This morning, I popped Tales of Berseria into my PlayStation 4 and was yet again greeted with the wonderful news that my system is out of space.
Maybe you can relate. Maybe you play a fair number of PS4 games and have also felt that twang of mild irritation when you pop in a brand new disc, eager to play something new, only to be told that “There is not enough free space in system storage,” which is basically the PlayStation’s way of telling you to fuck off. Maybe it makes you wistful for the good old days. Maybe it makes you nostalgic for the era when all you had to do to play a video game was put it in the system and maybe blow on the cartridge a couple of times.
Now, though! Now playing video games is an exercise in project management. Thanks to the OG PS4’s pitiful 500 GB hard drive, which seemed quaint in 2013 but feels downright old-fashioned today, inserting a new disc means playing a game called “What Will I Delete Today?” Tales of Berseria, for example, wanted an extra 12 GB for whatever it needed to install on my system. I had 12 GB free, but to the PlayStation 4 that didn’t seem to matter, so again I went into system storage management and said goodbye to a bunch of other games.
You might think that this wouldn’t be a problem if you only buy physical games, but you’d be wrong. Watch Dogs 2, which I have on disc, still takes up roughly 27 GB. Skyrim is another 21 GB and Final Fantasy 14 occupies a whopping 44 GB, even though they all still require discs to play. Add in save files, patches and video capture, and you can see how 500 GB disappears quickly, especially with games like Destiny that require you to have roughly 50 spare GB just to download an update.
I mean, sure. Our new digital future has led to all sorts of wonderful possibilities for video games. This is very much a First-World Problem. BUT STILL FUCK THAT MESSAGE.
Comments
47 responses to “I’m So Sick Of Seeing This Damn PS4 Message”
I’d just buy a new HDD and swap out the stock one. There are lots of tutorials online on how to do it and it’s incredibly easy. The first thing I did when I got my PS4 was get a Hybrid HDD/SSD 1TB and swap it out. Faster loading speeds too. Give that a try if you are having issues.
Yeah, this.
I got a 2tb (non-ssd) hdd and it’s been heaven since.
Eventually it’ll fill up and I’ll delete all the free games that I haven’t played yet.
Yep, got me a hybrid 1TB a couple months back, runs brilliantly.
Yup, swapped mine out literally last week for a 2TB hybrid drive – easiest HDD replacement I’ve done in ages. Had a bit of trouble restoring from backup, but didn’t lose much beyond a night of Diablo that hadn’t been synced to PS+ before the swap, so not too concerned about it.
im sick of people saying this. stop giving sony your money until they start fixing these problems or properly explaining them. all you’re doing is encouraging a company to continue to screw over its customers.
I’d go the ‘swap out the HD’ route right now.
But then Sony went and released the Pro. This punishes me, someone who bought the PS4 not at launch, but during the period of ‘here are are some exclusives we can use to snag fence-sitters’.
I need:
Extra space for my games. Like Jason.
Either a standard larger HD. Or an SSD.
Then decide whether I’m going to upgrade to a Pro within the next one-two years.
Then probably have to do all this all over again when that happens.
If I only only jury rig an external drive and run that, that’d be grand.
Yes it’s within reason (only just), yes I’m technically able to go through some short term pain for long-term gain. It’s still very frustrating.
At least with high-end PC building and games/software management on such a platform, I have complete authority of what goes where, how, and for what purpose.
I agree with all your points except for PC being better. Constant patches and downloads, and perpetually running out of space is my fate no matter the system. With dozens of games, and squillions of items in my Add/Remove Programs of dubious value and even less of an idea of what they are and if remove them will kill my system, I tend to throw my hands up in despair anytime I want to put in some new mammoth game.
Thats your fault for having such a low capacity HD installed.
I have a 4TB just for my steam library and another 4TB for everything else. Windows runs on a 256GB SSD.
Your frustrations are of your own doing. Buy a bigger HD, problem solved.
Your excuses just sound like someone who has stuck their fingers in their ears going “lalalalalala I can’t hear you”.
Seriously, my PS4 several times a week downloads updates for games & app, and then every so often the console update. My PC, Steam keeps my games (that I have installed) updated automatically & Windows 10 installs & updates by itself at a quiet time when i’m not using it. PC gaming is (in my opinion) at a point in time where it’s so easy.
