Halo 4- I'll never buy another console game

[acosn]

Uh, what? Are you complaining that the multiplayer is on a disc that you have to install? If you're wondering why the devs decided it was a good idea, it was so that the game would look its best. Common complaints about the previous two Halo games were that the graphical quality was too low for the current generation. The install was to make it so people didn't have to switch between discs in order to access the different modes, while getting the most out of the graphical hardware. And from a developer's perspective, it's assumed that if you were playing a big budget release like Halo, you had at least a Hard drive that actually had some capacity. Sorry to break it to you, but you're in the minority that the devs couldn't cater to. It was like with Rareware and Perfect Dark all those years ago, where you had to get the expansion pack to get the most out of the experience.

Except that microsoft intentionally inflates the pricing of hard drives.

This isn't a reasonable comparison to the expansion pack for the nintendo 64 because that was a legitimate hardware upgrade. And the game boxes came with a big, "REQUIRES EXPANSION PACK" notifier. What microsoft is doing is more associated with extortion. Having two different products to buy where one is laughably the superior choice, but costs more for no actual reason, is what we call extortion.

And microsoft's going to keep getting away with screwing over customers and developers alike (Valve literally stopped releasing games for Microsoft consoles because they didn't think Microsoft would stick to a draconian pay model for updates) as long as people are willing to pay for it.

Yeah, because PCs are known for their infinite hard drives.

They cost a fraction of what microsoft insists you pay for their proprietary hard drives and....yeah. For most intents and purposes a 500 GB hard drive is infinite space if you don't intend to build an archive or torrent large volumes of sound files and videos. And if you are, hey, there's 1 and 2 tb hard drives out there too.

 

[AT God]

Yeah, because PCs are known for their infinite hard drives.

Unless you need to play 20+ current generation games at a moments notice it doesn't matter, installation takes a few hours and can be done while playing a game, I have 900 gigabytes of games on my PC and I only play about 15 of them on a regular basis, I only need about 60GB for gaming at any one time, and I don't think you can get a hard drive that small

 

[Glademaster_v1legacy]

That seems completely ridiculous to give up on console gaming because 1 game has a second disc to it. It isn't like this has been done before ever.

This is reading like the "first world problem" to end all "first world problems".

How did he not give up on console gaming YEARS ago?

I don't know but I hope people don't get caught with this crap next gen. I know some people buy it because it is cheaper but I never saw the point in getting the 4gb for long term needs or god forbid the launch 360 without a HDD that had memory card slots.

 

[Fayathon]

just as a quick point, not trying to start an argument or anything..I can't speak for PS3 cause I've heard the installs can be monumental, but as far as the 360? an hour of installs? I've never had one take longer than 5 minutes, even the install that TC is complaining about for Halo 4 took less than 10 for me, just thought I'd point that out

PS3 is abominable for install times, and I don't do enough on my 360 anymore to know what the install times are for that platform, so I can't say. My point is that when I was a major console gamer it was because shit was plug and play, you'd toss the cartridge/disc in and play, with the industry leaning towards mandatory installation I started asking why I was putting up with it on anything other than my PC, especially since I can't do a damned thing on my systems when installations are going on. Again, I have all three of the current generation's systems, more or less for the exclusives, the Resistance series and Uncharted giving me many reasons to love my PS3, Halo 3 and it's ilk giving me a load of LAN party good memories made my 360 more than a justified purchase and the Zelda and Metroid Prime games on my Wii have paid for it time and again, but with the trend being what it is I see little point in getting consoles this upcoming generation, with the exception of possibly a WiiU.

 

[Jiffex]

I love the fact that once you install from the second disc you don't have to keep swapping discs. I think that it would be better if you installed say the AC3 multiplayer disc and could then run it from the single player disc OR you could just keep disc swapping for those who don't have the space. So make it an optional install not mandatory.

The thing is Halo 4 didn't do that either. You have to install from the second disc. You can't disc swap. Unfortunate, I'm not one to play just one game for an extended period of time, I swap out constantly and having to delete some other dlc which I use quite a bit just to access half of Halo 4 is annoying.

That's what I meant by "It would be better". You could choose to install to avoid disc swapping or you could choose not to install to avoid taking up space.

 

[Zetatrain]

I'm confused, everyone keeps taking about how the the mandatory installation for multiplayer is 8GB, but I only have 3.5 GB listed on my hard drive (2GB for war games and 1.5GB for Spartan Ops season 1.0).

Also, the first disk takes up 7.3 GB, but is in no way mandatory.

Uh...is this really something making a thread over?

Well, it raises awareness that you need 8GB of HD space to play the MP. I didn't know til I saw someone mention it on Twitter yesterday, so I had to clear a good chunk of shit out just to make room for it.

Wait 8GB? As in a full 8 Gigabytes? Just for the MP? Fuck's sake, I do not have the time to wait for my Internet connection to strain through that...

Umm...the content is on the disk so I don't think your internet connection has anything to do with the installation speed.

 

[The White Hunter]

"Don't you have to install every PC game?"

Yes, people. It has been pointed out. But if you have to increasingly install console games, why play on the console? It's just a bad PC at that point. That requires you to use disks.

I'm with you OP. You didn't get the product with the quality you expected. Send them a message.

Entry price.

That said you can get a PC capable of running mid settings for around the price of a console without much hassle these days, My old PC has a 3GHz dual core and a fairly cheap gpu and it managed well enough.

Just put down £1300 on a new rig though!

Ah good point.

But also good counter-point to your point. You can probably out-perform consoles for the same price.

