How much data is on a PS5 game disc?

[Pixelblut_99]

Hello community, i heard that the Far Cry 6 physical version only holds about 700mb of data for verification. The rest needs to be downloaded. Is that true? And if so which PS5 games are fully on their discs (without patches of course).

 

Just asking to know if i should get a digital or normal console.

Edit: i mainly wanna play exclusives 

Edited November 9, 2021 by Pixelblut_99
Maybe i get better answers

[CrestfallenAU]

44 minutes ago, Pixelblut_99 said:

Hello community, i heard that the Far Cry 6 physical version only holds about 700mb of data for verification. The rest needs to be downloaded. Is that true? And if so which PS5 games are fully on their discs (without patches of course).

Whoever told you that is probably one of the people who propagate the myth that discs are only license keys and don't actually contain the games themselves. There are some offline games that don't contain all the data on the discs, but they're an extremely small minority of games on PS4 and PS5.

According to Does It Play?, Far Cry 6 is fully playable from the disc on both PS4 and PS5 without downloading any patches. However, the high-res textures are missing from the PS5 discs so it's not as perfect as it could be, but it's not just a verification disc like some people would have you believe.

[MD_91]

Only 700mb being on the disc was true for just the Xbox Series X version as far as I know

[zizimonster]

A single PS5 bluray disc can store up to 100GB. Why would they store 700MB in it?

 

@Pixelblut_99

[Viper]

All the data is on a disc, when a game goes over 100GB is when we get dual discs. However in most cases, once you install the game to your SSD...the disc is only used to verify the game...this is why you'll hear the disc drive rev up until it's read everything then it's mostly played from a digital install file. 

[mcnichoj]

On 11/8/2021 at 10:08 PM, zizimonster said:

A single PS5 bluray disc can store up to 100GB. Why would they store 700MB in it?

 

Probably because they didn't finish that version of the game but needed to start printing discs so it could get released when it was supposed to.

The Xbox One version has the full game on disc, it's only the Series X version that needs the full download. So my guess is the priority to get the game fully done was for last gen and PS5 since that's the more popular of the two current gen consoles and they probably figure the vast majority of Xbox users have internet anyway.

 

Just having space available on the disc is irrelevant. The Spyro collection on all platforms IIRC required a download to play the 2nd/3rd games with a disc/cartridge and that wasn't a big game. This is probably for the reason I mentioned above for FC6.

[Zephrese]

25 minutes ago, mcnichoj said:

Just having space available on the disc is irrelevant. The Spyro collection on all platforms IIRC required a download to play the 2nd/3rd games with a disc/cartridge and that wasn't a big game. This is probably for the reason I mentioned above for FC6.

 

Reignited needed that due to Activision rushing the game, but this is true especially since the point you made about the Series X version of Far Cry 6 sounds quite similar.

[HuntingFever]

8 hours ago, mcnichoj said:

Probably because they didn't finish that version of the game but needed to start printing discs so it could get released when it was supposed to.

The Xbox One version has the full game on disc, it's only the Series X version that needs the full download. So my guess is the priority to get the game fully done was for last gen and PS5 since that's the more popular of the two current gen consoles and they probably figure the vast majority of Xbox users have internet anyway.

 

Just having space available on the disc is irrelevant. The Spyro collection on all platforms IIRC required a download to play the 2nd/3rd games with a disc/cartridge and that wasn't a big game. This is probably for the reason I mentioned above for FC6.

The Spyro trilogy was quietly reprinted in 2018 so now includes everything on the disc but the only way to tell, is to either look at the disc artwork and see what the date is or buy the twin pack with Crash Team Racing.

[communistwookiee]

1 hour ago, HuntingFever said:

The Spyro trilogy was quietly reprinted in 2018 so now includes everything on the disc but the only way to tell, is to either look at the disc artwork and see what the date is or buy the twin pack with Crash Team Racing.

Source? I would actually consider buying it now if true. Held off due to the issue with this despite being super excited to play it. I'm all physical or bust.

