Ask PSLS is a feature that sources questions from our community of readers via Twitter, Facebook, the forums, and even your emails. If you have a question for the staff to answer, contact us at any of those channels and you could be featured on the next Ask PSLS, with the possibility of winning a prize for being chosen!
On last week’s Ask PSLS, we answered what we do when we don’t have enough time for all of our games. This week is a two piece question about how we deal with limited space given the mass amount of games that are out there. The first question was emailed in by Rob again as a follow up to last week, and is related to digital storage.
“I have a 500GB Hard-drive in my PS3 and PS4. My PS3 is so full that I must delete games in order just to download the free PS+ games each month. Do you have this problem? if so how do you handle the lack of space, when it seems foolish to invest in a new 1TB for a last gen system?”
The second question comes from Hugo in the forums and asks about how we store physical copies of games.
“How do you store your disc based games?”
For answers to these questions, the PSLS staff digs into their hard drives, closets, memory card, shelves, and storage boxes to tell you exactly how they are dealing with storing their games in all formats.
Alex Co (@excaliburps)
My PS4 harddisk will be full before the gen is up; this I’m sure of. Heck, Battlefield 4 alone and its patches and expansions take up what? Over 15GB! I’ve been buying more digital games now, which means I’m using more disk space compared to last-gen where I almost went with just discs. I’m still opting for Blu-rays, but the indie games do lure me in almost every time.
As for game cases, it’s strewn about all willy-nilly in my “gaming space.” Cases and such are there and basically, that’s it. I tend to not hoard too many games and try to sell off stuff that I know I won’t play anymore.
Cameron Teague
I store my games in their cases, tucked away in a corner of my entertainment center so that no one knows that I own games and then BAM, I surprise them with my very small collection. As for storage space, I have never once had this issue. I have a 500GB in my systems as well and the closest I have come to filling it up was 30GB free on my PS3. Almost every free PS+ game I have downloaded and then about a week or two later deleted because I realized I would never play it. I also very rarely buy any games off the store as PSN games rarely hold my interest and I prefer retail.
Chandler Wood (@FinchStrife)
I prefer to go physical when possible, and currently all of my physical games are piled up in their cases in a storage ottoman next to the couch, except for my Vita games, which are in my handy Vita case that holds 16 game cards in addition to my Vita. The three or four console games I am currently playing are put on or around the TV cabinet.
For digital, I have a 750 GB drive in my PS3, which has served me well thus far. I really ought to put a bigger drive in my PS4, as I have had to do some storage management recently. With even physical games requiring massive on-disk installs, that 500 GB fills up very quickly. I also got a nice big 32 GB card for my Vita, as I was constantly running out of space on my old 8 GB card. When I have to though, for any of my storage spaces, I play the spring cleaning game of getting rid of older games that I’ve gotten platinum on or games that I have to admit I’ll never play again.
D’yani Wood (@Dyani)
I like to hide my games from myself in various boxes in my house that I haven’t unpacked yet. I wish I could have some sort of new-age LED lit recessed glass wall of shelves to display all our games on, but who has time for that? For now, there’s a bunch in the storage ottoman by the couch, and the rest are waiting for me to stumble upon them in the future. It’s a good thing trophy lists exist, as that is currently how I remember what games I own so I can go back and play them again. As far as digital storage, I don’t mind shelling out money to get the largest hard drive I can have so I don’t have to worry about running out of room. We just haven’t gotten around to that yet.
Dan Oravasaari (@FoolsJoker)
I have been going full digital for some time now, so I have had this issue plenty of times — especially since PS+ launched. Normally, it isn’t too difficult to find an item to delete, but before I take any digital titles off of my PS3, I make sure to clean out the game install files for older games first, as they can really add up. After that, I normally chose the titles that I am less likely to play in a spur of the moment, so I try to leave titles that I would generally play with friends, since no one wants to wait for a download while hanging out.
As for storing my disc based content, I moved everything (games, movies, data) into a miniature stackable shelf that holds 4 sleeves. Then, as I need more space, I just buy a new shelf and stack it. It has really cut down on how much space I use, and keeps things together, the only problem is organizing which sleeve has what games.
