Game Size

[RCBH928]

As you know I just downloaded RAGE which is a 700mb+ game for iOS. You do realize thats bigger than any N64 game, same as all psx games, and close to most Dreamcast games like Code Veronica and more.

I think developers do not care to make games in reasonable size any more. When you look back at games on SNES and NES you can't believe that such huge games like Final Fantasy is like 4mb or that Mario 64 is like 30mb! Metroid Prime on GC is 900mb, compared ti RAGE!

What went wrong? Does developers not care about size any more? I mean we still have bandwidth limit, and our devices are limited too(iphone+ipad=64Gb max!) also early xbox is 20GB. Wii has none I think...

its funny how you download a simple platformer's demo and its 80mb, while its just one level or so. Any one care to add to this subject?

[vlame]

wii is 1gb nand, now up the 33gb (32gb SDHC+ nand)

most of the time demos are the full game but locked.

[AppleQueso]

high bitrate audio, fmvs, etc.
That accounts for a good chunk of space.

Hell iirc the only reason games like Final Fantasy VII were on 3 discs was because of the FMVs.

[KillerJuan77]

high bitrate audio, fmvs, etc.
That accounts for a good chunk of space.

Hell iirc the only reason games like Final Fantasy VII were on 3 discs was because of the FMVs.

FMV's are usually gigantic, just look at some FMV based games:





And consider this, those aren't that big, the Saturn version of Phantasmagoria had 8 CD's and there was an FMV game called The Black Dahlia (With Dennis Hopper ) that came with 8 CD's.

[Lodestar]

Developers are just utilizing the extra leg room. Most people can afford the HD space, so they figure - why compromise the quality of our product for the sake of preserving space? Years down the line, people will thank them for not downgrading their textures, movies, sound, etc.

Also, I don't imagine it's very hard to exceed the size of an N64 game - the biggest one I have is only 65 MB unzipped (Conker's Bad Fur Day).

[KillerJuan77]

Developers are just utilizing the extra leg room. Most people can afford the HD space, so they figure - why compromise the quality of our product for the sake of preserving space? Years down the line, people will thank them for not downgrading their textures, movies, sound, etc.

Also, I don't imagine it's very hard to exceed the size of an N64 game - the biggest one I have is only 65 MB unzipped (Conker's Bad Fur Day).

Conker is only 65 MB? That's shocking, considering the amount of dialogue, music, sound effects, textures and lighting effects.

[isiolia]

What went wrong? Does developers not care about size any more? I mean we still have bandwidth limit, and our devices are limited too(iphone+ipad=64Gb max!) also early xbox is 20GB. Wii has none I think...

Developers are taking advantage of what's there.

Quite a lot of the space is textures, sounds, that kind of thing. If you look at the actual executable files, they're still fairly small. Deus Ex Human Revolution's actual game EXE is under 14MB. The resource files are over 8GB.

Making HD resolution games means providing them with high resolution textures (or sprites), high bitrate sounds, and so on, and those things take up space.

Since you also have plenty of space to work with (albeit slow to access), developers have little reason not to take advantage of it.

[AppleQueso]

Also, I don't imagine it's very hard to exceed the size of an N64 game - the biggest one I have is only 65 MB unzipped (Conker's Bad Fur Day).

Hell look at Resident Evil 2 on n64. They managed to actually keep the FMVs .

Still amazed at how well they managed to cram a dual disc ps1 game into a single n64 cartridge. There's a nice article about this here: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3 ... udios_.php

[BoringSupreez]

Developers are just utilizing the extra leg room. Most people can afford the HD space, so they figure - why compromise the quality of our product for the sake of preserving space? Years down the line, people will thank them for not downgrading their textures, movies, sound, etc.

Also, I don't imagine it's very hard to exceed the size of an N64 game - the biggest one I have is only 65 MB unzipped (Conker's Bad Fur Day).

Conker is only 65 MB? That's shocking, considering the amount of dialogue, music, sound effects, textures and lighting effects.

Rare knew how to get the most out of the N64's hardware and carts better than anyone else, even Nintendo.

[J T]

Age of Conan (PC) asks for 30GB of hard disk space.

There are much better ways to fill a harddrive. It's not the size that counts.