 

Okay, for some reason I thought this info would be harder to find than I thought. What the hell Activision? The Crash N. Sane reprint was easily differentiated. How is it this hard? I'd figure any copies on shelf at my local Best Buy at this point would be the reprint, so I think I'll finally pick it up. Thanks for pointing this out.

Edited November 15, 2021 by communistwookiee

[CrestfallenAU]

9 hours ago, mcnichoj said:

The Xbox One version has the full game on disc, it's only the Series X version that needs the full download. So my guess is the priority to get the game fully done was for last gen and PS5 since that's the more popular of the two current gen consoles and they probably figure the vast majority of Xbox users have internet anyway.

No, it's because there's a single Xbox release instead of separate Xbox One and Xbox Series X releases. Pretty much every single Xbox release that is branded as both "Xbox One + Xbox Series X" only includes the Xbox One version on the disc with a download required for the Series X version. And some of those don't even include all of the Xbox One version on the disc either.

Microsoft does allow publishers to make separate Xbox One and Xbox Series X releases since there are a handful of cross-gen titles that have them (NBA 2K21 and NBA 2K22 for example, likely because the Series X version is more expensive than the One version), but most cross-gen releases on Xbox use the dual-branded model where only the Xbox One version is actually available physically.
 

17 minutes ago, communistwookiee said:

Source? I would actually consider buying it now if true. Held off due to the issue with this despite being super excited to play it. I'm all physical or bust.

It was reprinted in 2019 for PS4 and Xbox One in North America and Europe. I own an Australian Xbox One copy that has 1.03 on the disc (meaning it has all three games on disc with no download required to 100% them), but I couldn't find a reprinted PS4 copy here.

If you want another source, then Does It Play? is always useful with info about the German release (applies to the US reprint too) and how to identify both the US and German reprints.

[Raidou Kuzunoha XIV]

18 hours ago, mcnichoj said:

Just having space available on the disc is irrelevant. The Spyro collection on all platforms IIRC required a download to play the 2nd/3rd games with a disc/cartridge and that wasn't a big game. This is probably for the reason I mentioned above for FC6.

 

I remember when the game came out, it was around 60-70GB for some reason. PS4 blu-ray discs can contain up to 50GB, so they couldn't actually all fit on the disc. At some point, they released a patch which seem to compress it, bringing it down to 30-40GB. I have no idea why they didn't do this to begin with, I assume they were rushed to get it onto store shelves or something.

 

But as others have said, it was silently reprinted with both games on disc. If you buy a new copy nowadays, it's probably the reprint. Assuming the disc isn't loose, if you shake it, you should hear a piece of cardboard rattling about, which is the ad for Crash Team Racing (I believe). Original release didn't come with this. The disc also says 2019 on it once you open it (original will say 2018). I rebought it myself earlier this year since it did kinda always bug me that my Spyro disc only has one of the games on it.

 

Anyway, to OP, the only times when it's true that game discs contain very little data is when they indeed are basically just license keys, which is more of a thing with PC games (and actually less so than it used to be). It's been mentioned already, but Does It Play is a pretty good resource for finding out how much of the game and its patches are on disc, and if there's any critical updates you basically MUST download in order to play it and/or avoid major glitches.

 

Also, if you ever look at the bottom of a blu-ray disc, you may notice kind of a wavy rainbow-like pattern on it. These are dual layer discs, meaning they're 25GB+ discs. They wouldn't use these discs if there was only something like 700mb on it, they'd opt for the cheaper single-layer option, which can only contain under 25GB of data. However, I think most, if not all PS5 discs may be dual-layer by default, but take what I say here with a pinch of salt. I've noticed games as small as 2GB on PS5 still being on a dual-layer disc, and I've actually yet to see a single layer one personally. I haven't really been able to find any information that confirms this either way when I've tried searching for it. PS5 discs can contain up to 100GB of data, which may have something to do with it (?)