Jason Dunning (@Jasonad21)
Since I’ve moved all-digital on PlayStation (aside from rentals), I actually don’t have a single physical PS4, PS3, or PlayStation Vita game to my name right now, so I don’t have to worry about space on that front.
With almost all of my games being digital now though, it means I have to get crafty with my 16GB Vita memory card, and just recently I had to delete WipEout 2048 and PlayStation All-Stars to make room for some of the new PS+ games (working my way through Limbo right now).
As for my PS4, the 500GB HDD is nearly full thanks to installs of older physical games I no longer own, so I’ll probably need to clean it up and get rid of Watch Dogs and Ground Zeroes to make room for Plants vs Zombies, Diablo 3, Destiny, Shadow of Mordor, DriveClub, Advanced Warfare, and a bunch of other big games coming out for the rest of the year.
Louis Edwards (@ftwrthtx)
I installed a 500GB hard drive in my launch PS3 a couple of months after it came out. That was more than enough space for several years, but eventually, thanks to PS+, it did fill up. I’m now in the same boat as [Rob]. I look through my games and delete the ones I know I won’t be playing again, but the PS3 is also used by everyone else around here and each person has their own games they like. As for the PS4, I don’t think a 1TB hard drive is enough. With each game taking up so much space, my hard drive was full within a couple of weeks. Deleting game data means I’ll have to re-install the game to play it again, and when I want to play a game, I don’t want to wait.
As for my collection of games and gaming paraphernalia, I keep most of it on the shelves of my entertainment center but older games get moved to a box when I need more space.
Paulmichael Contreras
Before my original PS3 died, I had upgraded it to 500 GB, and of course my PS4 has its stock 500 GB HDD. They both got full rather quickly thanks to PS+, a great problem to have! The easiest solution to free up space is to simply delete games I haven’t touched in a while, especially demos. I will likely upgrade my PS4’s hard drive this year, hopefully to 2 TB. As for how I store my disc-based games (I have at least a hundred by this point): Nothing fancy, just a temperature and climate-controlled walk-in safe, with dual time-lock biometric security and, naturally, 24/7 surveillance that auto-archives all footage to multiple offsite secure facilities. But the best part? Thanks to a series of creative legal loopholes, the entire thing is able to be written off on my taxes each and every year. Effectively, you the taxpayer foot the bill! Ok, fine, I just store them in a closet on an IKEA shelf…
Ryan
I’m the opposite of Cameron. I have a fairly big disc-based collection from the PSOne through the early PS3 era before retail games were available digitally. I have a rotating storage case that holds the majority of my PS3 collection, then I have my older games in storage in my garage. If I run out of room, older games go into the garage.
For the past couple years I have ONLY bought games digitally. My son and I both play a lot of games, and we play a lot of games together. With digital titles, we could both play together with only a single purchased copy of the game, since my PSN is registered to his PS3 as well. Sadly, this is a little harder to do on the PS4 with only being able to share on your account’s “Primary” console. I upgraded my current PS3 right off the bat to a 500GB HDD. Space hasn’t been a major problem there. If I need space I delete games I’ve either finished or don’t plan on playing for awhile. For my PS4 I went with a 2TB HDD. It sounds like a lot, but at 50GB a pop, that’s about 40 games. Not to mention the space used by the Share system, etc.
Zarmena Khan (@Zarmena)
My answer is very similar to Cam’s. I’ve actually never had an issue with storage space and have always wondered how people run into that problem. Maybe it’s because I don’t really download games. My PS3 is 250GB and my PS4 is 500GB. I have barely consumed a quarter of the space on each. As far as the question of how I store my disc-based games is concerned, well, I store them in their boxes. When I want to play something, I pop it into the console, sit through any mandatory installation, and that’s it. I get to playing..
What are your game storage solutions? Do you prefer physical or digital games? Remember to send us questions for Ask PSLS on Twitter, Facebook, the forums, and email. Be sure to check back next Wednesday to see what question the PSLS staff will be answering!
