Many prospective PlayStation 5 owners have been preoccupied with price, both for the console and the new console's launch games. $70 for a console game is a significant price increase, after all. But there's perhaps one other finite resource that needs to be considered looking at the PS5's launch. That being the PS5's storage size and the size of its games. That's all the more true now that the PS5's biggest two launch titles, Demon's Souls and Marvel's Spider-Man: Mile Morales, have had their file sizes revealed.
Needless to say, both PS5 games' file sizes are big. That's with comparison to the average PS4 game's file size and with regards to how much storage space the PS5 has. Demon's Souls, for instance, has a file size of 66 GB. Spider-Man: Miles Morales is somewhat less, at 50 GB. However, those planning to buy the Ultimate Launch Edition of Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales, which includes both the base game and the new Miles Morales game, will be using up 105 total GB. That's an absolutely massive amount of space.
For comparison's sake, the average PS4 game is around 40 GB, with most games between 30 and 50 GB. That's not to say there aren't massive PS4 games, though. Modern Warfare alone can be more than 175 GB. A better comparison might be Uncharted 4, which is 63 GB. But the important takeaway is that launch titles for PS5 are already as big or bigger than PS4 games. And there's a good chance they'll only get bigger over the coming years.
The reason why file sizes are becoming such a pressing issue is due to the introduction of the PS5 Digital Edition. This console doesn't have a disc drive, so games must be downloaded and stored on the PS5's SSD in their entirety. The PS5 Digital Edition features just 825 GB of storage on its internal SSD. That means it'll only hold around 12 or 13 games the size of Demon's Souls, or less than 10 games the size of the Ultimate Edition of Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales.
Sony has previously confirmed that the PS5 allows for expandable storage. Still, it takes away from the perceived savings of the lower-priced PS5 Digital Edition if buyers need to later purchase a hard drive. And that's saying nothing about how frustrating it'll be having to deal with storage management on the PS5.
Needless to say, PS5 gamers will have to continue paying attention to file sizes for the games they buy for the platform in the future. Many PS5 owners may never fill up the console's 825 GB SSD, or will be entirely comfortable deleting games as necessary to keep room available. It'll be interesting to see whether the PS5's SSD size becomes a more pressing issue in the months and years to come.
The PS5 releases November 12.