“It would be great if people had to buy more of the thing,” says guy who makes money selling the thing.

  • KoboldCoterie@pawb.social
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    1 year ago

    This article is about consoles, not PCs. Good luck copying your console game to another folder on the HD.

    Even disk-based games on newer consoles often don’t include the full game; in many cases they’re just an installer, really, which then requires downloading the bulk of the files from the net.

    • Freeman@lemmy.pub
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      1 year ago

      I have backups of my games on a PS4, which is air gapped (because the USB interface took a shot of lighning and no longer works).

      I have been able to restore them and play games/saves on this console.

      Here: https://www.playstation.com/en-us/support/hardware/ps4-back-up-and-restore-with-external-storage/

      FTA:

      PS4 console data you can back up Backing up your data regularly is a great way to ensure that important data is saved. You can back up the following types of data saved to a USB drive.

      • Games and apps
      • Saved data
      • Screenshots and video clips
      • Settings

      All user data saved on your PS4 console (excluding trophies) is included in the backup data. When you restore your backup data, your PS4 console is reset, and all data saved on your console is erased. If you want to return data without restoring your console, use USB extended storage or cloud storage.

      • KoboldCoterie@pawb.social
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        1 year ago

        I tried copying game data when we were replacing our PS4 hard drive, but it just caused a lot of problems (with games having to “verify” the installation when launched, which was a very lengthy process, probably longer than just re-downloading it would have been; I don’t know what it was actually doing). We were able to preserve save data, though.

        • Freeman@lemmy.pub
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          1 year ago

          For me, this was because the PS4 uses USB 2.0 that caps out at 480 Mbps. It was basically doing checksums of the backup files vs the restored and it just took time, even when the backups I had it running on were a sata SSD.

    • TwilightVulpine@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      Funny enough that was already possible on the PS3, so it’s a matter of control rather than technological limitation. They use the excuse of “technological progress” to close the walled garden even more.

    • deetz@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      Even disk-based games on newer consoles often don’t include the full game

      That’s pretty rare despite being constantly mentioned in this thread. I can think of a few that are strictly multiplayer games or the Master Chief Collection which is just a huge net installer disc.

      Otherwise games still become gold and are playable start to finish off disc. Switch games on the other hand have quite a few that require a download.