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[Tim Possible]

Who isn't tired of this with the current generation of consoles? If it isn't bad enough waiting for the games to load, sometimes the game needs to download to the hard drive before you even play.

I have been playing The Masters:Tiger Woods PGA Tour 12 on the PS3 lately and after each hole I have to wait like 15 seconds to go the next one.
This isn't just for this game but many games as of late.

I wonder how many hours I have spent just waiting around doing nothing as for me this dates back to the PS1. Will it ever end?

[Leo1]

I haven't found load times to be unreasonable this generation. I'd have to go back to the last generation to even remember one game with annoying load times. They've been few and far between for years.

It sure beats the 1990's era of cd based game consoles. I sometimes felt like I spent more time at load screens than I did playing games on the PSOne.

[Luke]

I don't find the in-game loading to be unbearable. But one thing I have noticed lately is how much longer it takes for a lot of the newer games to start up now. Like you put the disc in, it boots up, then you have to sit through what seems like 15 different intro screens, videos and menu options before the game actually starts. And that's just on the 360. I can't imagine what you PS3 owners have to go through with the mandatory pre-game installs and all that.

[VideoGameCritic]

Long loads are definitely a factor that I take into account when I buy a game.  I know that if the same game is available for the PS3 and Xbox 360, the 360 will have less loading and almost certainly no installation steps.

I don't think Sony took the long load times into account when designing the PS3.  They were intent on incorporating Blu Ray technology and didn't realize how slow game loading would be.

I think the load times and intro screens have grown worse in this generation, rivaling the early days of the PS1.  Especially with the fast pace of our modern lifestyles, you would think hardware makers would try to address this.

[Julio III]

They have taken steps to address long loading during the game, by adding long install times when you get the game!

Related - the other day I decided to play a game on my PAL 360 for the first time in a long time. I had to swap over my leads round the back of the telly, then start it up, oh right, I have to download some updates for Xbox live, blah blah blah, recover your gamertag, takes ages, put the disc in, download some updates for the game. And finally I'm off!

Anyway, its not as bad as waiting for a cassette to load...

[bluemonkey1]

Better graphics = higher quality textures and more detailed polygon models.

This equates to larger assets which have to be loaded into memory.

Disc drives can only run at certain speeds, it's just an unavoidable fact of life and not the games' fault.

[MoonMetropolis]

15 seconds?  Some games - particularly online ones - can take up to SIX MINUTES to load.  No, I kid you not.  Hell, try playing Duke Nukem Forever.  Load times of 45+ seconds every single time you die and every single time you start a new level. 

It didn't happen with old games because they relied on cartridges instead of discs.

In fact, Shigeru Miyamoto chose to have cartridges instead of discs for the N64 because he didn't like the load times on discs.  But, even with the cartridge format, at least one N64 game (the Neon Genesis Evangelion one) managed to have FMV.  A pretty impressive feat for a cartridge.  The N64DD (Disc Drive) attachment was only sold on one website in Japan, making it abundantly clear that Nintendo WANTED it to fail.

[andrew]

[QUOTE=MoonMetropolis]15 seconds?  Some games - particularly online ones - can take up to SIX MINUTES to load.  No, I kid you not.  Hell, try playing Duke Nukem Forever.  Load times of 45+ seconds every single time you die and every single time you start a new level. 

It didn't happen with old games because they relied on cartridges instead of discs.

In fact, Shigeru Miyamoto chose to have cartridges instead of discs for the N64 because he didn't like the load times on discs.  But, even with the cartridge format, at least one N64 game (the Neon Genesis Evangelion one) managed to have FMV.  A pretty impressive feat for a cartridge.  The N64DD (Disc Drive) attachment was only sold on one website in Japan, making it abundantly clear that Nintendo WANTED it to fail.
[/QUOTE]

Resident Evil 2. Pole Position 64 and a few others had fmv on the n64 as well. NBA Jam on the snes has fmv at half-time.

Those long load times have happened on plenty of PS2 games. Poor programming leads to long loads or several loads. Angel of Darkness is really annoying me right now where the Ghetto level needs to load in a new part every few alley ways. What's up with that? The game slows to a crawl because of it. The Smackdown vs Raw games were a long load fest where there were multiple loads in sucession before a match started.

[Adamant1]

[QUOTE=MoonMetropolis]The N64DD (Disc Drive) attachment was only sold on one website in Japan, making it abundantly clear that Nintendo WANTED it to fail.

[/QUOTE]

They knew it would not sell much, which is why they packaged it with an online service and subscription-based game deliverance and sold it directly themselves, online, rather than producing a ton of units and sending them all over the country.

It was really the only way to handle the system. It was mostly a "let's see if we can make back at least some of the money we lost on this thing" deal, and they'd just have lost mountains of money mass producing it and sending it out to be sold in stores, since the demand was so low.

[Julio III]

[QUOTE=MoonMetropolis]15 seconds?  Some games - particularly online ones - can take up to SIX MINUTES to load.  No, I kid you not.  Hell, try playing Duke Nukem Forever.  Load times of 45+ seconds every single time you die and every single time you start a new level.  It didn't happen with old games because they relied on cartridges instead of discs. In fact, Shigeru Miyamoto chose to have cartridges instead of discs for the N64 because he didn't like the load times on discs.  But, even with the cartridge format, at least one N64 game (the Neon Genesis Evangelion one) managed to have FMV.  A pretty impressive feat for a cartridge.  The N64DD (Disc Drive) attachment was only sold on one website in Japan, making it abundantly clear that Nintendo WANTED it to fail. [/QUOTE]

Duke Nukem Forever is ridiculous. I never got very far because when I died I got bored of waiting so started browsing the Internet and then forgot I was waiting for it to load. Did this quite a few times before giving up.