I don’t run anything flash in my current PC, 240GB SSD (about 100GB used) with a 500GB D drive (about 300GB used) which houses my music, games & dropbox folder. If you’re careful & take your time installing software you can also save space by not installing every single little bit of bloatware that comes with drivers for motherboards, graphics cards, soundcards, network cards, keyboards, mice & any sort of software suite where there may be multiple programs, but you only need the core components to utilise it to its full potential.
Re: the size of physical installs… PS4 and Xbone install the whole game to HDD even if you have the physical copy, once installed the only reason it needs the disk in is as a form of copy protection.
No it doesn’t. Otherwise explain the size file difference between Digital and Physical.
er, yes they do. Which is why you don’t hear the disc spinning. There’s no difference in install sizes, the disc version installs the whole game from disc, then applies any patches.
This was a big thing when both consoles where announced.
Here’s an article from this very site…
http://kotaku.com/how-mandatory-game-installations-will-work-on-ps4-1462283797
For real? Cos my disc drive kicks in sometimes on Battlefield 1 and all the time whenever FFXV gets put in.. Maybe it’s the fan. Either way I am still turned off by digital, I want something I can hold in my hands for that hard earned cash.
Yup, that’ll be the fan 🙂
I wasn’t saying there’s no point getting physical, as there’s still lots of reasons to prefer physical over digital (option to trade in, usually cheaper, installs from disc rather that needing to download the whole lot), it’s just that the final physical size on the HDD isn’t one of them. Even more reason they should have included larger drives by default.
A lot different to buying physical on PC which is getting increasingly pointless, with the physical version often just gives a steam installer or at worst just a steam key in a box.
Yeah PC I have zero physical copies for that very reason. Console seems a bit more old school in that respect.
My Xbox has a portable hdd plugged into it at all times, why can’t my PS4 have one….
I feel your pain.
I used to have a huge library of DOS games that couldn’t all fit on my 20MB hard drive at the same time.
This is why the Switch is going to be awesome. Cartridges that load into RAM far quicker than anything else, even HDD.
Wii U let you easily connect external HDD’s, Switch will let you add SD cards, which you can theoritically have an infinite amount of swapping in and out so nothing really needs to be deleted.
Until we get actual final specs that’s mostly just hopes and speculation though…
Unfortunately being Nintendo, I doubt we’ll get anything technical on Friday other than the basic feature run-down, screen size and maybe memory details, for everything else we’ll likely have to wait until release 🙁
Should be great for the five games they release…. sorry >.>
I have this problem with my 500GB PS4. But say I want to install a 20gb game, and even though I have say around 30GB free, it STILL makes me delete EVEN MORE. Until I have say, around about 40GB free. Then, and ONLY then, will it consent to me installing my shiny, new game. It is utterly infuriating…
$100 for a 2tb hard drive. Never looked back. Plus when I get the pro just switch it over again.
I don’t think you can move a HDD from one PS4 to another one (or a Pro) without formatting it, the console ‘tags’ the drive or something rendering it useless in other consoles without a clean format.
Yeah you can you just need two PS4s. Format the new drive first then use the PS4s copy data function to copy everything over. I’ve moved the old HDD into other systems without trouble too.
Solution don’t be so damned tight and buy a 2tb hdd
I upgraded from 500gb to 1Tb and now that’s feeling too small. I’m thinking it’s time to upgrade to a 2Tb drive, after I buy a 1Tb portable drive to do the backup with.
I think Kotaku’s constant use of bad language in its articles is its way of telling its readers to “fuck off”.
That’s probably not how I’d first phrase, “I don’t believe the tone of this site is for you, but is definitely for me, so I’d prefer that you leave rather than the site change,” but if it’s what you prefer… 😉
I once raised this with gizmodo editor luke hopewell.
I told him the swearing detracted from an otherwise mediocre but not terrible article.
Fuck was used no less than 3 times and not even eloquently.
He replied with a ‘let me google that for you’ link that told me to…
Go fuck yourself.
So you are right in some aspects, but believe me, the old guard had no issue telling it to your face. So glad that wanker resigned.
I feel the pain as my external for my x1 just died. I can only install around 7-9 games. I used to have over 80 installed.
It has made me more decisive about which games I play and which ones I don’t, but 500GB is nowhere near big enough.
I’m over every game thinking it is important enough as to demand multiple gigs of precious space on my console. It kills the fun. Then there’s DLC just taking up precious resources. It’s games like SFV too that do it. The ones that get released unfinished so they can sell you the rest of what you already own back to you over the course of a year. I hate this era.
The Witcher 3 is a great exception to that rule.
