Ok, first off this article isnt about naming the actual features of GTA 4, Or naming the features that could have been in it. I often here people alot of times complaining about all the things that were in SA, but werent put into 4. While it also made me wonder quite a bit, I decided to do some research.
My conclusion actually came to the fact that it wasnt the developers of Take-Two at all that had limited the game with less features then SA. Rather, it was the consoles that pushed them to release the game as it was. Some people will see this as console bashing, or as a "fanboy". Id be the first one to tell anyone that both consoles have amazing processing power and ive always felt a PS3 was on par with an Xbox 360. So why did this go from GTA 4 features to me talking about consoles? heres why.
Xbox 360 Media: DVD9
Yes, this is exactly why I feel there wasnt more features in the game. Remember, while the final product of GTA 4 was still an awesome game, developers of Take-Two stated themselves that game are only going to get bigger, and that they are sure that MS will find a solution to this media problem. Remember also, that the game fit perfectly on a DVD9 disc with no room left on it. This ended up telling me the answer, and why GTA 5 as of now, will end up having the same graphics, and no more content. You see, these days, when a game is developered for multiplatform (360, PS3) the goal of now is to make the versions as identical as possible. Making games equal on both consoles, makes it to where everyones happy and theres no complaints. Also, its a good business move to where it shows no direct favortism towards any company (Microsoft, Sony). So they are limited to building a game of certain size (8.54gb). The final product then gets placed on both consoles with that bottleneck in mind. The only decent option for MS, is that the 360s CPU (xenon) is very good at decompressing data, but you can only throw so much at a processor before slowing it down.
Basically they added all the graphics and content they could, they compressed as much as possible without slowing down the 360, and placed the final content on both consoles. Heres a couple things ive heard so far on my "theory".
Q) GTA4 is the largest game out.
a): If it is the largest out, that only solidifies my theory even more, based on the fact that Metal Gear Solid 4 is over 30gb I believe. I myself can see why that might be the largest game, as most games are built multiplatform and of course wont utilize the potential of Blu-Ray.
Q) Its not a big deal, they can put it on 2 discs.
a) You can put content on 2 discs, but how will you utilize it? you cant stream from 2 cds at a time, and since not every 360 has a HDD, or most have a small HDD, developers arent relying on placing data on the 360s HDD. So the two options of streaming off either a HDD, or a disc, is pretty limited.
In the end, as I feel the 360/PS3 are very equal in terms of RAW power, it seems that the 360 unfortunatally placed a bottleneck on its console by including a DVD9 drive and small or no hard drives (bottleneck either applies to graphics, or content). This is just as bad on 360 users as it is PS3 users, as multiplatform games wont utilize Blu-Ray, but newer exclusives like MGS4 will be filled with graphics and content. Perhaps if graphics are at their limits for these consoles already, then none are better then each other in that department, and the only thing that exists is which console will have more content on their games. The part that might be unfortunate is if GTA 4 has filled DVD9 to its max, what happens when GTA 5 comes out? can we expect anything better? So far, it tells me that GTA 5 will be no larger then GTA 4, and have no better graphics.
This is a THEORY and opinion only. Id like to hear other peoples opinions on this and see what they think. Remember, this isnt a bais of consoles. As I said, both are pretty equal.. im stating a possible concern to many. Again, plz remember this is not set in stone. MS can fix this, I might have mistakes in my theory, anythings possible. I just really want to hear what you guys think. (I myself, am a computer technician. No ones perfect and iam subject to mistakes as much as anyone. In no way do I assume this article to be 100% and factual. Its intended as knowledge to be changed with other peoples knowledge in hand, thank you)
