Why does it take so long to install games on PS4/XB1

So I had to reinstall watchdogs this morning due to an issue with a update not triggering properly and I have been instantly reminded of the thing I hate the most in this new generation, installation. both machines seem to take forever to install games from discs. Its been 3 hours and I'm only up to 17% installed on watchdogs, fuck this shit... Its says I can play but we all know that its just the very beginning of the game that's playable and I wont be able to access my save till the install is complete

Does anyone know why this is? Are bluray drives super slow? I mean last gen games seemed to take about 5 to 10 minutes to install and they were about a quarter of the size (6 gig or so when compared to 17- 25 gigs) I expected an install time of maybe an hour. Why the fuck does it take so goddamned long.

All this gen seems to be so far is waiting, waiting on installs waiting on patches waiting on DLC waiting on actual fucking releases...

I'm guessing some technology outpaces other technology (IE disc space increased faster than optical drives' speed at reading them).

because they're huge?

Blu-ray drives are pretty slow, and so are the hard drives in both the PS4 and Xbox One (Both have the same 5400rpm 2.5" laptop drive). It still shouldn't take 3 hours to install 17% of a game, though.

It still amazes me that in 2014 we have brand new consoles with low capacity SATA II hard drives that are slow as shit.

@clonedzero:

But they are only 4 times the size of older games, but it takes 10 or 20 times the time to install them.

I've not really had much issue with PS4 games. Both Watch Dogs and Wolfenstein were 30-60 min long, installing as I did something else, before I started playing. It's been a pleasant process.

With the X1, however, it definitely seems to be a problem. The day I bought my X1, I spent the entirety of the rest of the day (some 10 hours or so) waiting for Dead Rising 3 to install and patch; I didn't even get to play it until the next day.

because they're huge?

Like i said, HUGE! everyone knows that last 10% takes 300% longer than the other 90%. add that up and thats a shitload!

You made me laugh out loud...thanks, I was kinda unreasonably pissed off about the whole thing. I was looking forward to some game time today, but now fuck it, I'm gonna go do something else.

I upgraded the PS4 hard drive with a 1TB hybrid. Watch_Dogs installed very fast - a few minutes at most, but it felt like it was under 1-2 min.

My PS4 installs have been super swift. You may have a wonky HDD. Watch Dogs was maybe 10 minutes, 15 tops.

Kind of the sad part for all of us is that flooding in Asian countries has slowed to development of faster drives. And that happened a few years back.

It took me two days to install Wolfenstein.

Both the PS4 and Xbox One have slow ass 5400 RPM hard drives. Those barely qualify for a low-end Laptop, let alone a video game console. That's your problem. The slow read speeds of the Bluray drive probably aren't helping either, but it's mostly the hard drives fault.

There's something wrong with your PS4, it should not take that long at all, Watch Dogs installed in like 20 minutes for me.

Wow, seriously? I didn't realize that these "next gen" consoles had such outdated hardware in them.

It takes a long time for games to install? Doesn't on my PS4. Wolfenstein installed in like...5-10 minutes or something? That was nearly 50GB installed, and in same cases you can play the games while installing. Games on my high end PC take about the same time to install.

I don't know what's going on with some people's install times, but I've had no problems at all. I installed a 1.5TB drive into my PS4. It's still a 5400rpm drive, but it's SATA III instead of SATA II. Still, three plus hours is way too long. It takes maybe 5-10 minutes at the most to install a game. I just got Wolfenstein: The New Order, and it's a whopping ~48GB. It took maybe a little more than 5 min to install. Likewise, when I first got my PS4, I installed Killzone: Shadow Fall on the stock hard drive before I upgraded. Killzone is about 45GB, so it's pretty comparable to Wolfenstein. It's been a while, but if I remember correctly, it took around 10 min to install or maybe 15 at the most.

It's funny you should mention last gen installs too, or at least the size of them. I also got Lego Marvel Heroes for PS4. It's about a 6GB install. I started the install not realizing how big it was at first. I went upstairs in my friends house to get a drink, and when I got downstairs, it was already done. I didn't even realize it at first. My point is, the install times scale pretty closely with the size of the install. It took probably a little over a minute for this game. So, it's not just because it's a larger install, because under certain circumstances, the read write times from the hard drive could be affected. However, it doesn't seem to be a problem on the new consoles, or at least the PS4, from my experience.

Something has got to be wrong with the PS4 if it is taking that long. Three hours at 17% translates into about 15 hours for a full install, and there's simply no way it should take that long.

Is this on the Xbox One, cuz they include any patches that need to be downloaded in installation progress.

Infamous requires a 22 gb install from the disc, and it took like 5 minutes for me to start playing the full game, maybe even less. And when I say start playing the full game, I mean it installed the full 22 gb in that time (at least it said it did). Not sure whats up with watchdogs. Also, the ps4 blu ray drive is 5 times faster than the ps3 drive. Thought I'd throw that out there.