A whole article on how you can’t mange your “cupboard space”. Really? And to think I wasted time reading and commenting back. Thanks. Last article of yours I read. Ever.
If only.
Complain about not enough space but won’t upgrade capacity. Great isn’t it?
What a whinge over nothing. 500GB is quite a lot of space for games, and besides, Sony have graciously made the console upgradeable with third party hard drives.
Furthermore (though this may be a more subjective opinion), there’s no real reason to have 15-20 games installed at a time. You can’t possibly be playing them all. It’s not that hard to delete and reinstall games – in fact, the PS4 interface makes it extremely easy to do so.
?
I tend to agree with the ease of upgrading making this a non-issue – the process is nearly idiot-proof; but 500GB is definitely inadequate unless you’re regularly deleting games, and I find it increasingly troublesome to do so.
My issue is that, due to ISP download quotas, slow ADSL (or, more specifically, slow PSN download servers), the size and frequency of patches these days (reinstalling FFXV required an 11GB patch), and the prevalence of post-launch patched-in or long-term end-game content, I’m loathe to just delete a game I might want to go back to later. “Hey, there’s a new Warframe update – want to play with us?” “Sure, I’ll kick off the download… I’ll be ready in… five hours? Welp, see you tomorrow, I guess.” Easy? Certainly. Convenient? Debatable.
I finally upgraded to a 2TB SSHD last week, and restoring the backup failed, so I started redownloading the stuff I was currently playing. Reinstalling just the five games I’m currently flipping between (two physical, three digital), plus the updates for a physical copy of The Last Guardian (which I’d planned to play through while everything else downloaded) took a day and a half to download, and knocked out half my monthly internet quota in the process.
I’m on patchy ADSL 1, so can sympathise with the download issue.
1TB isn’t enough any more for my PS4. I love the 2TB external I have hooked up to my xbone.
Seems like 2017 is the year of the Kotaku whinge? Are these the types of articles we can expect this year?
Sometimes I get it when I have 60gb free and I’m trying to install a 2gb game, then I have to fully reset the PS4 to get it working again. Buggy piece of rubbish.
You too? I had 12 GB free but the console still wouldn’t install Shantae which was only 2 GB.
But this is where it gets nuts. I couldn’t even play a BluRay movie.
I put the disk in and the console reported there was not enough space to install the application.
What application?! It’s a freaking movie! Are they actually doing a space check even on a disk that is never copied over?!
Christ, just strip a 2tb drive out of a Seagate Portable and upgrade. Talk about an unnecessary article.
I have never seen that message because when I got to the critical point where I had no wiggle room for digital or disc installs I went out and bought a 2Tb HDD and put it in. Now I have lots of space in which discs and digital games can run free and roam the verdant pastures of the digital fields. Perhaps the article should list ways you can resolve or mitigate the issue instead of being a rant?
I, too, experience this pain. I like to have several multi-hour epics on the go at once and flit between them based on when the mood takes me. I don’t just sit down and play one thing – and only one thing – until it’s done. That gaming experience is alien to me. But it’s obviously what the machine’s low drive space is designed around. (That, and sticker price.)
I’m pretty surprised by the number of close-minded people who don’t get that. I guess there’s a whole lot of folks here who can’t understand the appeal behind a smorgasbord or buffet, either.
The other thing that’s truly frustrating is the opacity of the space restrictions. If you go to install a game that says it needs 20GB, then fucking let me install when I’ve cleared out enough space for that 20GB. Don’t keep FUCKING telling me that there’s not enough FUCKING room and that I need to have 20GB free when I have 25, 30, 35, 40GB free… TELL ME THE FUCKING TRUE NUMBER, YOU BASTARDS.
I wish it was that simple. Doom and Uncharted: The Nathan Drake collection easily take 50+ GB. As least they have the bulk on the disk.
Even with a 2TB drive though, it only delays the problem.
A smarter move would have to put a USB3 port to move unused games to external storage; kind of like the XBone.
In my case, I chose to remove Uncharted despite having just updated it so I could install Shantae.
In the very least, this is clearly a bug in their space and disk detection. Like I said before, when the space runs low, one can’t even play a BluRay.
Please be honest… are you really luke hopewell in disguise?
fucking filthy fucking mouth with all that fucking shitty swearing 🙂
I reckon it’s some kinda’ rage-induced Tourette syndrome. I’m perfectly articulate discussing the issue up until I get triggered by that fucking business of the system messages being fucking awful fucks.