I think its absolutely fine, in fact I would prefer a long install thats not interrupting anything, to a smattering of annoying load times.

I think its a good feature that just hasn't been used properly yet. Devs seem to just be dumping a load of assets on the hard drive under the assumption that it has significantly better read speeds. I think it would make more sense to have some stuff on the hard drive and stream from the disc and drive at the same time.
And I think sony were a bit short sighted when they put 40GB/60GB drives in the PS3, while at the same time,claiming that it will have a 10 year lifespan. I reckon within 1 year I'll need to get a bigger hdd.

i swapped out my 40gb for a 120gb one so the size of the install doesnt bother me. The time that it takes to install is quite annoying though. If developers do something creative while the game installs like DMC4 or MGS4 then that's fiine

The installs are a great idea, anything to improve performance in games is good, I don't mind waiting for the installs at all, If you've waited for a year for a game, what's another 10 minutes to wait?

 Just I have found myself running out of HDD space recently and I'm thinking of upgrading mine for the future, but that's at least something that is easy, you can just pull it out and put in another HDD (granted, you've got to copy the game saves but still).

"I don't see a problem with installing unless you the kinda person who has loads of different games on the go. If you are then  this might cause you  to have to uninstall one game  to install another  due to a lack of space.
"

I don't mind them. If they get any bigger like around 8-10 gig then it'll be ridiculous but right now they're fine

I personally hate mandatory installs. If all games started doing this then the HDD would add up quickly. I don't honestly mind the idea and benefit of installs, but all of them should be optional. The space that installs take up along with full games coming to PSN (as well as PS2 games eventually)... all these installs will start being a problem. My biggest issue is that if you wanted to clear out some space and say, delete you DMC4 install, and then at some point later you wanted to play that game again...you would have to go through the ridiculous install all over again. Just make all installs optional and I'll be happy.

"I have no issue at all with the installs.  Been installing games on my pc since year zero, so why would it bother me now.  The installation process doesn't take long, and can be easily done when you are doing something else e.g. tv, dinnner etc etc.

The only people I have found who have a problem with it are forum trolls with nothing better to do than wind up gamers who enjoy playing on the PS3.  Unfortunately for them now they are having to say installation is a good idea since MS have announced a similar idea for the 360."

Honestly that I think that its a bad idea and its counter productive the PS3. Look the PS3 was marketed as a multi media machine with everything that yo will need to have movies music, pics and what not. But having to fill my PS3 with Game installs is bull shit.

Look My 360 has move space on the hard drive taken up by vids than games. Its more of a multi media machine than the PS3 . Lets be honest outside of Blu Ray the PS3 is NOT the multi media machine that sony promised.

Looking into the future that your hard drive will be filled what are you going to do delete all your MGS4 data for a new game?? You would with have to delete it or something else or figure out how to clone a hard drive, and to install it into your PS3.   Sony should have either spent more money on a multi speed disc drive or held off on blu ray

It doesn't bother me one bit to have to install, PC's have used this method for years as it helps the loading of data be that much quicker, a HDD drive will out perform any Blu-ray/ DVD/ drive in terms of sending / reading , streaming data this in turn helps load times etc.. I would say there would be more moaning if people had to wait a lot  longer for each level / area to load.  

"It doesn't bother me one bit to have to install, PC's have used this method for years as it helps the loading of data be that much quicker, a HDD drive will out perform any Blu-ray/ DVD/ drive in terms of sending / reading , streaming data this in turn helps load times etc.. I would say there would be more moaning if people had to wait a lot  longer for each level / area to load.  
"

Having to do game installs on the PS3 is surely a major flaw  in the console.

I really don't like the fact that almost every game has to install

I am sure developers will find a way round having 5gb installs. Look at a game like Call of Duty 4. It has about 200 mb of data saved on my hard disk. That is nothing.

I don't mind the installs at all. Like many have said installing a new hard drive is very easy. If the install means faster load times during the game then I see no problem with it.

I can see this causing a problem later in the year when more games come out but I am honestly all for it.  If the game will run better with faster load times and smoother gameplay I would gladly give up some HDD space to make that happen. 

But even then, it would be nice to have the option to not install the game, but that is a stretch.

If it helps a game work better, then I'm happy with it. The problem is when every damn game has one, it takes up a ton of space. I say, if a game needs it, then yes. If it doesn't need it, then no.

Once I beat a game I delete the install, you still keep your save file so you can go back and play it in the future if you want, you just have to re-install.

That's what I have a 500GB HDD for; never have to worry baby.

So I got a new HDD, but I don't have the right size screw driver to get the old one out.  What a pain in the butt.  So now I have to wait until tomorrow to go shopping yet again, for the right kind of screwdriver.  Would have been nice if it was just a pull and plug process.

Just be really, really careful when taking out that one screw for the very first time. It is extremely easy to strip.

I really do hope that in these new 80GB models, they've made this process much closer to hot swapping than anything, pull out, put in.  I don't mean to whine but, I'm not exactly the kind of guy who has tools lying around.