I just ordered parts worth around $1000 for my new computer. It'll be my first one that I built myself, and it's gonna be beastly.

Easily, my current PC cost me only £300 for an office hub kinda machine but I could go get an okay GPU for under £100 and start gaming at console levels of performance with it. That's around £400 but even then you can get gaming for around £350 on a PC with no real problem.

I opted not to build my own since it's gonna cost only a little bit extra to get it built from scan and then it has a 3 year warranty in case it dies. If I build it myself for that price and it dies I'll cry.

Can't wait for my new rig! Hoping the PC port of DmC is good too :3 60fps that consoles dream of with it, pfft, I'll be knocking on 100 without any trouble.

 

[The Last Parade]

Games Engine is on disc 1, all the spartan ops, forge engine, multiplayer maps and networking data is on disc 2, it's a space intensive game

 

[Evil Smurf]

You know...you could just buy another hard-drive...20GB isn't really expensive...or delete some stuff on your 4GB hard-drive...this in no way is the fault of the console.

Most (not all) game of the year editions of games come with a second disc with all the DLC on it.

and I am pretty sure you can install internal harddrives, you can get a 1tb drive for less then $100

 

[LifeMakesMeLOL]

You completely able to buy a new hard drive you can buy 60gb or 250gb. Don't pull the "I shouldn't have to buy a new hard drive to play this game" If you have a 4gb hard drive you brought it upon yourself.

I can't believe people actually think like this, that it is somehow the consumer's fault for not preparing for a problem that they didn't know existed and shouldn't exist in the first place.

It is a console, not a PC. Requiring install to access an entire section of the vanilla version of a game is ridiculous unless your consoles are shipping with large HDDs at launch (across ALL bundles of that console....screw Microsoft's Arcade bundle.) It's fine to give people the option to do so to avoid disc swapping, but it should NOT be mandatory.

I have a roomy 320GB on my 360, but it's amazing how spoiled some of you people are assuming that people who just dropped 60 bucks on a game are going to have the cash to get a new hard drive or even a small flash drive when they already used up their entertainment budget for that month.

 

[Lovely Mixture]

This is pretty amusing. It makes me realize why I haven't touched my 360 in so long.

I bought the original 360 when it first came out (with 20GB) and upgraded to the new one last year. Kept my old hard-drive but obviously can't use it on new one, and don't want to spend anymore money on it.

If buying more space is "mandatory" then why didn't Microsoft include it in the initial product like they did with the original?

 

[Bigsmith]

I think the problem is that people don't expect to have to install their games on a console.

I understand if this is the problem and I feel that it's wrong of the developer to assume that everyone has this much space or have the required space free.

But at the same time it allows for the game to be better and load faster.

And there are cheap ways around it, such as using a USB stick like so many before me have mentioned.

Oh, and the difference with PC games is that we know they need to be installed and thus prepare our selves with large amount of storage space.

 

[Lovely Mixture]

I think the problem is that people don't expect to have to install their games on a console.

I understand if this is the problem and I feel that it's wrong of the developer to assume that everyone has this much space or have the required space free.

Indeed, it's not the fault of the developer or the customer. It's the expectations of both sides. Shouldn't be that hard to advertise it as a requirement, even the Diablo III thing put it on the box.

 

[Cartographer]

Is the OP complaining that the game requires you to perform an 8Gb install, including the multiplayer, which was put on another disc to the single player, even if you only want the play single player?
Considering half of players don't play multiplayer(even SC2 only 50% of players have ever played multiplayer, thanks Blizz for sharing that gem), seems an odd decision to make installing it mandatory when it comes on another disc.

 

[Cartographer]

Double post, MOD please delete.

 

[Bigsmith]

I think the problem is that people don't expect to have to install their games on a console.

I understand if this is the problem and I feel that it's wrong of the developer to assume that everyone has this much space or have the required space free.

Indeed, it's not the fault of the developer or the customer. It's the expectations of both sides. Shouldn't be that hard to advertise it as a requirement, even the Diablo III thing put it on the box.

I agree, just a requirement on the back of the box/ description online. Kinda something PC games have been doing forever.

 

[General Vagueness]

They first mentioned this a few months ago, but they took a while to say that it would be necessary for you to play multiplayer, and hardly gave any justification for it. I'm with you OP, not as far as what I'm going to do, but on what you're feeling. A major difference between consoles and PCs has always been that with a console you can just put the game in, turn the console on, and play, and that's been diminishing and this diminishes that further.

 

[Knocker]

That seems completely ridiculous to give up on console gaming because 1 game has a second disc to it. It isn't like this has been done before ever.

Right? Kids these days.

 

[savageoblivi0n]

I think the problem is that people don't expect to have to install their games on a console.

I understand if this is the problem and I feel that it's wrong of the developer to assume that everyone has this much space or have the required space free.

Indeed, it's not the fault of the developer or the customer. It's the expectations of both sides. Shouldn't be that hard to advertise it as a requirement, even the Diablo III thing put it on the box.

I agree, just a requirement on the back of the box/ description online. Kinda something PC games have been doing forever.

actually on the back of the Halo 4 case it does have a section that says it requires minimum 8 GB flash or HDD memory to access the Infinity multiplayer, kinda small print but no smaller than you'd find on a PC game box.

 

[Reece Borgars]

as much as i agree the point given, the whole point of a console is not having to install a load of stuff on the hard drive - otherwise its essentially a pc. but is this one game really a legitimate reason to 'never buy another console game'?