Call it installation or call it caching, but the bottom line is that you will have to save large chunks of PlayStation 4 games to the system's hard drive. It's not an option. It's mandatory on Sony's next-gen system. Today, at a stylish waterfront hotel in New York City that's been taken over by Sony for all things PS4, the system's lead architect, Mark Cerny, explained just how these requirements work.
Can you game on ps4 without internet? PlayStation 4 PlayStation 4. Full of bugs and annoying glitches, maybe, but nothing that would stop you finishing them. Maybe you could take your console to a friends place and borrow their internet for game updates. I don't htink you can usb game updates themselves.
- Is there any possible way to download PS4 content in PC and transfer it to PS4? Can I download updates for PS4 games to a PC and transfer them? Can we play PS4 games discs on a PC without having a PS4? When will there be a PS4? Related Questions.
- May 21, 2014 Will I be able to play this game on the PS4 without updating? I'm getting a PS4 on the 27th and this game, along with Assassin's Creed IV. However my internet has been acting up on my PS3 since I have no choice to run off of Wi-Fi and it's aways given me problems when it comes to updating games and the console.
Next-Gen Games Will Fill Our New Consoles' Hard Drives In No Time
The PlayStation 4's internal hard drive is 500GB, and if you buy and start playing just two of …
Read more ReadIf you are playing a disc-based game, the system will begin caching the disc when you put it in the console and get ready to play. The game is saving part of itself to the system's hard drive. The amount of data that has to be saved before you can start will vary per title.
Cerny said that for the launch game he directed, Knack, users should only have to wait 10s of seconds to play the game. After that, as you play, the game will stream more content to the console's 500GB hard drive. Knack will use 37GB of space overall, as noted on the game's box. Obviously, it won't take many games to fill the console's hard drive.
Cached/installed game data will stay on the hard drive until the user deletes it. Cerny said that there had been some internal discussions at Sony about having the PS4 auto-delete installed data from games that players hadn't used in a while. They decided against it, figuring that gamers would never want to feel 'blindsided' and would prefer to make their data management decisions manually. Probably a good choice!
Advertisement
Can I Download Game Updates For Ps4 Without Console Games
The disc installation is required on PS4 because the console is not designed to read games off of discs. It's not a PlayStation issue. It's a physics issue. The machine may have a Blu-Ray drive that's about three times faster than the PS3 and sixteen times as much memory, but it's still more expedient for the PS4 to read data from its own hard drive. Cerny said his team had heard too many complaints from current-gen developers about having to wait to load in new levels of games. Putting the data on the readily-accessible hard drive alleviates that.
Not surprisingly, Microsoft's Xbox One requires installation from Blu-Ray, too, and only runs games off the hard drive.
If a PS4 user decides to download a game, they will have to wait longer to play. Cerny couldn't provide as narrow an estimate on how long a player who decided to download Knack would have to wait. That depends in large part on a user's Internet connection speed. Ideally, he said, they wouldn't have to wait more than an hour before beginning to play the partially downloaded games. Other games may be set up differently, allowing users to start playing them sooner or requiring them to wait longer. With these kinds of download speeds and requirements, players may want to queue their PS4 downloads long before they want to start gaming or download in the background while doing something else. Or just drive to the store and get a disc.
Advertisement
We'll have much more about the PS4 in the coming days as well as a review of the system at 9am ET, on Wednesday, November 13.
To contact the author of this post, write to stephentotilo@kotaku.com or find him on Twitter @stephentotilo.
To Update Your PS4 via USB[edit]
Xbox 360 Game Updates
If you want to avoid the launch day rush to update your PS4 1.51 system software, visit the PlayStation Blog and download the update file to your PC. Then follow the included instructions and use a USB device to perform a complete System 1.51 update.
1. Using your PC, create a folder on a USB storage device called 'PS4' and a subfolder within it called 'UPDATE'
2. Download this file, and save it as PS4UPDATE.PUP
3. Completely power off the PS4, plug in the USB drive, and hold the power button for seven seconds. Select 'Initialize PS4 (Reinstall System Software)'
To Update Your PS4 via PSN[edit]
To update your PS4 System Software, do the following:
1. Press the PlayStation Button.
2. Select Settings
3. Select System Software Update
4. As appropriate, select Update Using Internet or Update from USB Storage Device
You can also have your PS4 automatically update for you. When in standby mode, the PS4 will automatically update games and the system.