The days of disc swapping were behind us for a while, but it’s been rearing its ugly head with a few Xbox 360 titles this generation. Due to the massive size of some larger games and the constrained size of the DVD format, we’re left to get off our couches to change discs mid-game. The latest to fall into this category is Mass Effect 2, which will ship on 2 DVD’s. While that doesn’t matter too much on the PC, on the Xbox 360, some gamers might be upset.
Thankfully, according to to BioWare, the disc change is at a carefully planned point in the game and only happens once, so you won’t have to go back and forth between discs. However, even if you install the game to your hard drive, you’ll still need to get up and swap discs to have the 360 read the correct content.
We want to get your opinion on the situation. Does getting up to swap discs bother you? Will this affect your purchase of Mass Effect 2?
A single disc swap is nothing, besides it’s kind of a throw back to my childhood and early teens. And when Bioware’s explanation is that “That much awesome can’t fit on one disc” I don’t mind. More awesome is what I pay for.
I can’t believe anyone would actually complain about the fact that they have to change the disc once. Seriously people. If you’re so lazy that you can’t get off your couch one time while playing an incredibly awesome game, then you have bigger issues. I don’t mind changing a disc. In fact, Blue Dragon has three of them, and quite frankly, that just tells me I’m actually going to get my money’s worth out of it.
The first Mass Effect was only one disc, and that was easily a 25-30 hour romp if you did everything, so you know the second one is going to be twice that. BioWare gets my money for sure.
This is ludicrous that they would think of such a thing! I own a couch for a reason! The only way this will fly with me is if Bioware includes a free monkey to get up and change the disc when necessary. He is also required to high five me everytime I win a battle
your a fat idiot.. two disks is better than one… it means more game, if they have to goto three or four thhen im still happy
Ok sounds like he was joking.
And two disks is better than one?
One blu-ray disk is better than 6x dvd disks.
I believe that this is kinda stuck in the past, nearly 2010 and still changing disks over. What about hd-dvd they can hold 30gb, why have the xbox support this and not use it? You better be getting used to it with blue dragon, ffxii, mass effect 2 and so on.
Oh look, it’s “doesn’t get the joke” guy.
I was serious about that monkey sidekick though. That would be Bitchin!
that wouldn’t happen if you had a ps3 with blue-ray
You’re right, it wouldn’t, because Mass Effect 2 isn’t on PS3.
Touché ts75!! I actually laughed out loud at your retort. PS3 won’t even appear on my radar unless Mass Effect moves to it with some kind of major improvements over the 360 version.
Onto the topic at hand, I care not for a disc swap. It’s inconsequential.
That’s right… instead of a 30 second break to switch disks in the middle of the game, you would have a 5 minute “break” at the front to install it. Or an extra 5 seconds of loading over 50 loads. Suddenly one disk swap doesn’t make a hell of a lot of difference…
Really, I’m not one to complain about this from any angle, disks or no disks. But if you want to make this a divisive console-war issue, we can play ball…
Ok, your misinformed.
Only a few older ps3 games require installing, most do not. Seriously about 10%, which btw speeds up loading.
Extra 5 seconds loading? On DVD the maximum read speed of a disc that is only half full on a 12x drive is only 10MBps compared to the drives maximum of 16.5MBps. The same as a blu-ray disk that is half-full, and also DVD’s are Constant Angular Velocity (CAV) and Blu-ray is Constant Linear Velocity (CLV). So ps3’s blu-ray game has the same read speeds as your average xbox game.
Also i will state this again, why does the xbox support a 30gb hd-dvd and then put games on 2 – 3 seperate dvd disks?
Swapping disks was ok back in the day, but in 2010 it will be getting old.
You’re right. Instead you’ll be sitting 4′ away from your console, straining your neck looking up at your mounted t.v. because your bluetooth controller doesn’t work.
more the better
i’ve been doing it for years with RPG’s.. i don’t care.
