Kotaku Game DiaryDaily thoughts from Kotaku staff about the game we play.Little things can start to add over time and eventually become part of your snaps and you can't help but get mad. This happened to me recently while trying to play some games on PS4, all of which needed a review. The update was downloaded immediately, but then I had to wait for the copying process. I'd rather have a root canal.
All I wanted to do was play some more Red Dead Online. So I woke up the console and went into Red Redemption 2 icon and hit X. And then I was hit with a notification to update. And the update was downloaded immediately, thanks to my fast internet connection. But then the PS4 starts copying the update to the console and this process takes longer, A LOT longer than downloading the update.
This is a common problem that players often complain about. Across Reddit, Twitter and elsewhere you can find an almost unlimited amount of posts about how bad it is and how long it takes to copy updates to PS4. Soon, Greenrant contains an article on this topic.
Ironically, this has not always been the case. As mentioned in that article, when the PS4 launched and a few years back, you did not face this part of copying. But in about 2017, Sony's changed the way PS4s download and install game update files. The move, according to many, was to help avoid file fraud.
To do this, the PS4 basically downloads the update and copies all the data and game files you update and adds new update data to the data that has been copied now. This is not a problem if your game is small, like a few gigs. But for a game like this Red Redemption II, now fetching over 100GB on my PS4, this process of copying can take a long, long time.
Technically, you can speed up this process by installing a solid state drive. But the timing is not that dramatic.
Games are big today. Going forward, with the PS5 on the way, I really hope that Sony can improve or eliminate this copy process. Games will grow bigger and bigger with the next generation of console. We'll probably start seeing 250GB or 300GB games soon. And with a fancy solid-state drive, using the current copying system to copy all that information every time a game update is going to be frustrating.
Perhaps copying should be your preferred method of installing updates. Let players get out of copy, taking the risk of having their data corrupted by direct input. I like to sit on the edge and take risks anyway and if it helps me save time, I'm down.
Screw 8K support or fancy cameras, all I want from PlayStation consoles following quick game updates and installations. Is that too much to ask?
