Rockstar said GTA 6 costs $79.99 across PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and S, confirming a $10 jump from the standard $70 we’ve seen this generation. The Ultimate Edition, meanwhile, is $20 more, priced $99.99.
GTA 6 physical copies do not include a disc, Rockstar has confirmed. They’re just a code in a box
Yes we have quad layer discs but they haven’t sold well, Sony AFAIK is the only manufacturer, and the manufacturing cost is ludicrous. And going back to my previous point, all of that is fucking meaningless when the read/write speeds are abysmal compared to flash memory storage which is required for most modern AAA titles.
Games haven’t actually been played off of the disc in ages, though. The system typically just uses it for installation to the HDD or SSD and then as a key to allow the user to run the program.
The install for the 3 games I have on disk for my PS5 takes up less space than the digital versions show on the store, and you very much can hear when it’s loading off the disk since the drive is super loud when it’s not just spinning idle. Not to mention the load times are slightly longer.
It could just be the music, tho. The size difference is only a few GB.
As I understand it, game discs spin up to essentially read the disc which serves as a kinda of “key” to let the game launch. Not sure why it would be different install size from downloaded version, unless there’s some patching differences for some reason.
Sometimes the key function works by keeping critical files on the disc and never installing them to the system. Might install the art assets but not the executable, for instance.
I can’t remember the last time I saw a game do that. I remember during the early 8th gen days they did indeed do that, but from what I recall that practice started to dissolve late that generation. Well after quad layer discs showed up. For standard size blue ray discs like what PS4 uses they’re just not big enough.