It took more effort to read this article than it does to change a disc.
I love this idea you know why?…. B3CUZ THAT M3AN5 1 CAN G3T M0R3 3P1X L00TZ!
Only fat losers will complain about having to get off the couch and change the disk once in a +20 hour game. I dont see what the big deal is? and actually I am happy that the game is on 2 dvds because then it will be bigger and better. even if its 3+ dvds I wont mind. sorry fatties but your just going to have get your fat asses off the couch.
It’s not the having to get off the couch issue that bothers me. It’s the fact that all of this is being don for DRM reasons. Microsoft and Sony do not permit users to install games on hard drives (without the need to leave disks in) solely as a piracy protection move. I understand their desire to limit piracy, but as a user, the days of having to flip disks, between games, let alone within one is plain silly. Can you imagine if you had to flip DVDs every time you loaded a new program on a PC? Of course you can’t. But because the console makers CAN, they continue to foist this concept on us (replete with tiny hard drives) for their piracy protection concerns only.
And, FYI, I agree that Microsoft choosing NOT to include an HD DVD player in the original Xbox 360 spec was daft. That, combined with DRM, continues this silly disk-swapping paradigm.
What’s worse is that to get rid of it, we’ll be shifted to online-only delivery of games in the next console cycle. While I like online delivery, it will remove the entire used-game industry that I rely on now to get affordable used games and swap them in when done. I wouldn’t play half the games I do now if I had to pay full retail (which in Canada usually means $80 when taxes are included) for them all. As it is with used games and being able to trade in new games I’ve purchased I spend about $35 per title.
i dont think i would mind. people tend to exaggerate to either extreme of opinion (disk swapping is teh sukk! or Your a fatass, i /prefer/ my games on multiple disks!) but the mainstream opinion is probably along the lines of “its a little annoying, but its really not that big a deal”
Psshhhttt……I remember playing my favorite flight sim, “Aces over the Pacific” back in 1992. That sucker installed on……….wait for it…….NINE INDIVIDUAL 3.25″ floppy diskettes, for a whopping install of 12.96Mb of HDD space. And I was HAPPY TO DO IT.
If you whine and complain, or boycott a game over a single disc swap, you are a fool of epic proportions.
i dont think it’s a lazy issue here. i think it’s a technology issue. most people think we should be beyond disc-swapping. it shows the consoles limitations. HD-DVD failed against blu-ray and wala !!! disc-swappping is back.
Swapping disks is never a problem with me, I mean how lazy you have to be to not get up and pop in the next one?
It’s a minor inconvenience, but I don’t have too much of a problem with it. It’s definitely not going to affect my purchase at all. I’m willing to get up and change a disk if it means that the game will be bigger and better for it. Of course, this does start to show a disadvantage that the 360 has against the PS3. DVDs are just getting too small to contain games today, as games get more and more massive. Microsoft’s next generation console will have to adress this. I don’t think that it can use a DVD format in the next generation of consoloes.
i agree 100% with that alec, current and future gen games are growing to big for DVD. ps3 was smart going with blu-ray i said that from day one and im a 360 fanboy. but honestly a simple disk swap is perfectly fine with me…means im getting more of what i pay for
for all you bozos wondering why microsoft doesnt make games on HD DVD and spouting nonsense about how blu-ray won the war, consider this: Blu-Ray movies work about 5% of the time (without having to try multiple software players or downloading updates) Sony simply made exclusivity deals with most of the major movie studios and “bought” the victory. its not because bluray is better. My Hd DVD collection has worked without a single hitch EVER, alas, the technology was killed by greedy corporate types. With the medium being dead, what kind of business move would it be to use a disc format for games that isnt used anywhere else? we may as well go back to cartridge games! changing discs doesn’t matter as any RPG’er has been doing it forever, its almost kind of rewarding to see that “insert disc 2″ message, its a benchmark for your progress in the game. Not to mention it reminds me to take a break after a marathon session.