[BitwiseFool]

Imagine you've purchased a digital-only PS5. So just buying and downloading a new game is probably going to eat up ten to fifteen percent of your monthly cap.

I imagine the Xbox Games Pass is even worse for this, since you're going to download many more games.

[derekp7]

I'm not a gamer, so I'm curious which games use 120 - 160 GB when downloading them? Or is that the usage when playing them for a period of time (i.e., downloading assets on the fly)? And I thought that DVD games were huge (4.5 - 8 GB), but I haven't really kept up with current trends.

Edit -- just did some quick searches, it appears some games require 50 - 100 GB minimum storage -- is that what is downloaded, or do they generate game assets from compressed data after installation?

[dgritsko]

That's what is downloaded. Cyberpunk 2077 (releases next month) is supposedly a svelte 70 GB, while the new Call of Duty is a hefty ~133 GB download on the new consoles (and close to 200 when installed).

[extrapickles]

That is what is downloaded. Most AAA games are at least 32gb due to the large worlds and the level of detail required.

Everything that can be compressed is compressed, though there still is room for improvement on compressing mocap (motion capture) data. Mocap is done to get characters movements more natural and to help with lip syncing, though it can take up more room than plain video. Prerendered video is not very seamless and does allow player interaction with the scene beyond choose your own adventure type options. This is more of an issue if they want to show the player character as most games have extensive customization of the look of the player character.

[ssully]

The games are usually compressed, but you can very easily find yourself downloading over 100 gigs for a single game in a month.

A big trend in games these days what is called "live" or "service" games. These are games that are having new content added on a regular schedule (monthly, or sometimes weekly). This means its not unusual to get updates that range in size from 20-60 gigs for a single game in a month. If you play a lot of games or have kids that play different games, you can very easily be burning 200-400 GBs of data a month just keeping your games up to date.

[odessacubbage]

AAA game sizes have gotten absurd over the last generation. lots of needlessly uncompressed audio as well. ime popular multiplayer games are getting patched constantly . i downloaded warthunder on a whim and just with updates alone the file size has already doubled. i haven't even had time to try the game yet.

[dudul]

Some games (looking at you COD) have patches that are 50GB to download.

[zbrozek]

Flight Simulator 2020 was something around 120 GB. I think Call of Duty is pushing 200 GB and it made the news when they managed to shrink it.

On technical merits it makes more sense to implement a good QoS system to ensure fair and responsive access. Caps are a business tool to bolster margins.