The eighth generation of consoles has received games of colossal sizes. Developers tend to bring heavier and heavier titles and it would be logical to think that the ninth would exceed the current sizes. As we have seen, Red Dead Redeption 2 occupied 115GB on PC, Borderlands 3, 80GB and FF VII Remake over 100GB. In addition, to this we would have to add the subsequent downloadable content, update patches, etc. According to Sony, PS5 would have a space of 840 GB in SSD format, Xbox Series X would reach 1 TB. Thus, the community would expect large games to the ninth generation, even exceeding 200 GB in some titles. However, from Gaming Bolt they point out that the next generation will not have games as heavy as the current one.
The current trend to buy games from the digital store or enjoy downloads that offer paid services such as PS Plus, PS Now or Xbox Game Pass collides with the space proposals for the next generation, since if the next titles occupy twice of space than the previous generation, this saving technology would become obsolete. The theory would be that if Sony and Microsoft decided to launch twice the games of the previous generation, their consoles would only have space for 5 games at most. Therefore, the community would launch the following question: Why are ninth generation games likely to be the same size as eighth games? And how is it possible considering the expected technology leap?
To give answers we must compare some releases from the last years. The premiere of Final Fantasy XV brought a gigantic open world occupying 148 GB. Doom 2016, a shooter, it occupied 70 GB. On the contrary, its predecessor Doom Eternal from 2020 offers better mechanics and more detailed and large scenarios, and only occupies 35 GB. The eighth generation has been marked by a disproportionate increase in the space of triple A titles, since its installation average reached over 60 GB. However, the latest titles that have hit the market, or some of them, have reduced file size without the need to sacrifice graphics, map size, or mechanics. Developers have been learning to better manage their software
The jump from the seventh to the eighth was one of the smallest of all generations. What stood out most was the performance of the consoles, the graphic section did not represent a huge leap like in other generations. In contrast, the latest generation consoles offer storage speeds between 20 and 50 times higher than PS4 and Xbox One. This means that storage access times will be reduced. Technology that, together with SSD support, will allow higher loading speeds, and will allow developers less dependence on asset duplication
