted, developers Rockstar has been known to really push systems and compress big games like the GTA series onto one disk: They managed to fit a big GTA-experience on a little PSP with little UMD disks.
But honestly: Do gamers care? Again, there has been several games that have come out on several disks, and there hasn't been much objection about it. As long as the gamers enjoyed their experience, does it really matter how many disks was required to hold it all?
I think we're OK with multiple-disk games right now since not every single big new game release had to go to that option. A multi-disk game only comes one every so often. Had every big release come on several disks, will gamers start to really throw a fit?
Imagine every-other-month or so when we get that one (or more) blockbuster video game everyone is looking for came in 3 disks, or even more. I think that would be a little frustrating, but would the gamers really care?
Though, I'm sure many would rather go for the multi-disk route rather than what's going on with the PS3: Mandatory installs.
On the PlayStation 3, several big games required an install to the PS3's hard drive (this is due to, i believe, is the fact that blu-ray drives are slower/reads slower than dvd drives or something). Having these installs meaning more waiting instead of playing your game as soon as you get home to play it. Games like Metal Gear Solid 4 had a required game install, and it's been just mentioned that the much anticipated Heavy rain will require a 4.2 GB install.
I think it's safe to say that many gamers would very well rather pop in a disk and instantly play the game they picked up and switch disks later instead of having to wait for their game to install and just play.
So while the PS3 is able to hold large games on Blu-Ray, several may require an install you have to wait for. The Xbox 360 however may also have some big games, but it will require several disks that you have to switch.
Which do you prefer?