Well I guess I just don't see this as a problem . I have a hard drive on my PS3 and developers are welcome to use it. Installs are fine by me I have a hard drive. Space is not a issue for me or a great concern.

It isn't a problem for me but I do believe that more companies should offer the option not to install. This will give the people the option to choose performance over space.  I also think that there will be a lot of average consumers who end up with no drive space because they don't know where to delete the installs when they are finished with the game. Maybe it should be an option to remove the installed data from a main menu in each game.

I got a 40 gig closest I've gotten to full is like 7 gigs left and I put lots of movies and music and downlaod trailers and games and Install stuff. I don't think its a really pressing issue especially considering that from now on the lowest end will be 80 gigs. But you can just buy a laptop hard drive and install it easily if you got trouble.

I bought some precision tools just for this process, they fit perfectly, and they still stripped the screws.  What happened to console convenience?

It has me not so much worried, but concerned. I've only got a 40gb and between Metal Gear Solid 4 and Gran Turismo 5 Prologue, that's like 10gb worth of installs, and that only for the two games I on right now. I just hope developers are more aware of the situation and that we shouldn't have to conform to the situation they're putting in front of us. It's definitely possible to not have an install in a PS3 game, just look at Fallout 3, they've gone on record saying there won't be an install when you put the game in, and I hope that's a sign of change in devs decisions.

I don't mind if there is one install. MGS4 was taking the piss a bit, with the whole install after every chapter.  That got on my nerves. Still a great game, repeated installs couldn't take that away.

Don't really care. As long as it actually does something.

i like it. i dont see anything bad about it. just go to the bathroom or get a snake when it installs. but it does destroy the part of console gaming that mainly for pop it in and play. but i dont see why its bad.

"i like it. i dont see anything bad about it. just go to the bathroom or get a snake when it installs. but it does destroy the part of console gaming that mainly for pop it in and play. but i dont see why its bad.
"

Come on. Nobody says "what say you" anymore.

I don't mind installs at all, working with a 40 gig model, swapped out to a 250 gig drive which is loaded with movies. I have 143 gigs free last time I checked.

I don't mind installs too much.  I do however wish more games could do what MGS4 did with it's installs screen.  So instead of having just a blank screen that says "Installing please wait..." they could have something going on in the background.  Like in MGS4 how they had Snake smoking while it gave you health warnings.  Stuff like that can make the longer installs bearable.

Decided to trade in the 60 GB with the stripped screws, and look at an 80 GB model.  Has anyone who has bought the recent models of 40 & 80 GB know if they started using better quality screws on the HDD caddy?  I don't want to go through this mess again, but if they improved that part of the system, I would get the cheaper 40 GB and put in this HDD I bought for the other system.  If not, I'll get an 80 GB and not risk stripping the screws and being stuck with an even smaller HDD.

I think people need to realize that has gaming consoles get more complicated things as small as installing 2 or 5 gbs to lessen the load times or even texture pop end. I am a PC gamer and trust me I wish installs took only 5mins to install.

"i like it. i dont see anything bad about it. just go to the bathroom or get a snake when it installs. but it does destroy the part of console gaming that mainly for pop it in and play. but i dont see why its bad.
"

I'm just glad it isnt required for the Xbox 360 because I really don't have much room in my 20 GB hardrive.  I prefer it but my space is very limited.

I'm not entirely against it, I have a 320 gig HD, but I want it to mean something if I have to do it. I don't want to spend 20 minutes loading a game and still have to deal with loading times on a regular basis.

I don't mind it at all, other than in MGS4. Especially when i'm replaying mgs4 for the 6th time and it still needs to install....

"I don't mind it at all, other than in MGS4. Especially when i'm replaying mgs4 for the 6th time and it still needs to install....
"

Yeh i agree, i think it's just annoying they don't call it a loading time.

"Yeh i agree, i think it's just annoying they don't call it a loading time.
"

MGS4 was acceptable.

I mean, you got to see tips like "Don't litter! Put trash in its place!" and stuff like that while watching Solid Snake smoke.

Awesomest installation EVER

I do not have any issue with installs if , once it installs it is done installing.  The MGS4 rubish was silly.

"MGS4 was acceptable.

I mean, you got to see tips like "Don't litter! Put trash in its place!" and stuff like that while watching Solid Snake smoke.

Awesomest installation EVER
"

"hazelnutman said:

"MGS4 was acceptable.

I mean, you got to see tips like "Don't litter! Put trash in its place!" and stuff like that while watching Solid Snake smoke.

Awesomest installation EVER
"

I like the fact that it scolded you for playing to long. "it's been 5 hours, get the hell off!"  =P
"

Meh. Whatever. I can deal with them.

I don't really mind if there less than 40mins' however it does my head in that they take up so much space, 60GB PS3 seams to go nowhere nowerdays never had this problem back in the day with the good old N64 ha ha

It doesn't really bother me. I don't have much stuff on my HDD so space really isn't an issue. As long as it doesn't interfere with my ability to play the game, I don't really mind.