As Insomniac Games proves with the two Marvel’s Spider-Man games, the installation sizes on the PlayStation 5 do not have to be larger than those on the PlayStation 4. It’s all a matter of optimization.
When Sony Interactive Entertainment offered a glimpse of the PlayStation 5’s fast hard drive for the first time, advantages were also highlighted that exceed the shorter loading times and yet were somewhat lost. As Mark Cerny, the engineer of the new console, said over a year ago, the new SSD should also ensure smaller installation sizes than on the PlayStation 4.
After games like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare scratched the 200 GB mark on the PlayStation 4, many gamers worried when they heard about 700 GB of free space on the PS5 at best. The calls for corresponding hard disk expansions or enlargements quickly became loud. And if you look at the previous line-up of the PlayStation 5, then you can get really worried.
After all, Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War on the PlayStation 5 is over 140 GB and thus tops the PlayStation 4 version by almost 50 GB. Demon’s Souls swallows up 60 GB and the installation sizes of other games also feel larger rather than smaller.
But there are clear opponents who, despite higher-quality assets, textures, and soundtracks, are smaller than on the last console. These are the two superhero adventures of Marvel’s Spider-Man: Remastered and Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales.
As Insomniac Games‘ Technology Director Mike Fitzgerald wanted to emphasize again via Twitter, both games are almost 25% smaller on the PlayStation 5. According to him, the developers shouldn’t mess around too much to maintain the streaming bandwidth and then they could too save the download sizes and the required hard disk space.
I haven't seen anyone point this out yet, but the install sizes of our Spider-Man titles are ~25% _smaller_ on PS5 than PS4, despite having higher-quality models, textures, and audio. Fewer shenanigans to maintain streaming bandwidth means lighter downloads and less drive waste!
— Mike Fitzgerald (@fitzymj) November 17, 2020
However, the same applies in this case, if the developers do not focus specifically on optimizing their games for the new generation, you will continue to waste space unnecessarily. One can only hope that in the future a wide variety of developers will make appropriate adjustments. Because then the previous SSD of the Sony console should be sufficient.